I Was A Dumb Kid

When I was six, we had this female cat 'who' just gave birth to three beautiful kittens. They were so beautiful.
But my brother said that the house had already had so many cats, we could not afford to have more. So he asked me to 'throw' away those kittens.

But I was a dumb kid. I told myself, "What will happen to these kittens if they were to live far away from this house without getting a proper meal to eat? They are so young.."

I thought of some 'clever' ways to prevent those 'kids' from suffering. "Life can be so cruel," I told myself. Finally I found a way.

I picked a wooden stick, I walked towards those innocent kittens, and I hit one of them as hardly as I could so that it could never live. It died, right in front of my eyes. Then I put my eyes on the other two. One was already running into the bushes behind my house, and I couldn't find it. The last one didn't run. It stayed.

I looked at it, and I purposely dropped the stick right onto its leg. The kitten screamed. I broke one of its legs. Then my friends saw me doing that terrible act, and I pretended that it was an accident. " I didn't mean to hurt it! It was done not on purpose!" I said.

Together we put the last remaining kitten in a coop. I entered my house, I confessed to my late father about what I had done. He said, "that is a very big sin, you should never do that again. It might become a curse (in Malay we say 'badi') in the future".

Since that very moment, I felt so guilty and stupid for doing such an idiotic inhumane cruelty. I tried to save the last kitten, but it died soon after the 'accident'. I tried to find the kitten that ran away, but it was a failure. I cried.

From that moment, I promised myself that I will always love cats no matter what. They will be my friends, and I will be theirs.

Until now, every time there's a cat coming into my house, crying for food, I will feed them. I always believe that among those cats that have been coming to my house, one of them could be the kitten that survived in the bushes.

Years have gone now, I still haven't forgiven myself for what I did. And I still tell my mother, "If there's a cat coming and asking for food, just give it some. Who knows, whatever we have now is a present for what we did to those cats?" Even cats know how to pray.

About the curse, it actually happened. After that bloody incident, I started to love cats so much that I would never live without them. At the same time, I started to feel the 'pain'. Whenever a cat was dying in front of me, or already dead, I would feel terrible. I felt like crying. It didn't hurt me physically, but somehow it 'hurt' my heart every time I see a dead cat. A terrible pain. Until now.

Believe me, that is one of my greatest regrets in my life, and I swear to God, if I ever got the chance to go back and change the past, I would first go to that 'bloody' moment and stop that dumb me.