Friday the 13th, Remembering
We usually have fun with Friday the 13th—why not? What other household is lucky enough to have FIVE BLACK CATS in residence at one time? And we couldn’t be lucky enough to have a great mom who can’t stop watching us and photographing us and petting us and sketching us and loving us, and lots of humans and other cats and other animals on the internet who love us too. Lucky, lucky, lucky! Black cats ARE lucky!
Well, not always. This Friday the 13th we remember the centuries of persecution, torture and killing that was perpetrated on black cats, just for being cats, and for being black, sometimes still perpetrated today. We know now—in fact, we even knew then but humans did it for their own cruel reasons—that black cats are just black cats, and they don’t carry any good or evil in their bodies or carry out any good or evil acts, they only possess the same love and will to live in peace in this world of any living being.
And because of that, we especially remember another wonderful, loved and cherished black animal. The Irish dog Lennox, beloved as a service animal to a little girl, happy, playful, loving and gentle, who never showed any violent or angry tendencies at all in his short life, suddenly and unexpectedly carried away from his home and put in inhumane confinement by other humans who had laws who said he was bad just because of the way he was made, his legs too long, his head too big for their comfort indicating that he was, in their definition, a “bully”. They never saw him again, they were not even permitted to say goodbye.
It’s hard to believe in this day and age, after two years of court battles, a dog kept by responsible owners, who did nothing wrong and was unjustly accused of being of a dangerous breed DESPITE DNA EVIDENCE TO THE CONTRARY, was killed despite worldwide efforts to save him. He was not euthanized, he was killed, just like all those black cats in all those centuries, and millions of other animals and millions of humans who someone defined as “BAD”.
Today, we black cats are Lennox. And we are all Lennox if we don’t fight the mentality that makes legislation that kills.
Celebrate Friday the 13th this way: love your black cats, love your big dogs, and love each other.
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Powerful post, Bernadette. Some officials in Ireland apparently checked their humanity and compassion at the door, and that is, as your post eloquently reminds us, something that we must always fight against. Otherwise, where does it stop?
Tammy, thanks. Yes, we not only have to fight these laws, we have to be aware that they are developing, and they have historically applied to people as well as animals. We just can’t be that way because there is no way to stop it once it starts.
Yes very well said! I’ve wept for Lennox as have so many :’-( Another Lennox has come to light in the last few days, also in the UK. Words fail!!
Carolyn, there are Lennox cases all over now because BSL is being pushed just like trapping and killing stray and feral cats. I think the BCC backed themselves into a corner with Lennox and wouldn’t back down for the sake of ego–they actually changed the law and Lennox wouldn’t have been taken at all under the new law, but they still would not let him go. We just have to keep fighting it.
Very well put!
~ “Mom” to 6 black kitties ~ Oh, and a mostly black Pom too! 🙂
Any black animal is subject to unfair treatment. Thanks!
So many posts about Lennox and each one brings me to tears. That human nature could do such a thing, based only on looks, is quite beyond my ability to comprehend.
Susan, I still can’t believe they killed him, even though in the meantime they’d changed the law.