I ran over a baby rabbit one summer afternoon. It was the first animal I had killed. I was only 16 and on my way back from my summer volunteer job working at a veteranarian’s office. I picked it up and laid it in the floorboard of my father’s new Monte Carlo I was driving. He sorta freaked when he saw me crying and snotting and then got more upset when he saw the bloody little bunnie in his new car. My brother buried the dead rabbit for me.
I’ve been a llicensed driver for nearly 34 years. The only other animals I have struck with a vehicle were a mommy cat, a deer, a dog and countless butterflies and insects. It didn’t kill the dog. I was driving about 5 mph in our neighborhood and he ran into my tire while chasing after my car. He was just stunned.
The deer, a doe actually, leapt into my path at about 4 a.m. one morning from total darkness. I stopped and the poor deer was thrashing on the side of the road. It was, and still is a horrific memory. The deer finally stood and ran.
To this day, I like to think the deer llived, but others have told me she probably didn’t. They tell me it was a surge of adrenaline that made her get up and run. The poor kitty ran into my path in the dead of night and I laid her body at the door of a business with a note. It hurts me to this day to think about that cat. When I picked up her still-warm lifeless body, it was obvious she had kittens. It breaks my heart to this day and it’s been 32 years.