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Attention: This post may be distressing to young readers, the faint of heart, the weak of stomach, or persons of otherwise delicate sensibilities. You have been warned.

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Fifty years ago, my grandfather Frank Byrd built two small houses in Suwanee, Georgia. They were located side by side, directly across the road from the Byrd family home — the house where Frank was born.

They were simple one-story houses, one-bath, two-bedroom, typical of the time and place.

He built the house on the left for his unmarried sister Becky, an OR nurse. The house on the right was for Frank and his new bride, my grandmother Leila.

Becky lived in her house from the 1950s until she died in the 1970s. Leila and Frank lived in theirs even longer.

After Frank died, Leila lived in the house alone. She seemed content and happy, which, now that I think about it, was Leila’s demeanor no matter the circumstances.

But time caught up with her. She slowly lost her eyesight to glaucoma, and simple tasks like cooking became risky. Eventually, she had to move in with Mom and Dad.

Before that happened, Leila did just fine on her own. My parents lived just a few miles away. My sister and my brothers were close by. So were my wife and kids and I. Leila had plenty of willing assistance and support.

One Saturday when I was at Mom and Dad’s house for a visit, Leila called and asked to speak to me.

“Rawcky,” she drawled, “I need your help. I’ve got a problem.”

“Sure, Lee-Lee,” I said. “What’s wrong?”

“I’ll tell you when you get here,” she said. “Please hurry.”

When I got to her house a few minutes later, she was waiting for me in the driveway, clutching a handkerchief. She was clearly distressed. I gave her a hug.

“Rocky, something crawled up under the house and died,” she told me. “It’s awful. I can’t go inside.”

“Why not?” I asked innocently.

She gave me a withering look. “The smell!” she barked. “The smell is all through the house!” I winced.

Her manner softened. “No telling what’s under there,” she said. “All my cats are accounted for. Maybe it’s a possum. Whatever it is, it’s been there long enough to get mighty ripe.”

She patted me on the shoulder. “Rocky, I know this is asking a lot, but I need you to find out what it is and get rid of it.”

Perhaps I had led a sheltered life, but I had little experience with dead things and decomposition.

Furthermore, we were standing upwind of the object of concern. So far, I had detected nothing ripe. Leila’s dread and distress were lost on me. The idea of something dead was off-putting, yes, but was it really such a big deal?

Moments later, I had the answer.

Leila’s house was built on a crawlspace. A person could get under the house and move around on all fours, if a person crouched low. I approached the small access door.

Leila handed me a flashlight, and handkerchief, and a flat-blade shovel. I opened the access door.

Instantly, the stench hit me, and I recoiled violently. “Augh! Augh!” I cried. I lept to my feet and backed away, panting.

“Lord, help,” said Leila. “That’s a bad one.”

In the movie Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, the character Alamosa Bill found himself forced into a shootout with Billy. He knew his goose was cooked.

Alamosa said, “I don’t suppose there’s another way we could work this out.” After a pause, he answered his own question: “Nah.”

“Well,” he said, resigned to his fate, “Let’s get to it.”

For me, standing beside the house with an awful task before me, there was nothing but to get to it.

I tied the handkerchief over my mouth and nose, dropped to all fours, and crawled through the doorway.

“Augh! Augh!” I exclaimed repeatedly. The experience was so wretched, I was unable to articulate a curse. All that came out was an anguished “Augh! Augh!”

Although it was mid-day, the crawlspace was dark. I directed the beam erratically, looking for I knew not what. “Augh! Augh!”

Mouth-breathing heavily, eyes wide as saucers, I began to sweep the beam systematically. “Augh! Augh!”

And then I saw it — a tell-tale orange lump to the right of a support pillar, about 10 feet from the entrance. I moved closer.

The lump was a large, deceased cat. Distressingly deceased. “Augh! Augh! Augh!”

With no particular plan, I slid the shovel under the unfortunate feline. Luckily, the shovel was large enough to function as a sled. I turned and began crawling back toward the access door, dragging the shovel behind me.

I re-emerged into the sunshine, panting and blinking. Leila stood watching from 20 feet away.

“Lord help,” she said as the shovel came into view, “That old tom was hanging around here last week. I wondered where he got to.”

I leapt to my feet and ripped off the handkerchief. I quickly put some distance between me and the cat and gratefully filled my lungs with fresh air.

“Lee-Lee,” I said, in a textbook example of stating the obvious, “That was the most awful experience of my life!”

Leila thanked me and praised me and told me what I good boy I was. She said she was grateful that I would take on so terrible a task for her. As if I had a choice.

After I regained my composure a bit, she instructed me to transport the cat to a ravine deep in the woods behind Becky’s house. It was the “garbage ditch” they had used prior to the advent of curbside pickup.

When I got back to the house, Leila was inside, spraying with a can of Lysol.

“I’m gonna need more of this,” she said.

“Well, then, let’s go get some,” I said, leaping at the opportunity to go somewhere else.

Later, when I got back to Mom and Dad’s house, Mom came out to meet me. Leila had called and filled her in.

I recounted to Mom the dreadful nature of the experience and the terrible emotional impact it had, leaving out the specific and graphic details.

“Look, Rocky,” she said, “For the rest of your life, you’ll probably never have a worse experience. Take a little comfort in that.”

Did I ever have a worse experience? No.

Did I take away a measure of comfort? Not the slightest.

After Leila went to live with Mom and Dad, she sold the old house. Suwanee continued to change from a sleepy country town to a high-priced Atlanta bedroom community.

Today, Frank and Leila Byrd’s house is gone. An office building stands there now.

I’m pleased to say that the owner had the class to name it the Byrd Building.

Leila and Frank’s house in 1961.