A Death in the Family

Posting has been light since before Xmas and here's one of the reasons why. Long time readers of this blog know that I used to have a regular feature called Friday Cat Blogging, back when the cats were younger and still willing to pose for cute photos. A couple of weeks before Xmas the oldest cat, Lucy (that's her on the left), came down with some illness that she found impossible to shake, even after numerous trips to the vet; she had also developled some rare kind of feline diabetes. Finally, on Xmas Day, she was vocally in obvious distress, her temperature was dropping almost exponentially and we decided that it was finally time that she Walk the Green Mile. So we took her to the emergency animal clinic and she was put peacefully to "sleep", lying in my arms and trying to purr.

"It was just a cat", people might say. Well, she might have been a cat, but she wasn't "just" a cat. We had her in our lives for 14 years, since she was an eight-week kitten, and she provided a joy and happiness to us that was way beyond being "just a cat". I had a special bond with her that I hadn't had with any of the other animals with whom I've shared my life over the last 66 years, and she is dearly missed.

And now we are dealing with Dottie (on the right), our sole remaining pet, now an only child, who has been poking around the house to try to find where Lucy is hiding.

She will -- and we will -- eventually get over the loss, but right now there is a hole in our hearts where Lucy used to be.