I said goodbye to an old friend today.

This week has been rough, but today was a killer. I've got three cats. They are going on 16, 15, and 14 years old. As far as medical drama goes they've been pretty low maintenance. Other than routine shots and check ups and declawings and such, I've had one visit to the vet for a UTI. (Well, there was the emergency visit when a box full of nail polish fell out of my closet. Several bottles shattered and unfortunately one of the cats was positioned close enough that she collected quite a bit of the nail polish. Her back half was now blue, purple, yellow and white. As the vet looked at the cat he said....well, we've never dealt with this one before. She got a pretty choppy shave job. )

Many times in their little kitty lives I've told them that when the time comes they are going to have to take care of it on their own because I didn't think I could make the decision for them. Yoko didn't get the memo. For a while now I've felt things weren't quite right with her. She just been deteriorating slowly and I've been watching for quality of life, and for the most part I could still see "her" and didn't sense any pain. A few days ago I noticed she hadn't moved from a particular spot for hours. She was dazed, and her eyes were vacant. I won't go on about the specifics, but I just knew where things were headed. I prayed so many times for release from "the decision". I kept hoping to find she wouldn't wake up and would go peacefully in her sleep.

This probably is the part where I should talk about how wonderful she was and all her enjoyable qualities and how much happiness she brought to everyone's life, but I can't. She wasn't that cat. She was shy and antisocial. Most people who have been to my house have never seen her because she won't come out. My nephew thinks he saw her once in 6 years. She was scared of almost everything and freaked out if you wanted to pick her up. But she was mine, and when all the other distractions and things that scared her were gone and when it was just her and me we got each other. Eventually she tolerated being petted by me. She was happy to be on the bed but if I tried to pick her up she was outta there.

Oddly though in the past couple days while she's spent most of her time sleeping, the place she chose to sit was my bed. When I got in bed at night she curled up as close to me as she could. When we were in the vet's office today and she was scared she set herself right against me and let me rest both hands on her to comfort her. I've been thinking...dang it cat. Why'd you wait until now to decide to buddy up with me?

She was nearly 15. She had a good, long life, but having to choose to end it just takes something out of you. Yoko is survived in death by Kiki, whom she loved very much and Kizzy whom she loved not at all. But I can't blame her. Kizzy is a difficult cat to get a long with. In the picture below Kiki is the one who is sitting on her. She loved him. Kizzy is the one who was usually not invited to be part of the in group, hence the positioning on the other edge of the bed.

Goodbye little buddy. Thanks for a good, long run.