So, I was going to write a lovely post about my four-and-a-half year old “Emmie” and her excitement at seeing the new queen of ice skating, Kim Yu-na, win the gold medal at the Olympics.  Emmie’s delight over Kim’s (or as Emmie calls her, “the Korea girl’s”) well deserved victory had me pondering a swirl of thoughts about identity and positive role models, culture and international adoption and watching your child find pieces of herself in places both expected and not.

But I’m not going to blog about that after all.

As you might be able to tell, my mind is a bit befuddled as I write this post.  The reason for that is not uncommon, but the fact that it happens to all pet-owners at various points in their lives doesn’t make it any easier to handle.  Here’s it is: I just picked up my sixteen-year-old cat from the vet after being told that she is very ill with a progressive, terminal disease.  I won’t know more about how much time she’s got left until later in the week, but the furry, black-and-white friend who’s been with me longer than my husband or my kids will not be with me much longer.

I know, she’s a cat.  And to most people, she’s not a very friendly one.  She’s never really gotten over the fact that I got married, is still somewhat stunned about the first kid and utterly stupefied about the second.  She’s learned to tolerate them—because she’s never had a choice—but she’d be happiest if the three of them all took off tomorrow and didn’t come back.  She has no use at all for anyone else; most people who visit my house don’t even realize I have a cat.  Charlie’s ideal world consists of her and me, which is how it was when I got her.

My kitty has been my pal through a lot of heartache.  She was there for the lonely times and she saw me through my own prolonged, serious illness.  She never complains about how messy I am or how off-key I sing in the shower.  Since the kids have showed up, she’s made it clear that she’s felt neglected, and I do feel badly about that.  But for all the jokes I make about cat puke in my shoes or having to kick her out of my office so I can write, the truth is that she’s been my friend for almost sixteen years and I am going to miss her.

Now I move into that veterinary dance of juggling medical treatments and pet quality-of-life issues, sizeable bills and our tightened budget.  A series of decisions is coming, none of them good, and I’m not looking forward to any of them.

And then there are the questions of what to tell the kids and when to tell them.  Charlie mostly ignores the kids, but she’s the only pet they’ve known and this will (in all likelihood) be their first experience with death.  As in almost all cases, I plan to be honest, but as we don’t have all the facts yet, I plan to dole out the information on this one in controlled doses.  There’s no point in upsetting them with the end result now when we know so little about the steps along the way.

I could conclude here with a characteristic statement about how this is all part of parenting, part of life, blah, blah, blah.  But I won’t.  It’s a sad day, and I’ll leave it at that.