Gretchen

My cat is dying. I am embarrassingly agonized over this. She has been with me for a third of my life, the most important third. We think she is at least 17, probably older. In cat years, she is ancient. She is riddled with cancer and has arthritic knees so knobby they are painful to touch. She is on subcutaneous fluids and four different medications. She has been very sick for a long time, but until just a couple of months ago, she heroically refused to let the cancer take over her body.

She is and always has been cantankerous and crabby. She has an uncanny ability to put her full weight on the very center of your nip*le as she walks over you, (and she will every time) when you're just settling down with a book. She has been known to attack dogs and strangers, darting out from under beds and coffee tables to sink a fang into an unsuspecting ankle, or launching herself off a bookshelf to the head of a terrified canine.

Now she is quieter. She still likes to lie next to me, one possessive paw stretched out to just touch my cheek or shoulder, and she still lies in the window sill all day. And every morning she still wakes us up, after hobbling down the stairs, and scrambling up the side of the bed, a climb that is increasingly difficult for her, to let us know it's time to eat. But I know the time is soon that she will not be herself, and it will be time to let her go. It is just, so, so sad I can barely see the keyboard through my tears.

That is all I have to tell you today.