Summer Run Streak, Day #25 (In Memoriam)

A quick note from yesterday before today gets going.

Last night I went out for my mile, barefoot, and it had been raining. I felt OK minus a couple of lingering aches from the long run disaster on Sunday. Got home, and was met at the door by the older of our two cats (who is really my wife's cat, as we got him for her.) I couldn't figure out what he wanted, so I pet him for a bit and headed downstairs to sync my watch.

Plugged my watch in, and then heard a meow that shook me a bit. Looked over to find my cat on the ground next to me, unable to walk. My wife rushed with her to the veterinary ER, only to have them run a test and find feline leukemia, and a really grim prognosis. We had to have her put down. All the while I was at home watching the toddler. My wife and I were very torn up about this, as we've lived with this cat for the last decade. But I believe it was the right call, as had we treated it we would likely have just been buying time in small increments.

She was a really good pet. She was deaf, rescued from a hoarder house with some one-hundred and fifty other cats, she likely lost her hearing due to an infection that never was noticed or treated. A little, black, deaf cat we adopted her when she was six months old. She was super eccentric, but truly the happiest animal I've ever known. She was very close to my older daughter, who she started nuzzling from the time she was a baby, about seven months old. She'd sleep in the bed with us, or more often, come to visit and then sleep in my daughter's room (which I think she thought was just the cats' room.)

I'm dreading the conversation with the toddler a bit. I'll answer any questions she has, of course, and I'm going to be brief and honest in all of my answers. Death is a part of life, and a thing that we have to learn to work through. I understand all that. It just doesn't make things any easier. I'm honestly not sure what to expect from this, as my daughter is very, very smart, but cats are flighty so it isn't like we spent even 90% of our time with her. It may take her awhile to notice the cat is gone, and the idea that she wouldn't notice at all makes me sad. But I also don't want to hit her too hard with the information.

It's an area my wife and I will have to navigate together and very carefully.