The Balance of the Animals is Out of Whack

I've freelanced for a long time. It can be hard, especially over the last 18 months. But as my friend Jennifer once pointed out, it also gives you the ability to focus your schedule around the important things. And today that was sitting with Mimi while we waited for MN Pets to arrive to put her to sleep.

I feel like I have talked a lot about Mimi over the past several weeks, after her diagnosis and as things got worse (and the vet bills mounted). About how she was a stray that was hanging out here, and one day she walked through the door when Patrick opened it and never left. How we named her after Amelia Island. She was our quiet cat who generally just hung out in our room, and every night when I went to bed the RAN over to be there with me.

It's been a hard few weeks as she felt worse and worse. The cancer/infection was getting worse, but she still wanted to be with us, and purr, and snuggle. It was last night when she could not do that anymore that I knew it was time, and luckily MN Pets could come today.

My friend Kelly recently went through almost exactly this same situation with his cat, Chamomile. He's a far better writer than I am, and so put it in better terms, but I've been thinking a lot today about how he wrote about his experience. He and Laura have lost many cats as well over the years, but Chamomile was *his* cat, the cat that chose him, in the way Mimi was *mine,* and that is a particular kind of loss.

We are no longer a 3 dog/3 cat household.