Goodbye Dear Friend

On Saturday I had to say goodbye to one of my oldest and dearest friends, my 17-year-old kitty, Einstein. I always wanted a cat when I was little, but dad didn't like cats, so we had a dog, instead. I loved our dog, but I still wanted a cat. For my 12th birthday my parents surprised me with a pair of black and white kittens. I was about to start 7th grade, and was eagerly looking forward to my new math class, so I decided to name them Einstein and Algebra. Sadly, Algebra was only with us for a few short weeks (the dreaded feline distemper). But Einstein was perfectly healthy, and remained that way for the next 17 years.

Einstein was there for me through all of my biggest life changes. Starting junior high, becoming a teenager, moving 600 miles away from all of my friends and family. He was there when I started high school and at the foot of my bed throughout my parents' messy divorce. There through fights with friends, breakups with boyfriends, and all of the happy times, too. He wasn't able to stay with me in my first college apartment, but re-joined me when I moved into the second. I got married and had a baby and Einstein was there for all of it. And now he's not, and it's weird.

Not only is it weird, but I feel like the decision to let him go was the biggest and most difficult decision I've ever had to make. It was absolutely heart-wrenching, but I knew I was doing the best thing for him. When I got home from work on Friday he could barely walk, and he had gotten much much worse by Saturday morning. We lost our fair share of pets growing up, but I've never had to be the one to decide when it was time. The saddest part is Toddler Charlie, because he keeps asking where Einstein is. I've been able to redirect and distract so far, but that's not the right thing to do. I can't put it off forever. This is just another big bullet point on why growing up really sucks :(

During the day I keep expecting to see him sunning by the back door and running over to snatch up the tasty bits dropped from Charlie's chair. That night, we took Charlie to a baseball game that we had tickets for. It was a nice distraction to be in a crowd and among friends (and the mini bottle of wine that Alison brought for me didn't hurt, either!), but once I was back in the car driving home I was a total mess again. It seems like the dark makes it worse. It will obviously get easier over time, but right now it just totally sucks.

Poor Einstein. Best kitty I could ever ask for. He was very well-loved and I will always miss him.

(Photo by Steph Carson. How fortunate that she snapped this one a few weeks ago when we had our family session.)