Mitzi and Gypsy

Yesterday we had to make the decision to euthanize our cat, Mitzi. Well, she wasn't really ours, but she lived with us for almost 3 years. She belonged to a friend of my son, but that friend has now become part of our extended family.

Mitzi was a character. She greeted us each morning yelling loudly for someone to turn on the bath so she could have a drink. Yes, she was a princess! She continued that habit for a year, until one summer my daughter announced that while we were on holidays she refused the requests, and Mitzi learned to drink from a bowl.

She loved water. Whenever I had a bath she would sit on the edge and drink the soapy, warm water. After I had a shower, she would hop into the tub to lap up the last drops. Once, while filling the bath she got into the tub, and only once the bottom was completely full did she jump out.

She was an old cat, probably about 14 or 15 when she came to live with us. When I brought her home she hid her face behind the fridge, but within a few minutes she was sitting on the arm of my husband's chair. A place she frequented for the rest of her life. She loved that guy. And he loved her.

He retired a year after we got her, and, he shared yesterday, through tears, that she had kept him company all those days when I was at work. I can just imagine them together, sitting companionably, squawking at one another.

The house seems so empty this morning. No squawking cat. The last week was not easy for her, or us. Although yesterday she sat in the sun all day, and even leapt up onto the porch railing for a last sit in her favourite place.

The three of us took her to the vet at the close of the day. We all knew why, although there was always that glimmer of hope that the vet would tell us she could rally. Of course, he didn't. He was wonderful and compassionate and caring. Jenna had got him when she was nine. At twenty-six she wept as she held her for the last time and looked into her eyes as she went to sleep. And we all cried.

And then, we went for a glass of wine to toast the life that was Mitzi's.

When I got home, I learned my brother's cat of 19 years had died that same day. So two more hearts are broken. Two cats, five hearts, and still, I know, there will be love enough for us all to go through it again someday.

Someday.