Over a year, surprised the account still exists

Depression is a funny thing (funny weird, not funny haha).

It's been a truly crappy week. One of my good friend's (and Knight's) father passed away. He ran down to Florida to take care of his mother, and although it was mostly expected, it doesn't make the loss any easier. He's back home now, and looking for distractions to occupy his time until next weekend's memorial service at which point he fully expects to lose it completely.

In addition, and on a much smaller scale in the grand scheme of things, my wife and I made the decision to put our cat to sleep yesterday. This has been a long time coming. Earlier this year, the cat started having bowel problems. She couldn't control when or where she had a movement. We took her to the vet and we were told that she had an infestation of fleas and a tape worm. My wife gave our cat the necessary medicine and started bathing her weekly. This went on for several months. Then, after seemingly no improvement, we took her back to the vet the day before Pennsic. We weren't sure during this visit if we were going to put her down, or if there was something else we could do (although we were leaning towards putting her down). The vet told us, that the flea medication that we had used the first time wasn't the best for the job, and because the fleas weren't dealt with, there was still a tapeworm(s). This made us feel like we hadn't truly tried our best to fix the problem. So, we then bought several doses of Advantage flea control, and we were given another dose of medicine for the tapeworm. Well, it's been three more months. The cat (Mia was her name) continued to get worse. She lost more weight, and continued to have problems making messes all over the house. She wasn't able to keep herself clean and because of this, she smelled horrible. We couldn't trust her not to make a mess wherever she was, and frankly, it wasn't like we wanted to get close to her because of the smell. She ceased to be a pet about a month ago (if not longer). So, when I got paid this week, we decided that we could afford to properly put her down. We took her to the vet yesterday, and at about 2:00 pm she went to sleep one last time.

I wept like a little girl.

Mia was one of the first things we did when we moved into our house together. Less than two months after we moved in, I decided I wanted a pet. So, the week of thanksgiving in 1998, my wife and I went to the Humane Society and started looking at cats (I wanted a dog, but my wife had never had a pet, and cats are generally easier to care for), we found Mia. Actually, she found me. As we were looking through all the cages of cats, when I looked at Mia's cage, she threw herself at the front of the cage just wanting me to pet her and love her. My wife knew at that moment that it was over, the choice had been made, and there wasn't much she was going to do to change my mind.

It's funny because over the years, Mia became more her pet than mine. Mia had a little bell on her collar, and it was the constant noise of that bell and her movements that told us we were never alone in the house. I know it's corny, but it's how I felt. She had always been a part of our home, and now she's not, and that's taking some getting used to. As I walk, when I hear my keys jingle in my pocket, there's a part of my brain that wonders if it's Mia coming around the corner. Of course she's not, but that doesn't stop my brain from trying to figure out if she is.

In the exam room yesterday, I was "mostly" okay, right up until my wife told Mia that she should rest now, and then she told Mia to go find Brick, and play with him the way she used to. For those that don't know, Brick was my Rottweiler who we lost to bone cancer 7 years ago. Mia and Brick used to "play". We would throw a ball for Brick, and he would run across the living room to get it. On the return trip, Mia would reach her paw out from the stairway door and trip Brick as ran back to us. It was hysterical watching a 10 pound cat trip up a 135 pound dog. Well, when my wife conjured up that image, I truly lost it. My wife then explained that in her mind, both pets were still part of our family, and on some level, the family would all be together again someday. That's more spiritual than either of us normally gets, but it was a nice thought.

There are other things going on in my life right now, some good, some bad. I have a thesis topic. I don't know that I'll finish it. The SCA is neither good nor bad right now. Work is work. However, tonight, I really wanted to type up some memories of Mia. It's been over a year since I typed up one of these "sign posts", but I thought this deserved one.