I wholeheartedly agree with this.  It is so deeply painful to lose
furkid, yet we must know, somewhere in the back of our minds, when we
adopt them that, chances are, some day, we will lose them.  Sometimes
we really *do* all that we can, and it *is* good enough, but there is
nothing further that we could have done because it is just time for
the cycle of life to end.  It *still* hurts, but it sometimes helps to
tuck away that thought in the back of the mind to help deal with the
pain later.

Ginger-lyn
December, 9 years after losing two cats in one month

I have lost, or had to put down, 7 or 8 cats in my lifetime.  There
was a period of 25 years when I was traveling on the job, and single,
and therefore could not easily keep a pet, but since 1977, there has
been at least one cat in my home.  First there was "Puff" a yellow
eyed white female DSH, who would cry with my wife when I was away, and
who would crawl under the covers at night but never get between my
wife & I - she loved both of us.  In 1986, on the last night of my
wife's life in this world (terminal CA) she could not be removed from
the bed, and so the Hospice Nurse, who also liked cats, just let her
stay there.  Puff developed CA of her own in 1989 and had to be put
down at age 12+.  In 1978 we had acquired Barney, a tom cat kitten
from my wife's parents farm.  He was also devoted to my wife, less so
to me, and Puff treated him as "her" kitten.  He passed on in 12/91,
aged almost 14.  Now I have Prissy & Crissy, two littermates, who will
soon be 13 (4/12/04), and my new wife (married almost 10 years now)
has "Pretty Boy", a full blooded Himalayan that we got at an animal
shelter for $35.   He is devoted to Karen, but disdains to accept me,
while the ladies are attached to me, and still spit at my wife, even
though it is almost 10 years since she "invaded their territory".

J. H. Sullivan, Florida

There are some of us who are such emotional saps that every time we read a
post re someone's loved cat headed for the RB tears roll down our faces even
though we never knew their cat and have no idea, usually, what it looked
like......explain that, except that we are emotional saps. Luckily, there is
no one around to witness this or question our sanity.

ibs)  -

I'm glad they helped. It was obvious how special Gibby was. That's to be
treasured.

Karen