goodbye to Daisy

They have decided to send Jeff away to the Senior NCO Academy for six weeks from the beginning of October until the end of November. I have no idea who they is. Meaning, he will be gone for most of Oct and Nov, come home for most of December and then leave again for six months. What is up with all these sixes? Six weeks, six months, ...

I am actually not yet disturbed by the news. I am choosing not to think about it. I am not going to think about it at all until he is home next summer. Next year this time it will be nearly over. Jeff keeps watching me and waiting for me to fall apart, not going to happen.

Speaking of falling apart, we had to put the cat to sleep. It was very hard to know when the time was. We chose sooner rather than later. She wasn't on death's door quite yet. The thought of waiting for her to be miserable broke my heart. It seemed to us that she was not herself. We went to several vets and even saw the tumor in her mouth ourselves. It was also growing in her head and who knows how much that hurt. We tried some kitty chemo type pills and that had no effect. So we decided to let her go before she got even more miserable. She was spending all her time hiding and not really eating very much anymore.

It was quite an ordeal too. We picked a day. Jeff decided to be the one to take her there. We told the girls a few days before so they had a chance to say goodbye. There was a lot of cat holding and crying. Then when the morning came, we could not find the cat. She had chosen a different closet to hide in the back of. I had gotten a hat out of the entry way closet and I guess she snuck in there while I was looking for the hat. We looked and looked, the appointment time came and went. Later we heard her crying and found her in the closet.

The vet said we could call and make another appt when we found her so Jeff called and got a new time in the afternoon. Stupid me, as Mandy was about to leave the house for work I told her we got a new appt and she needed to say goodbye before she left for work. Even though she had been saying goodbye for days, and even got up to say goodbye that morning, she broke down. She was just inconsolable and was even late to work. It was awful, I felt so bad. I shouldn't have done that. Sometimes my brain doesn't work.

Jeff took the cat to the doctor and had to wait alone with Daisy in the room, waiting for the doctor for 5 or 10 minutes, that was hard. So the deed was done and we all had a hard time. Lily and I sometimes think we hear Daisy scratching at the door. Or we see her out of the corner of our eye. Lily talks about it a lot which drives Jeff crazy.

We miss our big fat cat.