I said goodbye to another dear friend today. It was harder than I can describe with words. Sandy the Bear was a great cat. I am the only one who ever knew it, but she was the most affectionate cat ever known. When I was alone, or when Annie was asleep, she would come out of hiding and talk to me. We would have lengthy conversations, where I would talk to her, and she would talk to me as if she understood exactly what was going on. She would crawl up to me and purr so loudly... I'd be reading or typing on the computer, and she'd crawl onto my chest and snuggle in under my chin. She didn't do it because she wanted anything. She did it because she liked the affection. She liked the contact.

Sandy had complete trust in me. It wasn't always like that. When she first came to live with my first wife and me, she liked my wife, but not me. The first month she was with us, my hand was continually scarred with evidence of her denial of me. She finally decided I was ok, and we'd been good friends ever since. No one knew how old she was, but we are fairly certain she was at least sixteen, and my dad thinks she was older than that. At any rate, I believe she was taken from her family too young, and she never got the hang of the cat box. Her whole life she has had trouble using the cat box. When I brought her to California, she did fairly well with the cat box, but when we moved to this house, she lost all interest. She ruined our original carpet, and April all but demanded that we get rid of it and get new stuff. We did, and shortly after April left, Sandy started finding new places to destroy the carpet. I've dealt with it for a long time, and noticed recently that she had found a new spot in Annie's room. I loved her, but I couldn't stand the urine stains and smell any more. For over a month, I've been thinking that maybe I should let her go. When I finally decided I could/should go through with it, it was even harder than I thought.

I sat on the living room floor this afternoon to work on a board layout review. She came out and sat next to me. She could tell I was busy, and was content to just lay next to me without getting in the way. Her purring practically drowned out the music sweeping the room from the stereo. Every now and then I'd reach down to pet her, and she'd talk to me. I rolled over to my back and held some documents up to the light, and she climbed on to my chest. I could feel the reverberation of her purr all the way through my body. I didn't know what I was going to do. She had complete trust in me, and I was about to betray it. As long as I held her, she knew she'd be ok, and here I was about to do the opposite.

Feeling like crap, I closed the computer a little after 4:00 and picked up Sandy. We got in the truck, and she found a spot near the passenger door to deal with the change in surroundings. Shortly after passing through Boulder Creek, she got up and came to me. She sprawled out on my legs, looked out the window for a little while, and then finally settled down. She was with me, and I would never let her come to harm, so it must be ok. She spoke little, but continued to tuck her head into my jacket for protection. I didn't think I could do it. Every time I had to slow down for traffic or signals, I thought about turning around. I'd talked about this with Annie a few days ago, and she immediately went to tears and looked at me like I was a monster for suggesting it.

In the parking lot of the vet clinic, I waited at least five minutes. Sandy looked at me with those trusting green eyes. It was all going to be alright, right? We walked inside, and the vet folks were very accomodating. When Sandy and I finally entered the care room, the vet asked me if I wanted to do blood work or anything to see if there was anything that could be done. I was torn apart. I didn't decide this on the spur of the moment. Her ideas did not agree with the evidence, and I didn't feel that anything could help her learn to use the cat box. Please, please don't make this harder on me. The cat that had just been in that room had bolted through an access window to get out of being treated for something, and when we finally got down to the injection, she had her assistant hold Sandy's head. I couldn't speak, or I would have told her that as long as I was there, Sandy wasn't going to react to anything. After all, she trusted me. Nothing bad could happen to her as long as I was there.

The needle went in to her leg, and I continued to scratch her chin and cheek like she has always liked. I wanted to stop it, but I didn't. Within moments, she was gone. The vet kindly asked me if I'd like a few minutes with her, and I nodded, unable to speak with the constriction of my throat. She indicated a door behind me that would allow me to leave when I was done without anyone seeing me. I pet her and asked her forgiveness. I closed her eyes to remove the look of fear, and wrapped her in the blanket on the table.

On the way to the truck, I saw an elderly woman going to the clinic with white hair, and a slightly hunched back.

Annie doesn't know.

I feel like shit.
Dr. Death...