Goodbye, sweet Milo. You were loved.
My cat will be departing for the heavenly realm next Monday afternoon. I hate to write that. It feels wrong to have a death date marked for him. But my youngest is home from college for spring break this week, and he is the one who always loved our cat Milo the most. I could not bear to have Milo put down without him being here to say goodbye. It’s time, though—it’s time.
Milo is old. We got him when my daughter was just starting fifth grade. She’s 25 now. The shelter where we found Milo said he was four when we adopted him. Since then, our vet told us that she didn’t think he was quite that old. So let’s say he was maybe two or three in 2011. That makes him at least seventeen now, and possibly older. For a cat? That’s old.
Milo is unable to groom himself properly anymore, and every day he leaves a trail of wet kitty litter paw prints on my floors, so I have to dampen a rag and mop them up—after every litter box visit, it seems. He somehow managed to spread kitty litter sand all over the house. He has diarrhea, and did I mention that he doesn’t smell so good? He doesn’t ask to go outside anymore. He can’t jump up on the couch anymore. He spends most of his time drinking water, in his litter box, or sleeping on his pillow.
In an ideal world, in a world where I had all the work I needed, all the work I could do, we would call the fancy vet and have her come to the house and do a loving goodbye. Milo would cross the rainbow bridge in our home. In this world—the world where I am living now—we will put him into his carrier and drive to the nearest veterinary clinic where they will put him to sleep. Thankfully, the vet is a short drive down the freeway, but it will not be a pleasant trip for Milo. Milo does not do well in the car. He yowls and cries.
I am not happy about this. At all.
