I've been crying all day. While I was at university I was able to keep it pretty much under control, but at home I'm just exhausted from sobbing so much. Doesn't help that I'm still trying to catch up on projects from when I was out sick last week. This will be an especially painful weekend. Now, I'm not a very poetic person, and rarely do I try to explain myself to people, but this is a very poignant issue to me. So if you read this, listen up, because this is a rare appearance of my person, and right now I feel like I don't want to ever move this off the front journal page here.



Today my wonderful cat, Crystal, had to be put to sleep from irreparable health difficulties.


She was a gift from my parents for my 7th birthday, rescued from an animal shelter as a kitten. She loved being around members of the family, a real people-cat. Beautiful solid black coat, except for two very small patched of brown-black tabby on the inside of her two front paws and for the white hairs when she got older. The very last few bones in her tail had been broken at some point and healed at awkward angles, which you could tell only by stroking the end of her tail.

After a few years she developed nasty sores and started hiding in dark, cool places around the house. She developed allergies to the food we were giving her, so we tried giving her a different brand. Then we tried giving her an expensive rabbit-and-peas hypoallergenic food from the vet which worked for a long time, until she got sick of that texture and vomited all the time. For the past couple years we made our own formula of rice and chicken, though like anyone she tried picking out as much of the chicken as she could. A few months ago she quit eating eat because there was very little flavor in it and disliked the texture. We switched to canned tuna, which made her coat super shiny (albeit oily), but this is strongly discouraged in the professional world. I was trying to get my mom to switch the formula back to rice and chicken, with a bit of the tuna flavoring that Crystal likes.

About the time we switched to the tuna, she started getting particularly thin. She's almost always been thin from her allergies, but this was different. Lately Crystal was also becoming noticeably lethargic: sleeping in someone's bed throughout the day even when we came home and checked on her. Eventually she always came out to sleep in someone's lap, usually mine, and complain for food. These last days she wasn't eating as much and was having coordination difficulties when she walked, but only my brother and I noticed her stumbling and pointed it out to Mom.

Yesterday was a long day of classes for me, and when I got home Crystal was sleeping in my bed again. I stayed up rather late writing/designing a paper, and she spent most of that time sleeping in my lap. At that point she still was able to jump up to where she wanted. When I went to bed I decided to keep her with me, and though she didn't stay under the covers she laid on top of me. Both of us were so tired that neither of us moved until about 5 a.m. when she wanted to cuddle with me again. It's been a while since she's slept with me at night, and since I knew she was feeling so miserable I was more than obliging. When I had to get up I left her under the covers, but she followed me to the bathroom and sat by the tub while I was putting on makeup and getting ready to leave for classes. I told Mom the previous night that she was looking so bad, so she agreed to take Crystal to the vet today.

This morning after a class I talked to my mom. She found that Crystal was unable to move on her own and had explained the situation to the vet, and they said it sounded terminal. When they got to examine her, they found Crystal had a bone marrow cancer, something like leukemia, and probably had a stroke. There was nothing to do. The vet gave Crystal the injection for the sleeping medication and she fell asleep in my mom's lap, but her heart stopped on its own before they gave her the lethal drug.


This cat was beyond amazing. She was there for me when I was sad and would cuddle with me when I was crying. She always insisted on being in my lap, especially when I'm busy working on something. She always purrs when her neck is rubbed and loves being petted. She knows me better than most of my friends do. She even shared my habits, for crying out loud; she was a lot like me. It will be so hard not having her here. It's so hard imagining the next days without her at all. It's so hard to say goodbye to someone when you know you'll never see them again. It's an unbelievable idea you can't really understand until you go through the same thing.

Crystal actually liked getting wet, because when she got sores on her skin the water made her feel better. She liked sitting on the when we were washing our hands and getting her tail wet. This week when she was in my lap she watched video clips of the Cats musical; she liked Mister Mistoffelees of course. She has good taste, but now I have to cry my eyes out every time I listen toMemory, which is all I really feel like listening to now. I noticed yesterday and today that a couple of the neighborhood cats have been near our house. Crystal always like watching them and "defending" our property from other cats, even though she always had to stay indoors. I guess cats have a psychic connection.

But we knew this was coming. We didn't want it to happen, but we knew it would. I haven't cried this much since my grandmother died in March. Pets really are important members of the family. Our last two dogs went the same way. Jake was the most amazing dog anyone could hope for, and Crystal was the greatest earthly gift I ever received. You may think I'm taking this way to hard and being stupid about a cat, and you're welcome to think that, but people who begrudge something dear to them for the sake of another's opinion are the idiots.


As hard as it is to say... Goodbye, Crystal. You're the most beautiful cat in the world, and I will always love you.