Galena Cat: Spring 1987-May 2010

[sepdet]

Goodbye, old girl.

I'll miss her. She was my cat once, on my bed every night in high school and summers in college. But she was so old: 23. Her quality of life was pretty low even this last Christmas when I visited, and she's gotten worse since. I haven't wanted to tell my Mom this, but I really felt that it was getting to the point where Galena was in too much pain and too miserable. She could barely get around from arthritis, she couldn't smell or hear anymore, and she couldn't groom herself. She was always a very proud cat. It's been years since she could hunt, and she was such a hunter (to our chagrin) when she was younger.

It was time.

And now I know why I've felt so horribly awful for the last 24 hours. Mom called me at dinner tonight.

And yes, for those who have not heard the story, we named Galena for a quartz-and-silver-ore composite rock that's very dense and heavy.