Heartbroken.

Do you ever take photos on your digital camera and then forget about them?  And then days or weeks later you take your memory card and upload the pictures to your computer and you’re like “Wow, I forgot I took those photos.”?  Well, that happened to me today.  See, a week ago I had to take one of our 2-year-old cats to be put down.  I agonized over the decision for months. 

I’ve spent the last year taking this cat back and forth to 2 different vets to try to figure out why she’d been urinating in places that are NOT the litter boxes.  Weird places, like she jump up on our bed and pee on the quilt WITH ME UNDER IT.  Or if I went to Walmart and came home and left the plastic bag on the floor with groceries in it that needed put away, she would come in and pee on the bag.  Or bubble wrap that got dropped on the floor.  Or a piece of paper that had been knocked off my desk.  Or the poor dog’s bed. 

I talked to friends about it and researched the internet about it and I prayed to God about it, looking for some sort of sign that I was making the right decision.  It was hard for me.  And it was one of the hardest things that I’ve had to do so far in my 8 years of being a mother.  I wanted to be honest with my daughter so she could say goodbye to her kitty.  But it was hard because she wasn’t outwardly suffering in an obvious way, except that she never gained any weight and people were constantly asking “Don’t you guys feed that cat?” and even though she was born in our house and has lived here since she was born she never wanted us to pet her or pick her up or anything like that.  It was strange. 

Anyway, the day before I told my daughter and she asked me to take a picture (she’s the kid of a scrapbooker, you know), so I did.  It was heartwrenching.  And then when I saw it again after I downloaded it to my computer, it broke my heart all over again. 

Sometimes being a mother sucks, and this has been one of those times.  When your kid is sobbing and says to you, “Please don’t do this to me Momma,” it’s like the worst thing ever.  I’m having a really hard time with it, with letting go and knowing that I made the right decision.  There HAD to be something wrong with the cat even though the vets couldn’t find anything.  I’m having a hard time dealing with the guilt and getting the actual event out of my head (the actual experience at the vet was HORRIBLE).  I literally haven’t had a good night’s sleep since.  So right now I struggle and I hope that with time the guilt goes away and our hearts mend a little.  I don’t think I’ll print this photo, though.  It’s not a good reminder and there are plenty of other happy photos taken with the cat. 

What a week………….