Mortality

A boy and a girl met.  Fell in love...got married.  "Let's have a baby!"

It wasn't that easy.

And one time the boy held the girl, as she cried and they looked at yet another failed pregnancy test. The girl decided..."I need something to love and mother.  Today. Tonight."  So they went to a friend who had a litter of kittens.  They narrowed it down to two: the runt, and bigger, stronger, beautiful boy.  The girl said, "maybe we should get the runt because no one will want to take him.  "No, we'll take the big boy," said the boy.

It was the right decision.

He was beautiful, cuddly, strong, and too young, really, to leave his cat-mom.  So, he made the girl-mom his mom.

He slept on her shoulder, purred in her hair, licked her nose.  He gave her something to mother.

And mother she did.

For a long

long

long

time.

And the boy and the girl moved.  And they graduated from law school.  And they moved again.  And they got jobs.  And they remodeled their house. And all that time, they loved their cat...and took lots of pictures of him (apparently before they got a digital camera).

He was an accomplished cat:

   

   

He got a live-in girlfriend...

  

but he still loved his mama and papa the best.

  

Years passed and the girl finally got pregnant with a real-live human baby.  She was so excited.  But that baby died.  And the girl held her cat (her first baby) and cried into his fur.  And loved him some more.

  

And then the girl got pregnant again.  This time the baby lived.  And as the time drew close for the baby to arrive she worried..."What if I don't love this baby as much as my cat?"  Of course she did, and then some.  But she still loved the cat.  And he loved her...and the baby.

And boy and the girl again waited for another human baby.

For a long

long

time.

And finally the girl got pregnant again.  This time she didn't worry that she wouldn't love the baby as much as the cat.  She worried the next baby would be allergic to cats.  Thankfully the baby wasn't.  And the girl loved the new baby, and the cat.  And the cat loved her and the oldest baby, and the new baby too  (or at least resigned himself to the fact that this was how it was going to be).

Then one day, just as the new baby was beginning to move about proficiently, the old cat began to move

even

less.

...And he kind of limped.  And the girl thought, "He is just old, or...maybe he is dying.  But he can't be dying, he is only 11 years old.  Aren't cats supposed to live until they are like 20, or something?"

Well, he didn't.

He didn't even live through the weekend.

And when the boy and the girl and the older baby and the new baby came home from the beach, the boy held the girl, as she cried, and they looked at the freshly turned dirt in their strawberry patch where a kind neighbor had planted him.  

And the girl decided that she had loved and mothered. 

And even though it hurt, it was the right decision.  

We'll miss you, our big buddy boy,Weasel.