My Cat.

I've just got an email from my mum saying they're probably going to have to put down my cat. Spooky's had diabetes for a few months now, and he's never really stabilized on the insulin. He just got thinner and thinner, and never really sleeps anymore, but just sits in his chair (or, oddly, in the bathtub) and stares.

I wasn't sad when I read the email. I mean, I've known this was coming for a while, and the rational part of me just filed this news away along with any other bit of family dynamics. But typing the reply made me cry. I've known Spooky for most of my life (fifteen years), I've grown up with him and clipped his nails and gotten scars from him and been comforted by him. Part of me, very unworthily, suspects my parents of not really trying to save Spooky. A very tiny, cynical part of me thinks that they're not comfortable with the sight of their cat all rickety and emaciated, and putting him down now means they don't have to find someone to board him when we go away for the Christmas holidays.

But that's unfair. Mum and Dad both hate needles, and yet they've been injecting Spooky with insulin twice a day for months now. They've taken him to the vets innumerable times, and most of all, they love him as much as I do. But I had to say the bad thoughts that were in my head, if only to get them out.

Oh God, I love my cat. I don't want him to die. But he was suffering when I saw him last, and I don't want him to suffer. But Oh God, this is hard.