by Judith Hamilton

Created on: March 13, 2009

I understand anyones emotional hardship of dealing with the death of a cat. About a month ago my husband came home from work and mentioned that our cat, Marshmellow, was walking around in circles and that she would stop and lay down. She repeated this every few minutes. Since we live by a busy road we had a feeling that she had been hit by a car and probably had enough energy to make it to the side of our yard. They say cats have nine lives so I hoped that only one of them would be lost. Unfortunately after close monitoring of Marshmellow we decided that we needed to take her to the vet. There were no visible marks on her but her behavior was out of character for our cat.

We wrapped Marshmellow in a blanket and put her in a carrier and took her to the vet. While sitting there I talked to a young girl and her father who had a cat almost identical to ours, both our cats were a beautiful color of white with carmel colored markings. We shared stories about our cats and a shared love for them. Their cat seemed frail and they suspected an illness. The girl and her father were called in to the veterinarians office. After a short time they came back out, their cat was not with them and the girl seemed heart broken. I felt bad for them but also had a suspicion that our cat would share the same fate as their cat most likely had.

My husband and I were called into the doctors office. The vet gently took Marshmellow out of the carrier and after a few minutes of examination told us that Marshmellow had more than likely been hit by a car. He looked into her eyes and told us she was blind and her jaw had been dislocated. Even though we expected the dreaded news it was still difficult to hear. We also knew what the next suggestion would be, the advice was to put her down and we agreed that this would be the most humane thing that we could do for her. The doctor gave us as much time and we needed to say our goodbye's.

With heavy hearts my husband and I gently stroked Marshmellow, as we were both emotional by this time. After finding it difficult to let go of this wonderful pet that had given us many years of enjoyment we reluctantly put her back in her carrier. I carefully hugged her one last time and she turned around and I could feel her purring as if to give me a final goodbye and an understanding of what we were about to do was the right thing.

We loved Marshmellow and we knew that she would never follow us down the street or greet us in the morning while walking to the mailbox. My husband's nickname for her was Mellow because she was so layed back and I think that the situation was even harder for him knowing that he would never be able to call her again. We eventualy left the doctors office carrying with us the memories of our beautiful fluffy white cat, Marshmellow.

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