Home-coming and Loss

I am home. I got home yesterday afternoon after a very long day on Friday and not sleeping at all the night before. My mom came and picked me up from the South Bend airport and we journeyed the 20 minutes it took to get home in a fairly cheerful mood, despite my lack of sleep. When we got home, I put my stuff down and decided that I would go visit my ailing cat, Marmaduke, who had taken up permanent residence in my parents' bathroom. When I got there, however, I turned out to be too late, and Marmaduke was gone.

My mom and I sat on her bed and cried for about half an hour. At first, I was hysterical because we must have just missed him. He was still warm and I thought he was breathing when we walked in. He looked so peaceful, just like he was sleeping. We both calmed down a bit and realized that he was 16 years old, had lived a long and happy life, and did not die in pain. His kidneys were starting to fail, which was leading to heart failure, but he never cried or acted like he was suffering, so unless he was putting on a good face for us and being a tough little kitty, he just drifted off to sleep, which is the best anyone could ask for.

I've been thinking a lot about this in the past day or so. At first, you think broadly about the premise of having pets, having little animal creatures that we domesticate and have run around our houses. Sure we have to feed them and take care of them, but isn't it weird that we want them at all? But then we realize that they have personalities and funny tendencies, and we get attached to them. So it's like we're signing up for no-strings-attached friendship, just to befriend someone that we don't even have to know but can count on them probably adoring us and loving us in our homes, and then we realize that you can't sign up for that. We love our furry, weird little creatures that run around our houses, even though it's strange that we have the desire to own them in the first place. Then the die at some point because another draw-back to the whole thing is that small animals live shorter lives than humans. It's probably better this way though because then what would the animals do without us? They'd be completely domesticated and unable to get on without humans. Would they just try to find another owner? Maybe. Half of pets are smarter than their owners anyway.

But anyway, then they die, and our hearts break, and we have to get used to walking in the house without hearing a room-filling meow right as you walk in the back door, or sitting on the couch eating cereal without a purring creature coming up and begging for milk, or getting ready for bed in the bathroom without our favorite furry monster jumping up on the counter craving attention and wanting to be pet, or the million other things he did that were so cute and we took for granted.

I'll miss you, Marmaduke. You were a good friend to us, and we'll always remember you.