Tomorrow morning, my father and I are going to take our cat Pumpkin to the vet.
She is 20 years old now... and her body is starting to fail her pretty fast. I don't think she'll be able to hold on much longer. This is a older picture, but right now she looks so frail and just petting her almost knocks her over.
Pumpkin has been a part of my family for literally almost half my life. She was my mother's cat really, by Pumpkin's own choosing. She was abandoned on our farm as a tiny kitten in October of 1999 and mom found her crying under a tree. Mom took her over to the barn to live with other farm cats, but Pumpkin bounded behind mom, following her back to the house... and well, she's been family ever since.
Mom passed away in 2010, and you can believe me or not, but Pumpkin took it just as hard as the rest of us. Pumpkin's declining health has been difficult for my father and I too.
We love her, and don't want her to go... but we don't want her to suffer, and there's no improving her life now. She's had a pretty long life by cat standards. People keep telling us we've given her a good life, but I tend to think that she's given us a good life too.
😢