A Lifetime of Bad Decisions

Usually my bad decisions don't bother me that much because I am the only one who has to suffer from them. But when it affects the life of my kitten...

Moonbeam died. I took her in for surgery, basically to sew up the hernia in her diaphragm, and she didn't survive the night.

I didn't have to. No matter what the vet recommended, I could have held out. I should have taken more time to consider it. After all, she was still happy and active...she was playing, always hungry. The only difficulty was in breathing - she tended to get out of breath.

But...she was happy.

Fasting her for the night before the surgery was an ordeal. Moonbeam gets hungry like a newborn and grazes every two hours. I had to take away the food from the room and she cried and cried. My last memory of her are those cries.

She is afraid of Rose so she didn't cry with her. Only me. Because I was her Mummy. And you cry with your Mummy in a way you wouldn't with strangers.

Still...I didn't think...I knew the surgery was dangerous. I knew it. I just thought she would survive. I didn't even pray, can you imagine? I should have been at church, reciting endless Rosaries or novenas for her life.

Because it was precious.

Because I did love her.

Instead, today, they called me to say she hadn't even survived the night. They came in the morning to find her dead. That means, as critical as her condition was, there was nobody to watch her overnight and intervene.

I touched her cold, cold body, stroked her soft, soft fur.

She was my baby.

She was my kitten.

The one that everybody loved.

I could have held out and kept her close to me and fed her whenever she cried and maybe just treated her for worms (which would explain the appetite).

Instead, I took her hungry, to the vet, didn't even say goodbye properly, didn't take her into my arms and kiss her and hold her and tell her everything was going to be all right. I was so confident and callous about it.

And now she's gone, on her way to the crematorium to be reduced to ashes.

And I'll never hold her again.

As I've broken down several times, my friends tell me it's OK, I loved her, I did it for the best and not to blame myself for it.

But I do.

I can't help it.

Nothing will bring her back. She could have lived a little longer, she could have been happy. She could have still been here with me and she would have.

No more operations.

No more.