Bye, Tash.

Today is a sad day in the Gressel house.

I had to have my old cat Tasha put to sleep yesterday morning. She wasn't doing very well lately, what with another kidney infection and all. Plus I don't think that the stress of moving did her any good. So when I went downstairs this morning and found her laying on the floor barely alive, I knew that her time was almost up.

Tasha was 16 years old – she would've been 17 in about two weeks. I got her as a kitten shortly after my dog died. She was a good friend, and she certainly lived all nine of her lives. She loved to be petted as much as humanly possible, and then some. "Pet me, pet me" was her cry. But she was also a good naptime buddy; the cat you could always count on to come curl up next to you while you slept.

She also loved to eat anything meat related, preferably turkey and/or tuna, and she could hear a carton of ice cream being opened from a mile away. She would sit and stare at me every morning while I had breakfast, hoping that I'd save her a little bit of whatever it was I happened to be eating. (She also enjoyed frozen waffles with Miss Katie for several years.) She developed a jones for canned cat food a few years ago, and the ritual dance she'd do for us while waiting for me to open the can would put Michael Jackson's best dance moves to shame.

Tasha didn't like to go outside – she had a bad experience with the inside of a car engine when she was young, but that didn't keep her from chirping at the birds from inside the house. She'd just sit on the back of the chair and stare at them through the window, hoping that one of them would find its way inside so that she could have some lunch. She usually stuck pretty close to The Lovely Mrs. G., and every night you knew you'd find Tasha curled up on her lap at some point.

We had a lot of good years with that nutty old cat. She was diabetic, which meant we had to give her insulin shots twice a day – or, as we called it, "Gotta shoot the cat". But she eventually got used to the needles, and usually stood still for her daily medication. The vet told us that the diabetes would shorten her lifespan, and that she'd only have 1 – 3 years left once we started the insulin. That was 7 years ago.

So now we're down to one cat – Uncle Jack. He's still a little freaked out from the move, but he is slowly calming down. I don't think I'll get another cat for a while – Mrs. G. would rather have a dog next, and I'll let Uncle Jack be a single boy for a while. (He and Tasha never did get along well anyway, despite living together for almost 13 years.) I don't want to rush into getting another pet just to replace Miss Tasha – partly because she truly was one of a kind.

I'm thankful for the time I had with Tasha. Not everyone gets to have the same pet for 17 years. She made me smile a lot, and I'm sure that she knew how much she was loved.