From Comment To Post

Tom left this as a comment on my post from yesterday, Remembering Rags. It's so much better than mine. Just another reason to love Tom.

It was July of 1999. I was just out for some air because Tracy's family was driving me crazy. I was walking down the street minding my own beeswax and contemplating all the glorious ways I could torture her family when a simultaneous convergence of events occurred with me as the apex. I saw out of the corner of my eye something low to the ground dashing out into the street coming toward me. At the same time a car full of kids was coming down the street. They saw the thing, reved up and took aim. This was one of those times when everything happens too fast to process but somewhere in your brian there's this little secretary sorting everything out for you to see. My brain processed and informed me that the thing in the street was a kitten and it was just run over by the car full of cheering teenagers. My eyes go wide, my pressure spikes and now I've gone from mad to murderous. As the car continued down the street, I noticed the animal roll out from under it. Aparently they missed. They noticed this as well and threw it in reverse. Blind with rage, I began to run into the street but to my surprise, the cat bolted across the street, right up my leg and into my arms and let out a loud "MEE-YOU!" I turn and run back to Tracy's mother's house. After taking stock we discovered a flame point female siamese kitten. Now we already had two non-cat friendly cats. We just opened the chiro office so we adopted an office cat. Now what about a name? Remember the old cartoon Gay Puree? Off the cuff I named her Mewsette. Ths was the friendliest cat you could ever imagine. She always purred, cuddled and napped with me, Trace, any of the patients. She was a gem. We took her to the vet for a check up and a few tests. They said she was about six months old and we were thrilled that she was so young, we'd have her for along time. So we go to pick her up and they hit us with it - she has feline lukemia and has at best, six months. In January 2000 we were pretty slow in the office so we had time to take her to the vet for treatment. We were sitting in the main room of the office when I see Mewsie hobble out of a treatment room and collapse. We rushed over to her and she began howling in obvious discomfort. We rushed her to the vet who basically told us it was time. He said we could wait outside but we both wanted to be there. She was slipping away painfully. We held her as he gave her the shot. We were nose to nose and in two breaths she was gone. I had never seen that before, the light going out. I have her ashes on my nightstand. I kiss it goodnight every night.