And then there were three...

This has been the year from hell, to put it mildly. I won't go into politics or other things not directly involved in my life, but 2017 has been one of the worst years of my life.

In case you haven't read the rest of this blog, my husband died suddenly in April 2017. This week I had to euthanize my cat, who I've had since she was a kitten. She was 17 years old (that's 85 in human terms), and it was just her time; her body was shutting down. When it got to the point where I thought she was beginning to suffer, I decided it was time to take her to the vet. I held her in my lap, stroking her gently as the vet administered the anesthesia, and she simply fell asleep for the last time.

I was pretty well prepared for this because she had been showing some signs of decline for about the last 6 months. She had lost a lot of weight, and just didn't seem to have the energy and strength she used to have. What I wasn't prepared for came a few days later. I had just woken up, with my two dogs nearby (one at my feet as always, one on the floor next to the bed), and I had the sudden realization that my family had gone from 5 members to 3 in the space of just a few months. For some reason that knowledge hit me hard and I sobbed for a good 20 minutes before I could get hold of myself.

Why did this thought bring so much pain with it? Part of it is that I can be fairly certain that my family will go from 3 members to 2 members to just me in a few years - the dogs are 8 and 7 years old; they aren't going to live forever. And they are so precious to me, both as "man's best friends" and as a direct connection to my husband. How will I deal with it when it's their times? I can get another dog, but not one that knew and loved him.

I know I'm not living in the present with this line of thinking, but I just can't help it sometimes. And of course there's my own mortality, which surprisingly I'm not too concerned about. If I were to die before the dogs, they would be well taken care of by a close friend who loves them and whom they absolutely adore.