Sad but tree

Right after Emily and I were married, we moved to KY to go to graduate school.  The first year, we lived in a tiny little apartment, not much bigger than our current living room.  We were given an opportunity our second year there to earn free rent in another place (which is a great story I will tell another time).  It was a great apartment and allowed us to collect more junk finally unpack all of our boxes.

For some foolish reason, we had a fish tank in that apartment and felt that it needed an algae eater.  There was a local pet store called Fishy Business…a great place to buy a fish, right?  So we walked in and decided to take a turn about the store.  There in the back, we found our kitten.  I do not like to buy pet store animals, but she had chosen us.  Emily and I looked at each other and decided to take her home.  She was Madeline…Maddie the Cattie.  She was a great kitten.  She sucked on her tail at night, not completely over being taken from her momma too young (I guess).  Imagine getting slapped in the face each night by a soaking wet cat tail. Anyhow, Maddie also played fetch as a kitten.  She was our first dependent and sort of the perfect thing for this newly married couple trying to figure out how married people are supposed to be (still working on that one!)

Fast forward 16 years.  Madeline has moved many times with us as we have changed homes.  She has endured other cats and two kids.  Madeline was old.  Plain and simple, she was old and time had finally started to show itself on the poor girl.  She became incontinent and we could not abide that change.  Madeline was put down on Friday among many tears and memories.  I guess it sounds silly but she has been a part of our family almost as long as we have been a family.  She gave us something to be responsible for and she provided many hours of therapy.

To honor those memories, we decided to bury her at our place in the country and we planted a pear tree over her remains.  The kids were pretty cool about it all and I think it was a good life lesson…for all of us