I Know Why the Cat Van Is Here

This morning as I was having breakfast, I saw the house visiting vet's van in front of our building. I knew what this meant. My upstair neighbor's 19-year-old cat Moosh, whose mother died the previous year, has been ailing all summer. She has had a couple of rebounds, but August has not been a good month for her.

An hour later, my neighbor called me with the sad news that the vet had to "put her down." Not knowing about my father, she was very apologetic to be distraught about the death of an animal, but I told her that it did not diminish her loss.