As I dug a two foot grave through the hard, wet muck in my backyard I realized a harsh truth that every pet ‘owner’ will face:

We will watch every animal we own die in our lifetimes.

The pragmatist that I was in my youth watched my roommate Taboo, a small black cat that was convinced that it was the size of a Mack truck, crippled by feline leukemia. I found his small skinny body hidden away in a closet. Being eighteen years old and fresh in the knowledge that I had no knowledge, I didn’t know what to do. After trying to revive him with my tears, I was taken to the animal hospital. The vet carried Taboo into the back to kill him, and I remember his fragile head turning to watch me as he was taken away, and a small whimper of a meow escaping his lips.

That was the same hospital that we took Storm today.

That vision haunts me every time one of my animals falls ill. That experience stacked upon other hard lessons of my life had me convinced that there was no logical point to having an animal if I would eventually watch them die. I think that is another thought that owners face. I admit that at this moment I see all of my animals as terminal, even those in the flush of their youth. I guess I’m trying to head heartbreak off at the pass. Want to know a secret?

That doesn’t work.

You can, I have taught myself, cut off contact to joy, happiness, love and understanding. The negative aspects of living, however, are more pervasive than radiation, and they will find their way into even the most secular life. Trying not to have your heart broken at the passing of a pet by not wanting pets anymore is like trying to keep from being hungry by not eating ever again. We all die. The up side is that we all also live.

Storm, the fearsome, had kicked cancer’s ass for over six years. As all things fall to entropy, so did her body. At age eight, she was all out of fight, and her body succumbed to the tenacious disease that killed so many heroes before her.

The Queen is dead, long live the Queen.

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