The Three Frogs

I heard a great metaphor this morning and wanted to share it.  I also wanted to save it for myself so I don't forget.

Three frogs were climbing a pole.  Every day, a man who passed by the pole would say, "You're never going to make it.  It's too high."  Finally, one day, the man was making his regular pass-by and noticed one frog had made it to the top, while the other two were sitting at the bottom.  Amazed, the man wanted to know how he did it, so he asked.  When the frog didn't respond one of the frogs at the bottom replied, "He can't hear you.  He's deaf."

The moral of this story?  Don't listen to the people who are trying to bring you down.  If you try hard enough, you'll make it in whatever you task to do.

Our first loss as a family

It's been FOREVER since I posted, but I wanted this to go up.  I kind of think of this blog as my life diary.  Helps me remember things.  

This weekend, Bella (pronounced "Baya") died.  It was unexpected.  She was our first pet together as a couple.  We got her only a few short months after moving into our first apartment together.  She was our baby kitty and our family. 

Saturday afternoon I noticed Bella was breathing with her mouth open. I had a bad feeling so I called the vet.  They were closing in 10 minutes, so I decided to wait until Sunday to see how she was.  If she was bad we'd go to the emergency vet, if she was okay I'd take her to our regular vet Monday.  Sunday morning she was bad.  She was in respiratory distress. Travis rushed her to the emergency vet and they confirmed she was in critical condition and put her on oxygen.  The doctor had a few hypotheses.  Tumor?  Pneumonia?  We found out it would cost us a small fortune to find out what was wrong with her and even then it might be untreatable.  We opted to euthanize, but she was gone before we could follow through.  She was 11 years old in September.

Poor Travis.  He had to do it all on his own and I feel horrible about that.  I wish I could have been there for him.  I wish I could have been there for Bella.  But I didn't want to bring the kids to that.  I thought it would only stress out Bella more.  Travis was pretty distraught Sunday afternoon.  He tries to act tough, but he has a soft side.  Seeing a guy in distress makes it so much worse, doesn't it?

Even though Bella had her bi-polar moments, she was a good cat to us.  I walked passed her usual roosts last night and felt a pang of sadness.  She will be missed.