There is a specific kind of silence that hits you the moment you unlock your front door. It isn’t just a lack of noise. It’s a presence. Or rather, the lack of one. For years—maybe decades—your return home was an event. There was the thud of paws hitting the...
I want to tell you about Jasper. He was my soul cat—a big, marmalade orange tabby who lived to be nineteen. For the first fifteen years of his life, he was a force of nature. He could scale the refrigerator in a single bound. He would chase a laser pointer until he was panting. Then, somewhere around his sixteenth birthday, he changed.
There is a secret we aren't supposed to say out loud. We are told that a good mother loves all her children equally. We are told that a good owner loves every pet the same. And we do. We feed them, vet them, and cuddle them with equal devotion. But then... there is that one.
I still remember the sound of the vet’s voice. It was gentle, but it hit me like a physical blow. "Evelyn," he said, looking at the chart. "His kidneys are struggling because he’s chronically dehydrated."
Featured