In Memoriam

There were a number of comments yesterday from people wondering what the heck I was talking about when I told everyone to take a break.

Recently, Wednesday to be precise, we lost a companion that we had known for more than thirteen years.  When my wife and I first moved into our house we found it to be a large, lonely place.  In order to fill up some of the space we went to the SPCA and picked up a pair of cats, a brother and sister pair.  We named him Spike, because of his spiky hair and we named her Willow.

For thirteen years they were our companions.  Through three kids, hundreds of hair balls conveniently coughed up in the middle of the path to the bathroom, tainted cat food scandals (yes we found a few cans), Spike and Willow were there.  Recently Willow had been having some trouble with her hips.  Old age seemed to setting in quite quickly for her and the doctor recommended a special diet for her kidneys and glucosamine for her joints.  She seemed good, for her, for almost two years, but swiftly went down hill about 10 days ago.  A visit to the vet confirmed the worst:  kidney failure, liver disease, and a host of other problems were manifesting themselves at the same time.  When asked how many months she had, the vet told us "one week".

We made the most of the week with Willow and spent a lot of time petting her and keeping her company, much like she had kept us company for thirteen years.  We soon saw, however, that her time had come to let her go.  The whole family had a good cry on Tuesday night.  Wednesday, a friend of the family helped my wife with the final details and we all had another good cry that night.

I enjoy my work.  I enjoy the people the people I work with, even the ones I yell at a lot.  But I also enjoy other things.  My work does not define who I am, however, just what I do for a living.  Sometimes you need to take a break, step back from the work and look at everything around you.  If you've spent so much time working that you can't remember the last time you truly relaxed, take a break.  If you can't remember the last time you hugged someone or something close to you, take a break. 

Enjoy life.