A gorgeous day - why am I ready to cry?

Sunny and mild in Portland. After the big rains of the past couple of weeks, the trees, shrubs (and weeds) are bursting with vibrant, green Life.

We are off to New York late Saturday night, the first leg of a journey that will take us thru southern Spain and northern Africa. I should be starting to pack - I should be making final lists - I should be trying to figure out how to get Ben to a shoe-store in the next day or so.

Instead, I am on the verge of tears.

I took Maisie, our elderly, smart cat, to the vet this morning - she has been there a lot over the last couple of months. She is clearly declining - not eating much, not grooming her generally lush fur-coat, not doing much but sitting quietly and staring.

In April, the vet did some tests and found a curiously-elevated calcium level, but couldn't point to a specific cause. We got some appetite-stimulant pills, that we've struggled to get Maisie to swallow. They do seem to induce her to eat a little more, but she is obviously losing weight. Her backbone and pelvic bones protrude. She still purrs, and is happy to snuggle with us, but the change is obvious.

This morning, the vet felt an abdominal mass, that she hadn't felt before. I left Maisie to get an X-ray - we'll know in a couple of hours, if it's, as suspected, a cancer.

If so, we will probably put her down in the next day or so. The vet said that, with a sick, old pet, having the human be absent for two weeks is frequently enough to bring on the end.

Nobody should have to die feeling abandoned.

I came home, and, on this glorious summer morning, I went out to a rarely-visited corner of our yard, where the ivy and blackberries are encroaching on three other graves, and I cleared some space and dug a fresh one.

I am so sad.

UPDATE: 4:30 pm

Yes, Maisie is dying. We have to decide whether to put her to sleep before we leave town, or let the housesitter deal with her as best as she can, in hopes that the cat will live until we get back.

Karen is totally opposed to putting her down before we go, so that's going to be the decision, unless something happens in the next 48 hours.