When Jeff and I first moved in together, we went to the local animal shelter to look at animals. I had no intention of adopting an animal that day, and there actually weren’t any that caught my eye. Jeff, however, fell in love with a scrawny, haggard looking cat named “Tweetie”, who wouldn’t shut up when we walked up to her cage. All the way home, all night long, all Jeff talked about was this cat. He was smitten with her. Even though I was adamantly against cats at the time, I made the decision to go back the next day while Jeff was working, and adopt Tweetie.

When Jeff got home from work that night, Tweetie and I were laying on couch – her sprawled out on my tummy. We’d been hanging out together for a few hours, hours that included a hellacious trip to PetSmart (her papers should’ve come with a warning – something along the lines of “Hey asshole! I don’t like to be held!”) and cuddling on the couch, and I was already in love with her.

We decided quickly that Tweetie was NOT a good name for her, and after mulling some names over, she was dubbed Roxy Aloha. A nod to Jeff’s love for surfing and Hawaiian culture, Roxy quickly became our baby. It was rough at first – she’s the pickest cat in the world, and it took us forever to figure out what kind of food she liked. After a couple of baths and some good meals, she fattened up and became our chunky monkey. It didn’t take her long to wiggle her way right into our hearts.

At her first check up with the vet, they informed us that she was 8 or 9 years old – an old girl, really. We weren’t worried, though. She got a clean bill of health that day, and we took her home and continued to allow her to wrap us around her little paw.

Those that don’t know should understand that our animals aren’t just our animals. They are members of our family, our kids, really, and we treat them as such. I’ve never understood people that could just give animals away, or dump them off somewhere.

We had Roxy for about three years when we decided to get a puppy. Roxy and Indy HATED each other at first, and I cried for two days, worried I was going to have to get rid of my new baby if Roxy didn’t come around. She eventually did, though, and the two became two peas in a pod, sleeping together, cleaning each other and playing together.

There were bumps along the way. About a year ago, Roxy developed a wierd looking mole over her left eye, which turned out to be a malignant tumor. We had it removed, and were told that the surgery was successful.

A couple of months ago, she started acting differently. While she no doubt loved me, she was always a Daddy’s girl, and usually slept curled up next to Jeff. She started sleeping on my pillow, though, and I thought it was odd. She started dropping a lot of weight, and our chunky monkey quickly became skin and bones. She wasn’t eating, she was having trouble jumping on the bed. Where she was once aggressive for attention, she became gentle, never overbearing like she usually was.

A week and half ago, I made the decision to take her into the vet to find out what was going on. She had started sleeping in odd places – in the closet, next to the litter box and in the hallway. I took her the vet on Friday, and they told me that she was extremely dehydrated. They kept her to run some blood tests and some fluids, and I took her home Friday night. She seemed to be a new cat – walking around the back yard, drinking water, eating a couple of treats. I was hopeful that whatever was wrong with her was easily treatable.

Saturday morning she was sleeping by the side of the bed, another odd place for her. I had a missed call on my phone from the vet with her test results, so I called back. I knew it was bad when the receiptionist told me that the doctor needed to call me back about a couple of things.

Jeff went to go find her, and a couple of minutes later he called to me.

He told me that Roxy couldn’t walk.

He brought her outside and I watched him try to get her to walk around the yard a little. She’d take a couple of steps and fall over, breaking my heart into a million little pieces each time it would happen.

While watching her, the doctor called back and told me the news. While all of the tests weren’t back, some were, and she was in complete kidney failure. As I listened to the vet tell me the news, Jeff picked her up and took her back into the bedroom to lay down with her. I asked the doctor what he would do. He said he would put her to sleep, that efforts to treat her would be futile.

The walk down the hallway to the bedroom was a long one. I laid down on the bed next to Jeff, Roxy sprawled across his tummy, just like that first day. Her nose was bleeding, her breathing labored. It was then that we made a difficult decision. That call back to the vet was the hardest one I’ve ever had to make.

Aloha in Hawaiian means “Hello”, “I Love You” and “Goodbye”. Last Saturday, Aloha came full circle. I miss my baby girl.