So yesterday was an extremely difficult day for me.  After 12 years of Companionship, 5 of those was battling kidney disease, we had to put my cat Charlie to sleep.  It was a long hard battle for him.  Every few months he would get a little sick and we would run through the usual checklist of things to help him get better.  Sadly this last week we reached the end of the checklist and it was not looking well.  

We knew this day was coming and unfortunately there is not much you can do to mentally prepare yourself for how hard of a decision that is.  In the end, we knew that he was uncomfortable, Charlie was good about letting us know that, and we wanted to do best for him.

We picked a good spot next to one of the oak trees in the back yard and Andrew dug out a very impressive hole.  I think it was his best way of coping with it.  Yesterday evening we laid him to rest and there is a large boulder on top of his site.  Charlie always wanted to be an outside cat and loved to climb trees.  

To help lighten the mood a little here are some fun facts about Charlie.

• He has outlasted 3 of my serious relationships
• He outlasted at least 3 cars we have owned
• Longer than 4 of my computers
• He has lived in 7 different places and 3 different states
• I have owned him longer than most of my friends have had children
• He would fight tooth and nail to get at Chicken Wings
• He loved to lay across shoulders, but only facing to the left
• Daddy’s lap was the best place to sit, regardless of what Daddy was doing
• The day I got rid of my CRT Monitor, he sat on my desk and pouted at me because he couldn’t lay across my LCD.
• When we picked out Charlie from the Denver Dumb Friends League, he was the loudest cat in the shelter.
• Charlie loved to have conversations with people.  If you talked to him, he would talk back.

And with this I present that last two photos of Charlie: