My sister has an uncanny ability to keep things alive...this bodes well for her husband

When we were kids my older sister had a gerbil named Buttercup.

He lived a freakishly long time, like twice the life span of a normal gerbil.

I was there when he died. Along with my sister and a neighborhood friend.

I remember getting choked up at Buttercup's last moments and my sister looking at me with all the heartbreak a ten year old can muster and saying, "What are you crying for, you didn't love it?"

Truth be told I was crying because she was crying.

It took her twelve years to recover and get another pet. That or the asshat she was dating did something stupid and made it up to her by giving her a kitten.

At twenty-two a kitten works. At forty, it takes a trip to the Caribbean and lifetime supply of spicy Cheetos.

Since she never could settle on a name she just called it "Kitty" or "Pretty Kitty."

With that kind of creativity you'd expect her kids to be named boy 1 and the second one.

Kitty only liked fresh drinking water, so early on my sister started running the faucet for her. And just like a Brazilian bikini wax or horseback riding you got to be committed to that shit. Because as she got older, and less able to jump, she had to be lifted to the sink.

There were times when I would walk into my sister's house and random faucets would just be running.

As she got older, she lost her hearing. Only she didn't know she lost her hearing. So she told them she was hungry at 5:30 in the morning by progressively yowling.

I do the same thing to Kevin.

She lived eighteen years.

I talked to my sister the day she lost Pretty Kitty.

She got choked up telling me about it.

And then I got choked up.

And then I got quiet cause I didn't want her to know I was getting choked up.

And then she asked me if I was okay.

And then she started to encourage me cause I felt bad. That's what big sisters do.

I realize it is extremely hard to believe I'm not a counselor for trauma survivors.

I think the worst part of it is that my oldest nephew found her. I can visualize his ten year old sadness from losing the family pet. On the one hand he's old enough to understand life and death. On the other hand, he is just young enough to want to turn Old Yeller off two minutes before it ends.

I offered my older sister one of our cats to console her. The dumb one.

I know, it was really generous.

Kitty, aka Pretty Kitty, aka Katyana, aka the Russian Spy
1994-2012