A sad week in the Howle house

  WARNING: This is not going to be a happy post.  There are some humorous tidbits, but on the whole, not happy. Just something that I feel might help purge some of my sadness.

  This has been a sad week for animals in our home.  I should start out by saying we used to have a menagerie.  1 dog, 2 cats, and 2 fish.  As of this morning, we are now down to a sometimes dog and a fish.

    Stardust and Moonshine came to us a few weeks after we got married.  I told Jason I needed  a baby to nurture. Not wanting a real baby at that point in our marriage, we adopted two precious kittens.  Of course, with the usual Howle timing, we found out we were expecting Emma about 2 months later. 

  A couple of months ago we made the rough decision  that it was time to find a new home for the cats.  Stardust had developed a bladder problem that led to puddles all over our house, and we didn’t really want to split the two apart, so we started looking.  We found a nice lady who could take one of them, so Stardust went and Moonshine stayed with us.

  Around the same time Sadie, our mutt, and Grady began to have a difference of opinion.  Grady thought she was a pull-up toy, and Sadie didn’t.  To avoid bad feelings on either side, Sadie lives with my parents for now and comes to visit occasionally.

  And for the fish…Emma won two Betas a few months ago, which she named Angelina and Taylor.  They did well for a couple of months, and then a few weeks ago, Taylor umm,  leapt out of the tank and swam down the drain to find her family.  Have you ever had a fish run away? 

Taylor 1

  She adopted a new fish – a female beta this time, and the new Taylor and Angelina lived happily on either side of glass for roughly 2 weeks.  Then Tuesday night,  Angelina suddenly um, miraculously, changed her color and looked totally different from the fish he used to look like (thanks to late night trip to Wal-Mart).   The next day the new Taylor died.  The newly light blue Angelina now  happily swims in the whole tank without the divider all by himself.

   This morning was the worst of it.  Emma wanted to go outside to “check on something” She wouldn’t tell Jason what it was, but he discovered it when he looked out her window.  Moonshine was laying very still in the grass.  Jason went to check and reported that forensic evidence suggests the Moonshine was bitten by a snake. I won’t go into other details.  I don’t know if he was lying to save my heart, but I chose to trust him on this one.

  As tough as this is on Emma, I am taking it a bit harder.  Moonshine was my buddy. Every night when I crawled in bed he hopped up next to me and laid against my tummy and purred while I pet and scratched him. He wouldn’t stay long – just long enough to let me know he loved me and then he curled up at my feet to sleep.

  So to all of our departed friends – Taylor 1&2, Angelina 1, and Moonshine  - we will miss you very much, but we will see you again on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge.  I know there are plenty of our other pets there to welcome you home.

Moonshine