SNOWBALL DIED TODAY

I emptied my savings this morning and got Snowball the tests I was told Christmas Eve he needed.

He had, not one, but two fatal diseases: a feline form of AIDS and another disease which was just a string of letters to me when I heard it.

I was in South Cameron when the vet told me that thick yellow fluid was collecting around his lungs.  

With the two diseases hitting him at once, his body's systems were experiencing a major shutdown.

Poor Snowball would only have days no matter what treatment she gave him.

And those days would be filled with increasing agony,finally ending in him smothering to death.

I gave permission to end his misery.  

I cried on the way back to the blood center of course.  I am crying now in fact.

He purred the moment he spotted me and followed me around the apartment, rubbing my legs -- 

He loved laser-tag in the morning, and brushings in the evening.

and he was the only cat who would jump into my lap and lay there for hours, 

letting me pet him and scratch under his chin.

Another friend waiting for me beyond the Rainbow Bridge.