Ivy Tied Up |

My MIL Called a few minutes ago. At this point I have a hard time being ugly to her because she had to have her baby put to sleep. Her and my FIL had to have their dog that they’ve had forever it seems put to sleep today. She had a tumor on her hip. They had noticed that lizzy had been walking weird for a while now. And finally decided to take her in. This was their baby in every sense of the word. She was their world. They bought her gifts for holidays ect. She even had her own recliner in their house. She was THE baby. So her death hits them hard.

My Fil will sulk for a long while. We knew this would be hard on him if anything ever happened to her. And of course I will have to explain this to my kids. Its one thing when a bug outside gets squished and is dead but its another when it is a beloved family animal. Which takes me back to why I do not have any animals other than my fish.

I had a cat growing up. My parents got her when I was born. My aunt gave her to my mom as a present when I was brought home from the hospital(yes lovely timing huh). The cat and I grew up together and she was my “baby”. There are stories from when I was a child of if I was sick or coughed in the middle of the night the cat would go get in my moms face and wake her up and force her to go to my room and check on me. I will never forget the time I had done something wrong and my mom went to spank me, only to result in my cat attacking her and clawing the hell out of her legs until she gave up spanking me. That was the last spanking I received.

That cat and I had been through hell together. She got out one time. We lived infront of a lake. She went straight up a tree infront of the lake. We called everyone we could and no one could help us. the fire debt didnt have a long enough ladder. Well after a week and half she fell out of that tree. And needed surgery to survive. My parents loving me like they did took out a loan to get my cat the surgery she needed. And she survived and we did well. Until I was 14. She developed cancer and we had to ahve her put to sleep..

That was when I really learned what death was about. I lost the one thing that meant the world to me. Since then I havent had an animal that I really care about and probably never will. I have built up this gaurd that protects me from falling in love with a pet because sooner or later it will die. And even though it is just a pet. Pet lovers out there will tell you that no matter how hard you try. YOu can not replace a pet that you have lost. You can buy replacements but you wont ever replace the one lost.

So Even though I cant stand my inlaws I still feel for them at this time. Because I do understand what it is they are feeling at this point. My mil swears she will never get another dog to replace Lizzy. I’m not sure they could replace her if they tried.
So now to figure out what to tell my kiddos…