Many years ago, my best friend Mandy told me, "Just wait til you have kids. When you do, pets are just pets." I thought she was full of it. She has never been a pushover for animals the way I am...for her, pets always have been pets, whether she had kids or didn't.

When Dan and I were first married, we very quickly acquired two dogs and two cats. We picked up the just-weaned Harold and Barney (cats) on our way to move into our new home. A few months later, Dan rescued Rhubarb (dog) from a date with the needle at the local pound. About a month after that, we acquired Brittany (dog) when friends of ours who were keeping her in their apartment without their landlords' knowledge got busted. So, pretty much as long as we've been married, these four pets have been our little "family."

It's fair to say that they all have been like kids to us, which I think is pretty common among animal lovers who don't have children. They all were well-behaved animals with nice temperaments who returned the affection we gave them. And they were certainly an outlet for the nurture and companionship that most humans feel the need for in their families.

By the time our first child was born, we had lost two of our "kids" (Rhubarb and Barney) and only two remained (Harold and Brittany). I can honestly say that my feelings about them did not change at all with Julia's arrival. They were still just as important to me, and I still saw it as a priority to take care of them. It's not that the pets are just as important as our child...it's just that the overwhelming importance of our child didn't seem to diminish the importance of our pets, or their role in our family.

Maybe this suggests that we were too emotionally attached to them. Or possibly it suggests that we had the pets in proper perspective all along. I don't know. I do know the attachment is strong, and it has been tremendously difficult for me to lose each one of them. It doesn't take long for most people to figure out that the cost of loving someone or something is that the relationship will eventually cause some kind of pain. It might be through difficulty and change, or death, or unforeseeable circumstance. But eventually, whoever or whatever you love is probably going to hurt you, whether it's intentional or not. I feel certain that whoever said "It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" was in the throes of grief.

Yesterday, we had the last of our "kids," Harold, put to sleep. It might be because the pain is so fresh, but it feels like this is the hardest one for me. There are reasons, though.

He was the only one who liked me more than my Dr. Doolittle husband. So he was kinda "mine."

Because he's the last of our pets, his absence is more palpable than the others' have been. I hear noises in the house when I'm alone and assume it's him...but it's not.

And there's lingering doubt and guilt about our decision, for me anyway. When Brittany's time came last year, it was very obvious. She was thirteen (well past a rottweiler's life expectancy), and one day she couldn't move her back legs or control her bowels or bladder, and couldn't eat or hold any food or liquid down. We had no doubt that the merciful thing to do was to give her a peaceful ending. Harold's case was not so obvious. He had a fast-growing tumor in his mouth that we discovered only a month ago. We and the vet knew it was a matter of weeks, not months, for his life expectancy. Palliative measures had offered him enough relief to have some good days, but he recently had a string of several bad days and was having great difficulty eating. Cats are so stoic--it's hard to tell if they're in pain, but I think he had to have been uncomfortable. If nothing else, he had to have felt bad just for being hungry all the time. I began to wonder whether it was best for him to keep waiting...wait for what? For something worse to happen to him? For him to feel so bad that he began acting out? It was clear that things were only going to get worse for him, and they were already bad enough to break my heart, so we again made the difficult choice to give him a peaceful ending.

I dunno, when I look at it like that, I suppose I really do think we did the best thing for him. I know we tried. It just doesn't make it hurt any less. I miss him so much.

This is the part where I'm supposed to remember that it's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. To be grateful for fifteen years with a kitty who will always be a part of my heart. To look confidently to a future when we'll welcome other pets into our family who will never replace the ones who have gone but will continue their legacy of companionship and affection.

But I think I'll just cry some more instead.