Not sure who loved whom more.

Mac has been my big boy for 15 years.  He and his brother Sammy were with me when I was young, single and nearly broke as a reporter in Nashville. The 3 of us made to the move to a bigger job in Indianapolis. They were there after tough days of covering devastation and there when I couldnt get home for the holidays because I had to work. Sammy passed from cancer when I was first pregnant with Johnny.  Mac was never quite the same.  He spent weeks roaming our home and opening up various doors (he was talented like that) looking for his lost brother.  Then came Johnny and later Ali.  Those changes were stressful on him as my time with him changed too.  Mac has not been the best cat. He would occsionally opt out of the litter boxes. He would only drink running water from a faucet, preferred cooked chicken, tuna, or treats. And for the last several months at night,  he would howl, waking everyone up. The vet said he was perfectly healthy, physically. But at 15, he was anxious. So I had to give him a daily anti-psychotic.  Very quickly after that he dropped a ton of weight, stopped bathing and would just stare in to space. But you can't suddely stop those meds. So, back at the vet, I prayed to God that he make a decision clear about what could be done.  Nothing could be done. I will always wonder if it was the medication or the stress of having to take it that caused him to go in to renal failure. I was with him as he went on to be with his brother and other childhood pets. He has been a part of my history and so that has been difficult to handle as my history is all over the country with no true home, until now.  It's so strange how  little beings come in to our lives, we love them and end up doing whatever is needed for them and then we suffer the heartache when they go.  Yet, we somehow step up and do it all over again.  I am not there yet.  I still cannot manage to get his ashes from the vet, so John will have to do that. And the kids seemed to be fairly resilient about it at first. Answering their many questions was not fun, by any means.  But Ali has her moments too.  Out of nowhere it hits her.  Last week I found her in a bathroom crying because she doesn't know how to stop missing him and neither do I.