Miso is asleep on my lap right now while I type this. She’s not gone. Kidney disease, stage 4, and the vet said “months, not years” in October, and it’s February now, so every month feels like I’m stealing something.

Here’s the part I can’t say to anyone in my real life: I’ve already started grieving her, and I feel like a monster for it. She’s RIGHT HERE and I’m already mourning her. I’ll be giving her the subcutaneous fluids — which she hates, which I hate, which we do anyway — and I’ll suddenly be crying about a future Tuesday where I don’t have to do this anymore, and then crying harder because part of me is tired and wants that Tuesday, and what kind of person wants that.

The vet called it anticipatory grief like it was a normal thing with a name. That helped for about a day.

She purrs exactly the same as she did when she was two. That’s the thing that gets me. Her body is failing and her purr never got sick.