Strange Days

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Despite us still being in lockdown here in the UK, I've been out more in the last week or so than I have since lockdown began. My first trip out was to attend my mother's funeral the Monday before last. Strange affair as the only people who attended were me, Adam, my sister Gillian, her partner Harry and my nephew (Gillian's son), Dominic. As Mum was 90 when she passed away there are no aunts or uncles left. I do have cousins but, as I'm the youngest of the 'children' at 60 years old and my sister is the next one up at 65, it wasn't right that my elderly cousins should attend in the current circumstances. Although it was strange, it was a fitting servicer. As there were only five of us in attendance we decided it could be embarrassing to have hymns, especially as everyone in my family is tone deaf! We decided to play Apple Blossom Time sung by Connie Francis as we followed Mum up the aisle as it was a song that both Mum and Dad loved. My sister and I sang along to it, not particularly tunefully I hasten to add, as we knew it word for word. Mum and Dad had attended ballroom dancing classes when we were young and they always used to practice the waltz to dear old Connie. A couple of days later we noticed that our little cat, Dusky, had a lump on the side of her head, just under her left ear. She's had problems with her ear since we took her from the RSPCA shelter but drops seemed to help. I telephoned the vet to see what he thought and he suggested we take her in for a check up the following day. We got there in good time for her appointment. We then had to sit in the car park outside the surgery, phone the surgery to let them know we'd arrived and then, when we saw a member of staff heading in our direction, stick Dusky in her basket in the middle of the car park so the staff member could carry her in. We then got a phone call while we were sitting in the car park from the vet. He said that he wasn't happy about the lump and wanted to knock her out so he could take a sample and send that away to a laboratory. So we took her to the vet the next morning and went through the 'phone vet, leave Dusky in car park, wait for vet to collect her' routine. We then returned home to await a call telling us we could pick her up. She returned home along with some anti inflammatory medicine which we have to put in her food. We received a call yesterday saying that the results of the tests were back and sadly she has cancer and there's nothing the vet can do to treat it. At the moment she seems fairly normal - plays a little, eats plenty and still drinks her water but all we can do now is keep giving her the medicine and then, when we feel the time is right ... when Dusky seems to be in pain ... then we'll have to have her put to sleep. She hasn't been with us long - around three years - but she's become a real member of the family. But until the inevitable happens we'll just keep loving her as we always have.