I came home for winter break and expected to be having all this fun and hanging out with my friends a lot. Sadly, that is not what happened at all. My break consisted of having an upper respiratory infection, working for most of it, and having to do something I never wanted to do: On December 30th, 2017 my family and I had to make the decision to put our oldest cat to sleep.

It was something I knew had to happen, but also something I never thought I’d have to do.

We got our cat Buddy when I was about two years old and at the time the veterinarian one year old yet, but after his recent visit, the new veterinarian said he is about 18 years old. My cat Buddy was this cute black haired American shorthair cat. He would walk around my development and my neighbors and I would leave food out for him. Then one day my parents decided that we could take him in, and we had him ever since.

How he acted toward us gave us signs that maybe he came from an abused home. Since the day we took him into our home he has been the kindest and best cat any family could ask for. Despite my neighbors leaving food out for him, they were never cat people. Let me just say Buddy was such an amazing cat that even non-cat lovers liked him. Buddy meant the whole world to me and I would have done anything for him, I did do anything for him. I did anything in my power to make sure he had the best and most comfortable life he could have. I grew up with that cat and he saw my family and I go through a lot of stuff.

We all would’ve done anything in our power to keep him as healthy and happy as we could.

Recently, Buddy had started breathing really weird and he kept wheezing. We took him to the veterinarian and he said he was fine that maybe it was just an infection, so we took him back home. After a couple of days of him not getting any better we took him back and the veterinarian wanted to keep him for a few days where he would be on antibiotics and fluid. He went in on Thursday and on that Friday my sister and I went to visit him. When we saw him he got right up to see us and his breathing was better. This was a sign of hope for us all and had us thinking he really was going to get better. Then we decided the next day the whole family was going to go see him.

When they brought him out to us his breathing worse and he was just so skinny, he had stopped eating. It was a hard day for us because, as a family, we decided it was Buddy’s time to go. This was not an easy decision to make but since we saw all how much he was suffering we knew what the right thing to do was. This pained me so much because I didn’t want to say goodbye to my best friend. That cat had helped me through so many things that happened in my life and I would've given my life so he could live longer.

Losing Buddy was one of the hardest things I had to do in my whole life, and it still hurts me.

It makes me sad knowing that I’ll never see him lying in my room, when I come home from school for break, or waiting for me to carry him downstairs to eat lunch. I’m never going to forget Buddy and my future cats will have high expectations to live up to. Hopefully this just goes to show a percent of how hard it is to lose a pet.