My parents had to euthanize our cat today.

I won’t go into unpleasant details, but it was time; at nearly 19 years old (that’s about 92 in cat years), she was miserable.

Honestly, I’m significantly more attached to our dog, Poco (who, at 13 years old, is still my baby!), than I was to the cat, but it’s still awful.

What really bothers me, I think, is that this cat had been a part of my life forever—literally.

She and a sister kitten were gifts to me when I was 3 or 4, and while the sister cat was hit and killed by a car when I was 9, “Patches” (hey, I was 3!) had been around our house ever since, one of the few permanent fixtures to last through the ’80s and ’90s.

It just makes me feel old.

My childhood pets are getting old and dying.

It makes me worry about my Poco, who’s starting to show her age.