Zoey: Christmas

Christmas was hard. While Matt and I busied ourselves preparing a holiday meal and unwrapped gifts on what was supposed to be a joyful holiday, the night was marred with sadness. We've adapted to celebrating together without our families by our side, but as we open gifts without an energetic kitty digging and playing through the wrapping paper, I could tell that this will probably be the last one with Zoey, the first one of our lasts with her. It's never until we approach these yearly milestones that it becomes apparent just how much things have changed.

Family Christmas shot modeling a few of our gifts.

Instead of bounding around the crunchiest paper and hiding in boxes, she slept quietly on the kitty bed I made her for Christmas last year. Adorning her neck was this year's gift, a sparkly new collar we gave to her a month ago, the day we bought it, because we weren't sure if she'd make it to Christmas Day.

The number of bad days is catching up with the good. We continue to try new kinds of cat food and the moment we think she likes something and buy a box of cans, it's the moment she refuses to eat any more of it. It is both frustrating and heartbreaking. I know she doesn't mean to be picky.

Cuddled up on the couch that night, under the glow of our Christmas tree lights, we discussed our upcoming trip. We planned to leave the next morning to visit my brother for a week, but after a string of really bad days, we decided that if we were comfortable enough leaving her home, it was only by the slimmest of margins. "Zoey is cramping our travel style," Matt joked. Back in February when this all began, we used to joke and say this, talking about how we had to modify or eliminate trips due to her needs and that she was forcing us to be homebodies. But that night, it struck a nerve. "It's not her fault she's dying," I said back and burst into tears. It's becoming too real to be funny anymore.

Our decision that night was for Matt to stay behind. His boss was more than willing to give him his midnight shifts back and we had booked his ticket with airline miles, so if there's one trip we could easily cancel at the last minute it was this one. I was sad to leave Matt behind, but since we were traveling to visit my brother, it didn't make sense for him to go instead of me.

So I boarded a plane to New Mexico early on Christmas morning. At first, I felt a little guilty about leaving them behind, but Zoey seemed to be improving and Matt was sleeping the days away on his overnight shifts and didn't have time to miss me anyways.

I loved all the one-on-one time with my brother, Chris. It was fun to get to know his girlfriend, Monica, better. How she puts up with all that sarcasm, I'll never know (bless you for taking him off our hands, hehe!). I even got some fun runs in with their two dogs, Tammy and Skittles. Add in the unique beauty of northern New Mexico winter, it was precisely the distraction I needed.