Life is short.

We saw Tinks happily re-homed to her new owners on Tuesday evening and thought we'd done a good thing, the right thing, the thing we signed up for when we agreed to foster. She was bouncing with health and happiness and seemed to have grown not just in stature but in character and personality.
She took ill on the Wednesday, I don't know if the stress of the move triggered it or it was just bad timing. By Thursday she was gravely ill on a drip at the vets and sadly, oh so very sadly, on Friday morning she was put to sleep.
The total and utter shock was the awful thing. To lose an older or ailing cat is tragic and sorrowful and a huge sad painful loss, but it's more understandable, expected even.
Tinks was a kitten, a happy, healthy kitten.
Friday was awful. We had the visit from Lennie to tell us the news and she stayed here with us for several hours, all of us in and out of tears and so so thankful for the happy babbling and playing of George who is the most perfect help and distraction in situations like this.
I couldn't stop the terrible feelings of guilt, what if we had kept her ourselves? Would it still have happened? Did I send her to her death? - thankfully the PM results came through swiftly and told us that the indications were such that she had an inherent auto immune disease - something that could and would have killed her at any time.
We will never ever forget our beautiful, tiny, fluffy girl, our cat parrot.