Katie

You know that they are getting older, yet you manage to deny it to yourself. You know they won't be around forever, but somehow you manage to pretend that that day will never come when they won't be there with you. They are our pets.

Katie is 13 years old. She's always been in good health. It's easy to deny that she is getting old. But here lately, more and more signs of age have been creeping in -- and not just the white around her muzzle. I call her, and she doesn't hear me. She walks out in front of a truck because she doesn't see it. She has stopped chasing cars -- the one vice I could never break her of. She's more content now to just lay around sleeping, though she will still go for my walks with me. I just have to leash her on the road now, because she can't hear or see the cars coming.

Today when I got home from work, she got confused as to which direction the door opened. She was behind the door, with her nose pressed against the crack between the door and the frame, waiting for me to open it so she could go out. She didn't know the door was already open. She didn't see me come in until I touched her.

My time with her is getting short. I know it, but I don't want to know it. Soon --sooner than I would have wished --I will have to make a decision about her. It may be this year. It may be next year. But it will come, and I'm dreading it already.

Hang in there, old girl. I'm not ready to let you go.

Not just yet.