Our family had to say goodbye to two family members this week; one was a relatively happy occasion, and the other was a sad one.
Five-sixths of the family travelled up to the U of R over the Labour Day long weekend to move our second youngest daughter, the writer, into residence to begin her university education.
As an artist as well as an avid reader and writer, she will be taking education, with an emphasis on the visual arts, so as to be an art teacher in a junior and/or senior high school. At least, at this point, that is her stated goal; it's entirely possible that over the course of the four-year degree program, she could alter that.
Both she and our youngest girl are amazing artists, and both had works selected to hang in the Cumberland Gallery at the Legislature as part of the Education Minister's exhibit of student art. I think Deb was inspired enough by the art teachers she had to consider this as her profession, teaching others about her love of art.
I had thought she might also be an English teacher, as she is a lover of reading and writing stories; perhaps that will develop as her education goes along.
Arriving at the residence building on the U of R campus, I was impressed that they had a small army of students volunteering to help move her stuff from our car up to her room up on the fifth floor. At a couple different times, as she went from one point to another, she had her entire family (minus the brother, who alas couldn't fit into the car) accompanying her as her "posse", which I trust was suitably embarrassing for her, as she is a particularly shy person.
We also were all with her at the grocery to help her stock up with food to start off her school year.
During her first week gone, however, we had the sad occasion to say goodbye to our oldest cat, Tigress. She's lasted longer than any other pet we've had, well over a decade, so I'm not sure what that translates to in "cat years".
After taking her to the vet, we determined there were two options: put her to sleep to ease her suffering, or bring her back home to die. Basically, Tigress was laboured in her breathing, and it was thought she either had cancer, or fluid on her lungs, or perhaps her thyroid had shut down, or it was a combination of these things.
She was our lady cat, who drank water by daintily dipping her paw in the water and licking it. It was difficult to say goodbye to her as she's been a member of the family for such a long time - but her time had come, and she had a good life.
