She was in so much pain. Blood from her rectum, she was drinking and drinking and not urinating at all, so we'd guessed her kidneys had shut down. She'd sleep and her breathing would get shallow, but she just wasn't letting go. It was like a friggin' tug-of-war between this world and the next and it wasn't fair on her at all. The vet said, repeatedly, that we did the right thing.

Because of the cat's bad state, the vet didn't even bother with the sedative. She didn't even flinch. She just sort of sat there and then drifted away. And the liquid was green.

We all held her and touched her as she left. Well, Helen and Scotty did. I grabbed hold of Scotty and sobbed into his shoulder like an idiot. I was bawling like I'd lost a human friend.