Minus One

Trey Smith

It happened as planned. The woman who had called a few days previous came yesterday to adopt Dylan the cat. Even though he wasn't in the friendliest of moods, the woman was not scared off. I loaded him into the cat carrier and carried him out to her car. And that was it. The woman and her husband drove off with "our" cat.

Della was a real trooper. She held it together until after we went out the door, but as soon as the door shut behind us, she burst into tears. Dylan had been her buddy for 13 years and, just like that, he was gone. As her tears flowed, she talked about the feeling of betrayal -- one that a teary-eyed me agreed with.

For the most part, parents don't give away their children when the kids become inconvenient or circumstances change. Children are keepers and you figure out a way to make each situation work. In our present circumstance, we both feel as if we handed one of our "kids" to a complete stranger. We really have no way of knowing if Dylan has found a new and loving home or if these two people were salivating at the thought of a free cat dinner!

It's probably not the latter, but who really knows these days?