The day finally came when I had to have Suki put to sleep. Our Siamese cat had been sick a long time. She was 13 years old.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing can be done,\u201d the veterinarian told me. \u201cShe\u2019s too old.\u201d<\/p>\n
And so I took her to the animal hospital. It\u2019s for the best,<\/em> I reassured myself. She\u2019ll be out of her suffering.<\/em> I signed the necessary papers. When it was over, I climbed into my car, slammed the door, and began to cry.<\/p>\n The next day I called a close friend. \u201cI miss her,\u201d I said tearfully. \u201cIt\u2019s almost as though she were one of my children.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRemember the good feeling we get during the holidays, listening to Christmas carols?\u201d my friend asked gently. \u201cWell, when something upsets me, I just put on Christmas music. The old, familiar songs always help.\u201d<\/p>\n At first I thought her suggestion strange. Whoever heard of Christmas carols in July? Still, I decided to try it. As I sat listening to the words Silent night, holy night, all is calm<\/em> I felt the pain lessen. Slowly, a sense of quiet filled me.<\/p>\n \u201cSleep in heavenly peace, Suki,\u201d I prayed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The day finally came when I had to have Suki put to sleep. Our Siamese cat had been sick a long time. She was 13 years old. \u201cNothing can be done,\u201d the veterinarian told me. \u201cShe\u2019s too old.\u201d And so I took her to the animal hospital. It\u2019s for the best, I reassured myself. She\u2019ll […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":31007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[391],"tags":[56,75],"ppma_author":[645],"class_list":["post-24738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-prayers-for-strength","tag-loss","tag-pets"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n