80 dollar needle

The only difference between a person with Cancer and Diabetes and a cat with Cancer and Diabetes is that they make diapers for people.
And also, people don't get up and pee in the corner of the living room.

My brother texts early in the afternoon that my mother is putting her cat to sleep; and also that everyone is mad at him for having high blood pressure.

Yeah. I relate. Everyone is mad at me for smoking.
And all the books I've read tell me not to listen to people who desire to make me feel worse than I already feel, and it is my role today to try to be in his corner.

It's a side effect of growing up in a war zone. I'd like to make him feel better, since I'm trying to be on his side, so I write that it translates into this: You eat junk food and wig out.
And I also comment that our mother seems to need to make every holiday traumatic and painful.

There is a cure for all of this.
And before the night is out, I am starving to the point of being nauseated, I've applied self-tanner to my face, my hair looks like a lion's mane and I'm looking at my mother sitting next to her cat on the couch thinking things I can't say out loud, like this:
" 80 dollar needle "
" Your time is up. "
"She's going to kill you."
"That cat is kind of cute even if she did hiss at me and bite me for her entire life."

The cat looks up at my mother as she speaks. And I say " You're her whole world. "

My mom starts crying. Fuck I always say the wrong thing!

My mother decides that she is not ready to say goodbye to the cat and I am relieved.