Aria

Our eldest cat, Aria, died today.  Our best estimate is that she just reached her twentieth birthday - simply ancient for a cat.  She was the last of our first generation of animals - the generation we had before our girls were born.
Sheri found Aria - an abandoned kitten at Jackson State Community College in Jackson, TN.  The vet at the time estimated her age at about 9 weeks.  She was so tiny!  And she never really got very big.  She may have been the runt of her litter.  Aria was always a little different.  She liked to play fetch with rolled up pieces of paper.  She never liked to wrestle with the other cats - preferring to cuddle on someone's lap.  She was very shy around strangers - never coming out until the visitors had left.
During the last two years, her venerable age began catching up with her.  Her health declined steeply over the last couple of weeks.  And even more so during her last 48 hours.  So we made the difficult decision to put her down.
Aria left us full of wisdom and experience - having lived in 5 homes in three states.  But she will also leave a hole in this household.  She will be missed.