Tonight when Sweetie got home she found Missy in desperate condition. I won't go into details but it was obvious Missy was very near death. We called the vet's office and took Missy in for evaluation but we all pretty much knew what had to happen. The choices were: extreme efforts to save her life, natural death at home, euthanasia. No good choices. Missy has been in poor health for some time and "heroic" measures pretty much equated to torture. A natural death promised to be lingering and hard. So we wound up asking Dr. G. to end Missy's life. Missy left us at about 6:30 tonight having lived nearly to the age of 18 (we thought she was a bit older but our records say otherwise). She had been with Sweetie and me through most of our marriage. Missy was a great cat.
PhotonStopper 
How sad for you and your wife. That is a nice photo of Missy.
I am SO very sorry to hear about Missy. You were very good to her and she was lucky to have such a devoted owner. I know how you must have felt because of my experience with Roscoe. He was 16 when we had to make that same hard decision. It is never easy. Thinking of you….. ~S