My Elderly Cat Died This Morning And, I feel I did some wrongs that hurted her Options

[joywarrior]

Hi, everyone who loves animals, My elderly cat Marmalade died early this morning in my house, and I was asleep during her last moments, and I slept thru her death. I had made a strong commitment to her to be with her during her dying and death, to be awake and holding her and giving her loving help. I feel that I failed her. I was awake during the night when she came to me and climbed up onto me in my bed, and I did stay awake to be with her for a short time, but then she moved down onto the floor and walked away from the bed, and I let myself go back to sleep, believing that she was ok enough for now, and was not going to die this soon yet. I believed she probably was going to live at least a few more days. Around two hours later, in early morning, I awoke from sleep, and thought of her, and called her name, and I quickly got up out of bed and began to weep, as if I sensed that she had died, yet I did not know yet, and I had not yet found her dead. I called her name again and hurried to look for her. I found her dead laying in her litter box, the pine cat litter. It looked like her heart simply failed and stopped. I never heard her cry out, and I do believe that I would have awakened if she had cried out. Please help me with this. Also, if I had known that she could die that soon, I would have given her much more loving attention and loving helps and deeds during her last day, and last days. I feel very bad about this, and she is dead now, and I cannot undo the wrongs that I did. I now know that I should have every day done for her as if she could die that same day or the next day. But I also was having very big hurts and too much other work and unfilled needs in my own like, and my body was sick and wounded and I had sleep deprivation, which all hindered my ability to give to her all of the loving care and work that she really needed me to give her. This is only a headline, an imperfectly spoken first step to begin to tell you the agony sorrow I am having now for love for my dearly loved cat Marmalade. She was 15 and a half years old, and I do know that she died of old age. I had her for three years. She was my sister's cat, my sister got her when she was a young kitten, and my sister died three years ago this April 29th. So I took in Marmalade after my sister died. My sister had smoked heavily and kept Marmalade inside her house all of the time, and my sister overfed Marmalade to the extent that Marmalade was morbidly obese overfed with her body like a ripe watermelon, at the time that my sister died. So maybe those factors caused Marmalade to died sooner than she otherwise would have. Plus, Marmalade is the kind of breed that has a very high fast metabolism, so that maybe shortened her life span too. She had been growing increasingly frail and needing more rich special food, for the past few months. I knew that she was going to die soon, but I felt that she probably was going to live a little longer yet, and then she died early this morning. Please help me. I did take her outdoors yesterday, but then I became very ill and brought her indoors sooner than I had planned, and so I did not take her out into the woods and into the earth enough, and now she died, and I cannot. There are many similar kinds of things like that, that I am feeling bad about. I am thankfull that I found this site. This is very good here, and many good persons who love animals, like me. I am having agony. Please help. I am bodily sick from this, and in grief for the hurts that she had, and that maybe I could have prevented some of them. Your friend, Maureen ...and yes, I do know that I am also grieving about my sister, too. I need help.

[Fiona and Stripe...]

Please, please don't blame yourself. My beloved Stripey cat died 4 weeks ago today after spending a week in hospital. She would have been 13 tomorrow and was diabetic. She developed ketoacidosis and unfortunately the vet couldn't stabilise her. She was peaceful and in no pain but I have spent a lot of the last month torturing myself that I should have noticed something earlier, that she would have felt I deserted her as she didnt see me for several days and that I didnt say goodbye to her or was with her when she died. I still have moments when I am overwhelmed with grief and pain as you will be. You were there - Marmalade knew you were there. Cats often seem to want to die in peace and alone and will take themselves off somewhere to do this, no matter how loved and adored they are. It was her time to go and she died peacefully after a good life - in a way we are the lucky ones as we did not have to make the traumatic decision of having a loved one put to sleep - with two other kittys aged 13 and 8 this is something I may well have to face at some point and I dread it but hope, like others, I will be strong enough to make the right decision. Grief is a hard emotion to bear - try not to make it harder on yourself by needlessly blaming yourself as well (I am much better at giving advice than I am at listening to my own!)

Be at peace.

Fiona
xx