Seeking Solace Options

[andrea_m]

Hello - I'm new here and so glad I found this site. I suppose I'm just looking for some shoulders to cry on. My beloved cat Friday died Monday morning, completely unexpected, and the pain I've felt since has at times been unbearable. I got up at 4 a.m. to feed my 3 month old. On my way to the kitchen in the dark, I saw a shadow laying on the rug. I turned on a light and saw that it was her laying there. I gave the baby to my husband who had gotten out of bed to go to the bathroom and saw that her paw was limp and she was making an occasional grunting noise. I thought she had maybe hurt her paw and was in pain, so I picked her up and carried her to her basket in the living room. I stayed up with her - my husband fed the baby and they went back to bed. After awhile, she seemed restless, so I sat down with her beside her basket. I live in a small rural area and there are no emergency clinics closer than an hour 15 mins. away, so I kept reassuring her that as soon as the vet opened, we would be there. I tried to comfort her but to no avail. She began meowing and became more restless, then she got up and started behind the TV. I motioned for her to return to the basket, and she did for a second but then started on her way back to the kitchen. She was panting and her pupils were very dilated, so I knew something was going terribly wrong. She hobbled because of her paw, and then she stumbled and her tail began to poof out. I slowly followed behind her. She was going to one of the kitchen chairs, where she had been sleeping her last 3 or 4 days. She tried to hop up on the chair but fell very hard on her side and lay there with her mouth wide open, panting, struggling for breath. I wanted to remain calm - I knew this would be best, but instead I panicked and ran to get my husband. By the time we got back to her, we saw her take her last breath and settle. I've been so upset since. I keep seeing this over and over in my head. She seemed just fine the day before except for some rapid weight loss that I was thinking about taking her to the vet for soon. She was almost 15, and I had been suspecting she had congestive heart failure (she had had a heart murmur for years), but I didn't know for sure. 2 months ago she was having some panting/heavy breathing spells that I took her to the vet for. He said he had been seeing this a lot lately and it was allergies. I gave her the medicine for it for awhile, and I didn't see her have anymore spells, so I assumed he was right. Now I feel that perhaps I was right, and I feel guilty that I didn't INSIST that her heart be checked. There's medicine for this - she might have had another year or 2 if only I had done more. Or maybe she sensed my worry and it upset her and overworked her heart. I don't know. I have no one to talk to about it. My mom and husband both think I should be over it, but how can I be?? She was my constant companion for nearly 15 years. She's all I've known since I graduated from high school. She was always there, and now she's not. I miss so much about her, and there are traces of her yet in the house - hairs, broken-off claws, paw prints on the furniture... How am I supposed to clean when this is all I have left of her physically?? I want to keep everything. I can see her grave under our dogwood tree out nearly every window of the rooms at the back of our house. How do you get through the pain?? The emptiness?? I have 3 other cats, but I don't have the bond with them that I had with her. We had 13 years alone together before the others came around. One is only a month old, and he reminds me so much of her when she was little, and is also black as she was, so sometimes out of the corner of my eye I catch myself thinking it's her. I've been having a hard time eating or sleeping - when I try to sleep, I think and remember. I dread trying to get through each day now. She was my precious baby.

[Ruth]

Oh Andrea, my heart goes out to you.

I can't really add much more to what has already been said so eloquently. Read the posts, no matter how it happened we ALL without fail go through these overpowering feelings of guilt. We all feel we didn't do enough and that if we could go back in time, we would have done something different. If you did go back in time, you'd still be the same person you were that day, you'd have no hindsight of what was about to come - none of us do. We do what we think is right at the time. We act in good faith and do what we think is best at that moment.

You were with Friday when she passed away. You were there with her to comfort her the best way you could. She wouldn't have asked any more of you.

You'll never know for sure whether she had congestive heart failure. You'll never know whether if you'd taken her to the vets she would have recovered for a little while. You'll never know whether she would have died at the vets, perhaps without you there beside him. When I read the page from gingerspal's book, I shed it tear. It's very true.

Here you will find people who understand you can't just 'get over it' like that. We understand how precious she was to you and how you can't devalue her life by comparing it to that of a human being.

It's the extent of the love that matters, not the species that we give our love to. Even an inanimate object can be loved - remember how you felt about your teddy bear when you were a child?

We can't change the past, only the future. Although I am still very raw myself right now, it's a wee bit better than it was and it will get better for you too.

Take care