Cat That Can't Eat Options

[connor]

My cat died two days ago and one of the most heartbreaking and confusing things was that he couldn't eat. I would give him some of his favourite foods and you could see that he wanted to eat it but as he approached it all he could do was sniff it. When I would eat something or go to the kitchen he would follow and look up, I knew he was hungry because I could hear his stomach but he just couldn't eat. When I started force feeding him with a syringe/tube he accepted for several days until the end when even that he just wouldn't swallow. The food just sat in his mouth until I put him down and he would just let it fall out. Does anyone know why this is? He was obviously hungry so why couldn't he eat?