This happened several weeks ago...
I currently have 5 cats (6 before Ginger was euthanized)... through my cat ownership I never really gave much in the way of thought as to what would happen should one of them pass away. I guess, I thought it wouldn’t terribly grieve me but I was wrong. It’s almost like losing a family member or someone you really love. The first two weeks, I was a mess. Random memories and flashbacks of special moments with my furry baby and how much he loved being in my arms or kneading me in the chest and falling asleep listening to my heart beat when I laid down to go to bed or how I smuggled him into hotels earlier in my life in my harsher years when didn’t have a place to live... He was originally a gift for my girlfriend who lived in Seattle but things didn’t work out between us and I kept him and his brother. He had a terrible cold when he was only a few months old and the animal shelter didn’t think he or his brother would make it. I took him and his brother in anyway and got them help and saved their lives. Ginger especially showed unceasing appreciation and love to me. I had a super soft spot for him too. He lived 10 years, and reached probably the pinnacle of my life. I particularly have been a lot more self absorbed in studying and my career and also the 5 other cats, including two of which are rescued ferals. The ferals took about a year to socialize to the point of allowing me to touch them and they weren’t friendly to my other cats so there was a lot less time he could spend with me...
...one night Ginger barged into my door wanting to spend time with me, he never did that before. I allowed him in anyway despite the feral and he slept with me that night while kneading into my chest and sleeping against my heart. A voice in my mind told me this as I held him, it said “make every effort to spend as much time with them as you possibly can for you never know when your last moments with them may be” ... I kind of shrugged it off, yea he was a 10 year old cat but I had been keeping up with his bloodwork, vaccinations, feed him pure raw food, thought I was doing good and he had some time left... The next night he did the same thing and this time I didn’t let him in because I was tired, didn’t want to keep him away from the feral cat, just wanted to sleep...
Well... the following morning I found him panting and panting like he couldn’t breath so I took him to the vet and the vet immediately escalated it to an emergency visit given his conditions. They took XRAYs and found fluid stuffed in the cavities of his lungs which prevented them from expanding when he tried to breath. They also found a tumor in his stomach and suspected cancer and also suspect it had already spread. They didn’t think he would survive treatment either. Shocked and perplexed as to how he could have had such severe symptoms without me knowing... ...they told me cats are very good at hiding pain. They heavily recommended euthanizing him. I went with it and asked if I could be with him... When I saw him on the ... it was like he was an entirely different cat. The symptoms had escalated so much he was struggling to breath, had fluids coming out of his nose, he was on oxygen and he was barely coherent... ...I pet him for awhile and he didn’t really seem receptive to it. I signed the papers... and held his cheek and told him I loved him .. repeatedly .. before I felt the medicine so it’s work... it was instant just one moment he was coughing and gagging and struggling and the next he fell limb into my hand..lifeless.. I never felt anything so cold and empty before than a living creature suddenly losing its life but especially that of my baby... it murdered me... I broke down in the veterinarian office. I managed to remain coherent enough to agree to cremation but everytime I took a look at that lifeless body realizing it would never be there again to rest in my arms or knead his paws on my or fall asleep listening to my heart it crushed me especially with how sudden and unexpected this happened... how could I have possibly missed that he had cancer this whole time? I didn’t even let him in that last night he and I had together. I won’t be seeing him climb his paws on the counter tops (he was a big cat) when I was fixing his bowl, or watch him come out of the cat tree when I come out of my room... he’s gone... I had him cremated but it is so hard looking at that urn knowing now he is nothing more than a pile of ashes.
I underestimated the pain I would feel should he leave... Every day that goes by it feels like it just happened yesterday.
This was my baby... I miss him to death and hope I will see him again.
https://youtu.be/IbI_Vrw0rbQ
https://youtu.be/wIo2BQqoRQI
https://youtu.be/S679pQIkmkI
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