MY CAT DIED LAST NIGHT

My husband called me last night to tell me he heard Harley crying and found him behind the couch.

There were many symptoms he described. What he wanted was the carrier to get him to the vet ASAP.

I left for work in Modesto early that morning and Hearly was his normal loving self, hanging out on my lap.

I did not have good feelings about this at ALL. The symptoms resembled the symptoms one of our other cats had a couple years ago. He died too from a brain tumor, we suspect.

My husband called from the vet’s office with the vet. She said Harley was having extremely abnormal neurological issues. She’d be willing to do diagnostics, but was NOT HOPEFUL it would be a better result.

My husand and I decided to not traumatize him further by subjecting him to a series of tests, when I already knew the end result would be the same. At this point, he had received pain meds and was on oxygen.

Intuitively I knew he would not physically survive no matter what the testing revealed. We may have only learned what was happening inside, but he was not going to live through it ultimately.

Harley was 8 years old. We don’t know exactly what took him. We can speculate forever and not really ever know.

What I know is my heart is breaking. One of my furbabies decided yesterday was a good day to die.
I want to know why. I want to understand why he only lived 8 years and left us.

I have another BIG GAPING hole in my chest that belonged to him.
The tears fall, I cannot talk about it and I don’t want to. Not yet.

I continue working here for the distraction it provides for the moment.
Tears are streaming down my face as I write these words. It feels important to share what it’s like.
My experience is that so many don’t express their grief. Many just keep forging forward planning to deal with it when it’s more convenient or comfortable.

IF I do that today, it totally comes out sideways and it is NOT pretty at all.

Here are some things that help when I am grieving:
~A hug
~Prayers
~Compassion and understanding
~sometimes no words are perfect

Here are the things that will send me over the edge while I am in this immediate space:
~It’s just an animal
~Asking me the questions I don’t have answers for, like how did he die?
~Telling me about your pet or some story to compare ( I realize it is a usually being said as a kind of understanding, it feels minimizing to my pain that is right here right now)
~Expecting me to be my usual self

Quite frankly, it just sucks right now. I know this is only the beginning of the process.
At this moment in time, PLEASE BE KIND AND UNDERSTANDING.

This is one of my fur babies.
I love him with my whole heart and now that place is empty of him and the love has no place to go.

Marti (Hicks) Forrest