Mourning the Death of a Pet

Recently, my cat of 17 years, “The Fat Man,” passed away. It was such a hard experience, and I decided I wanted to share my story if it helps anyone out there going through mourning the death of a pet.

The Fat Man

Source: E. Loberg

Over the past few months, I was treating him for pancreatitis. He seemed to be responding to the medication well, and was pleased with his health. Then a couple of weeks ago, I noticed he was losing weight. He wasn’t eating his dry food anymore, so I switched him to gourmet-canned food, which helped. He wasn’t going to the bathroom on a consistent basis either, and was moving at a slow pace. Then last week he started breathing hard so I took him in and the vet discovered he had fluid in his lung, which she removed. A few more days went by and the fluid returned, which she removed again.

Then it got really hard and confusing because the vet said to prepare for him to be put down, but wasn’t sure exactly when that would have to be done.

So here I am wondering if he is suffering to some degree and wary about putting him on yet another medication to alleviate any pain.

Then I start to wonder if I was being selfish keeping him alive knowing his body was breaking down, and adding more medication didn’t seem fair.

Then Wednesday I brought him in to the vet again and they discovered issues with his colon among other ailments, and I thought to myself, am I going to keep running him back and forth to the vet (which he hates) only to discover more problems that might not have any permanent solution?

After conferring with the vet, I made the choice to put him down. I thought about the moment I was getting ready to take him in and he stood in the kitchen and stared at me. It was almost as if he was saying, “I’m ready to go, Mom.” He never really looked at me like that before, and I started to wonder if he was telling me he was ready to go because he can’t take care of me anymore. We’ve shared our lives together for 17 years, and as much as I took care of him, he took care of me and wondered if he was holding on for my sake.

After putting him down I walked home and felt like a weight was lifted. I was exhausted with going back and forth on the decision to put him to rest, and felt guilty for feeling a sense of relief.

When I got home, my place felt empty and I immediately threw out his litter box and his staircase to the bed. I put a Post-it by the elevators stating I was giving away cat food and left my number. I got a call a few hours later and ended up donating all his food and the rest of his litter to a neighbor that I didn’t even know.

Now, here’s the part of the story that is really important to know. As I continued to ruminate over my decision and sat at my desk crying, I thought, what would he want me to think? How would he want me to continue on? I took out a pen and paper and wrote a poem from him that read the following:

Poem: The Fat Man Speaks

Stop dwelling

Positive memories

No nonsense

Love me like you always have...

I may be gone

but I lasted a while.

Be good to yourself.

If you are going through all the turmoil that occurs when you lose a pet, I suggest you do the same. Write a love letter from your pet’s perspective to yourself that is positive, and helps you move forward without dwelling. Your pet wouldn’t want you to feel bad or regretful for any hard decision you had to make.

Your pet would want you to be good to yourself, so honor the time that you had with positive thoughts and memories, and remember to be good to yourself.