My Sweet Cat Passed Away Very Tragically Yesterday

[ljones0241]

I can officially declare yesterday as "the worst day of my life." My sweet Alley cat had a freak accident and passed away. She was at the top of the basement stairs yesterday wanting to come up (there is a baby gate at the top of the stairs). Before my mom could get to her to let her up, she some how lost her balance and went tumbling down the stairs on her side. She went down very fast and hit the concrete at the bottom of the stairs. When my mom got to her, she was laying there breathing very shallow. She kept breathing like that for about 1 minute, and then took one last deep breath and died. We are not sure if she hit her head or broke her neck. It was an absolute tragedy.

I got Alley when she was a small kitten-I was 20 years old. Alley was 9 years old when she passed away yesterday. I know that she had many more years left in her. I am really struggling and having a horrible time with her death. My heart is broken. The only comfort I have is knowing that I gave her a good life and knowing that she felt loved and cared for, and loved me too. Does anyone have any advice about dealing with the grief? I'm not sure if I will ever get over this. Will the pain ever go away? Does it ever turn into happy memories? Any guidance would greatly appreciated. Thank You!

[kayc]

I am sorry for the loss of your cat, it is hard no matter what age they are, as we get very attached to our furry companions. I think our memories will be bittersweet...I always feel bad when I think about my King George's last month of life as he suffered so much, I wish I'd known he had cancer so I could have put him to sleep sooner, but the vet I'd taken him to didn't do a very good job diagnosing him and treated him for the wrong thing. Other than that, I have good memories of him and am glad we had him for the years we did. We learn to carry it with us in time.

You might want to think of a way to memorialize her, that helps. I buried my King George in the back yard and bought a headstone for his grave. Some people keep their collar by a picture of them, everyone does something different.

Have you read some of the other threads here? Marty has posted some links in some of them that have good information if you have time to peruse them.

[ljones0241]

Thank you, Kay. I was thinking about making a scrapbook and including photos and memories. I do think that will help me. I am also looking into a headstone as well, my Dad buried her in the back yard. I will definitely take the time to read some of the other threads.

[kayc]

Mary told me about a place, Personal Creations, and that is where I got mine, inexpensive and they did a nice job (you can order on line). The ones they do are best if they aren't out in constant sun though, so that helped me in deciding placement. This is Oregon, however, so how much sun could it get?!

I hope you'll check back now and then, let us know how it's going.

[CJ Anderson]

Hi, I am so very sorry for your loss!

For my self, I am so looking forward to discharging my duty to this planet and get back to the pther side where all my beloved friends are - four and two legged. <sad smile>.

Please dont cofuse the souls sadness with the grief which is our inner punishment for ever bad thing we have ever done. It is so easy to fixate on that last event where we didnt know, didnt forsee, made a wrong judgement to the exclusion of the previous years of happy memories.SO many people end up with feeling paralysing grief because theuy didnt acknowlege the loss of a job, a house a friendship...and now the death of the pet takes them to the place of all the unexpessed moments of sadness from every thing else too.

My experience is that our pets are our teachers, our healers, our mirrors. I look at the manner of their passing to teach me what I havent been paying attention to, to do better. I work hard to make the gift of their presence in my life help me to do more of what I came here to do, I know that if we dwell on what we couldnt do instead of what we ARE doing, we will drown in the sadness so I have taught my self to move on and rescue/help another life.

I hope this helps you a little bit.

Hugs

CJ Anderson

[ljones0241]

Thank You for the nice words, CJ.

[littlebee]

ljones I'm sorry for your loss.

at first it seems that the pain is never going away. I think there is hope, that pain of lossing someone we love so much it's almost unbearable

with time it becomes more bearable.

I'm still in that process.

at first I felt that I didn' want one more dog in my life, I didn't want that hurt again. (but I already have 3 more) and they have help me a lot with their unconditional love. The smallest one with her antics she make me smile. I tought I wasn't going to be able to smile again.

If I didn't have them I think I would have gone to the animal shelter to adopt to give love to another furry baby, They are there waiting for someone to love them and they would love back.