Yes. As difficult as the prospect is, this is the last chance we have to be there for our cat.
It has more than once been my sad task to say goodbye as a cat leaves this world. Sometimes it’s been my own pet; sometimes it’s the pet of a friend or family member who needs my support.
I do it even though it’s never a task to be undertaken gladly. I do it because the last thing a cat should feel at a time like that is alone.
In the course of offering condolences, a friend who has also been through it mentioned that some people just drop off the cat and leave. The thought of this was upsetting to me; yet I understand why people do that.
Under stress, unsure how to react, and uncertain how to handle the situation, people pretend it’s just another vet visit. They might even think this is an approach that will help the cat handle the experience better.
From the many people who have shared their cat feelings with me, I can say, with confidence, that this is not the best way to handle the situation; not for us, not for our cat. By all means, we should recruit someone to stand by us at this difficult time; to hold our hand and be our support while we support the cat.
But we should decide to be there for our cat, all the way to the end. Because, in the end, it will help both us and our cat.
The closer our relationship with our cat, the more our cat will need us.
I know there are concerns.
How can I be there at such a terrible time in my cat’s life? Won’t they know I’m the one who decided to kill them?
I understand. But this attitude is both misguided and self-destructive, and will interfere with the mourning process. We aren’t murdering our cat out of malice or careless cruelty. We are stopping our cat’s suffering.
When we decided on a relationship, and fell in love, with the cat, we promised to take good care of them. Part of our duty was to negotiate, and interpret, the world for them in a way they can understand. While this is never an easy issue, our cat is even less equipped than we are to deal with it.
It certainly isn’t the way we wanted to help our cat, and it’s lousy that it’s the only way we can help our cat, but helping our cat is exactly what it is.
What if I fall apart? Won’t that upset my cat?
This is a natural concern, but this fear becomes overblown in our minds.
Because we probably got our “falling apart” out of the way on the journey between bad news and The Decision. Whenever it is that we finally come to The Decision; that is when we fall apart.
What triggers “falling apart” is when our mind struggles with a reality we don’t want to admit; and then admits it.
We will always have time to pull ourselves together before we proceed. We will cope better than we think is remotely possible, because the greatest fear is:
What if I can’t do it? What if I bail on my cat just when they need me the most?
When we next see our cat, we think we will be overwhelmed with our sad feelings. We think we will not be able to handle seeing them for what will be the last time. Yet what happens is:
We will realize how much our cat needs our help.
We might have already discovered that, in our role as a parent or a friend, the plight of someone who has a greater need can bring out our inner strength. Even when our distress is great, seeing one for whom the confusion and fear is even greater will, as if by magic, make us the stronger one.
As upset as we are, we will not fall apart when we see our cat again. Their happiness at seeing us, their hope that we will help them, their trust in our love; these will, as if by magic, push our own distress into the background.
Every heart strengthens when the call comes: We’re needed.
All will fall into place when we realize:
We are the only one in the world who can do this right.
If we truly love our cat, there’s no way we can do this wrong.
The toughest part of having a cat is deciding to say goodbye. Find help in my posts on coping with end of life issues.
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There’s more ways to care for our cat with The Way of Cats than the article you are reading now. See all of my posts on mourning our cat.
Absolutely. Going in with my babies will be one of the last things I do for them, and you can bet I will do it no matter how it hurts ME.
A lot of people are afraid, too, that the animal suffers. I have heard that one a lot. But as terrible as it is to say, my god, it’s so quick. It’s over almost before it happens, and your pet won’t suffer. It is far, far harder for the humans involved.
Thank you for writing about this. *hugs*
am sad. this brings back a lot of sad memories for me!
I do think it is very helpful to the pet for that final appointment. They don’t know what is happening to them, so it would be a terrible time to desert them. It is very sad though but my vets have always been wonderful support for me and the pet.
Thank you, Pammy, for again writing about The Hardest Thing To Do.
Someone in a previous post asked if there were vets who would do this at your home. If the vet already recommended it, I don’t see why they couldn’t. But does this happen? I’ll ask the next time I bring one of the kids in, but none of them are due until the fall.
I ask because both of my current cats are terrified of the vet, and no matter how quickly it’s over, I don’t want them to be terrified at the end.
When I had my cat rescue, I had a holistic vet who worked out of his car and came to the house; a great help when you have a bunch all coming up for checkups.
It’s well worth asking about.
Next week, it’s the hardest thing of all; the actual appointment. But I have a way of handling it that I hope will help others.
it is always hard…..and yet so soft for our loved ones..humans should have loving cats who could do the same for us
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An hour from now I will no longer have my friend of 18 years. My heart is broken. When you look at the blue sky above, your will see her eyes.
I’m so sorry, Julia. It is a very difficult task to say goodbye.
I just wanted to leave a message for all who may be losing their pet, as Julia did above, as I lost my cat of 14 years a year ago after a 3+yr. struggle with kidney disease. I’d never had a cat that long before nor had one die on me, so it was devastating, and running to the vet for the last time…I wasn’t really aware that he wasn’t coming back home with us, so I felt doubly bad that I never thought to let our other cat touch noses with him before we raced out the door in an emergency state. We came home with an empty cage and to our other, now confused, cat who never got to say goodbye. She spent her entire life (14 yrs.) growing up together with her ‘pal’ and by not giving her the chance to say bye I felt I robbed her of that, and him too. She spent the next 6 weeks sleeping in his bedding inside the now empty carrier..the last place he was. He had a peaceful death, with us both there loving him, and the vet gave us plenty of time to say our goodbyes in private. I also had his head resting in my hand and the vet gave a sedative first, that put him to sleep, and then injected him, and it was instant with no struggle and no pain…very peaceful, he just went to sleep and then his heart stopped in a matter of seconds. My husband took his death terribly hard, as he didn’t grow up with pets, and had no clue that one could become so attached. He was a mess for days. As awful as it was to lose my little boy (as he was the baby of our family and he was closest to me, always following me around), I found a great deal of comfort when I went to Amazon.com and just started reading ‘see inside this book’ excerpts of various ‘is there life after death for animals’ books. Reading all this ‘after life’ stuff made me feel like he wasn’t really gone, and lessened my grief by about 80%. While my husband kept falling apart over the next few days (he didn’t care to read anything), whenever I felt like I was going to lose it again, I just did some more reading and it put my head in a ‘positive place’ and gave me the peace of knowing my little guy was now in a happier (non-painful) life and someday we will meet again. If you are a spiritual person, this might help you get thru the toughest first days after your loss. I wish you peace….