I wasn’t going to say anything, but the more time passed, the angrier and more hurt I became. This is an excerpt from an “anonymous” email I received a couple of days ago:
I’m sorry to hear your cat is dying, but I just don’t understand why you have to write so much about it. In a few weeks you’ll probably just get another cat and will forget about the other one.”
My pets are my babies, my kids. I’m going to step out to the end of the limb here and say that just as your children bring you joy and anguish, just as you love them, so I love my furry kids. I worry when they sleep too long and don’t show joy in the sight of a bone, or a snack. When Claudius caught the flu from my husband when he was a kitten, it really knocked him out. I sat up with him, night after night, in my lap. I mixed his water with skim milk to make sure he wouldn’t get dehydrated. I cannot begin to express the joy I felt when I found him in the kitchen batting around a bottle cap.
When Claudius’ brother, Johann, braved our two dogs (he was terrified of them and stayed in our bedroom in order to avoid them) to find me at the opposite end of the house, I knew something was wrong. My heart leapt to my throat when I picked him up and he cried and did his best to curl up against me. He died only a few hours later, at the vet’s hospital, with only the vet tech for company. To this day I wish I had not left him alone. I knew he was going to die.
For someone to tell me that I’m going to forget Mimi after a few weeks and will just replace her, makes my blood boil. If your child died suddenly, would you forget about it and just get another one? No, you wouldn’t. Your grief might ease over the years, but never would you forget that beloved child. It’s the same for me.
With the passing of Johann, I lost three furry kids I’ve never once forgotten. The first was Lancer, a royal blue great dane, who was a puppy when I was just beginning to learn to walk. People laugh, but my mother, and my grandmother (who still gets teary-eyed when she thinks of Lancer) understand when I say that Lancer was my big, furry, brother.
Lancer was a big, gangly, thing, but he was incredibly graceful and very attentive as far as I was concerned. He watched over me and also watched over the neighborhood kids. I can still remember the night we lost Lancer. He’d been very sick and on Halloween night, instead of greeting the kids at the door the way he used to, he would go out to the balcony. Some time during the evening, he jumped over the balcony and ran away. Lancer’s best friend, the neighborhood dog catcher, found him several miles from our house a couple days later. I was just getting off the bus when I saw my mom hugging the dog catcher. They were both crying. It was then that I knew he was gone forever.
I’m 45 years old now and there are still times when I think about Lancer. My heart still misses him terribly. I miss him as much as I miss my dad who died over ten years ago.
Mimi illness has been no harder on me than a long illness is in any family. We have been frustrated, we’ve had our hopes raised, and dashed, over and over again. We’ve had to deal with conflicting information in regards to treatments, and we’ve had to wrestle with rising costs that threaten our savings. We made a choice not to force-feed Mimi and to leave any recovery up to nature (and in my belief, God). The evil of this hepatic lipidosis is that the more stress the cat has, the harder it is to recover. Force-feeding was doing nothing for her but terrifying her.
We put off the decision to have Mimi put to sleep, mainly because we were selfish, and also because we hoped that maybe she would just peacefully die on her own. That doesn’t seem to be happening, and she’s only getting thinner and bonier. So now we’ve called the vet and on Monday it will be her last day with us.
I will NOT forget Mimi and all the love and joy she’s brought us. I will not REPLACE her with another cat in a few weeks when I’m “over” Mimi. Like Marcus, Panda and Claudius, Mimi is my sweet natured, loving little girl.
If you’ve lost a beloved family member, child, or friend, and you don’t own a pet, then you know what I’m going through. You know what other “furry kid owners” have gone through. I don’t have children. My pets are my babies.
Jayne – I just saw that Mimi has gone. I’m so sorry. I still miss almost every pet I’ve ever had (yes, there were some who were just passing through, just as some people just pass through your life leaving memories, but not a void, when they depart). I even still cry occasionally over some that I lost years ago.
And regarding the person who sent you that awful email..those sorts of people scare me. They are lacking something essential, lacking the empathy to understand that animals are our companions, not just some sort of mobile knick-knack to be casually replaced when it wears out. If somebody can’t find it in themselves to understand grief over a pet, how can they ever find it in themselves to understand people who live differently from them, or who live far away, or to understand the interconnectedness of life on our little blue-green world?
That was a highly insensitive email, and wholey selfish. If s/he didn’t like what you have to say, then go somewhere else. I wasn’t aware you took requests. DUH.
People make me angry sometimes. I have lost pets, too. I still miss my beta fish that died! And I had a cat pass on that I had for ten years.
Poor kitty! Poor you!
{{{{hugs}}}}
Jayne, I’m sorry about Mimi, and for the decision you’ve had to make. I had to make the same sort of decision, once, and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Whoever sent that e-mail is, at least, compassion-challenged. There are plenty of us out here who understand. I subscribed after reading a post about Mimi. Blog what you need to blog.
Jayne, sorry to hear about your loss. Losing a pet is never an easy thing. After losing my four Bichons, I could still feel or hear them near me. I don’t think they ever leave you.
Blessings to you and always remember the good times you had with them, no one can take those beloved memories away from you.
I think it was more thoughtlessness than cold-hearted. Doesn’t make it hurt less, though.
No, you never get over them and if another is brought in the family they don’t replace anyone because you can’t replace someone you loved. They help in the healing process for you, and you love them just as much but they certainly don’t replace another.
Who ever it was that sent you that email, they certainly sound rather cold hearted.