When you adopt a cat or kitten, there’s a lot they don’t tell you. Sure, everyone has an opinion on what kind of food to get, what kind of litter to use, whether to declaw or not, indoor only or outdoor adventure time.
But they don’t tell you what REALLY matters. They don’t tell you what will happen when you lose your cat. Because losing a pet is unspeakably hard.
No one wants to think about it, no one wants to talk about it. They can’t imagine life without Mr. Whiskers and why should they? He’s just fine thank you very much. But someone oughta tell the truth about what happens to you when your cat dies. So today, I’m gonna be that person.
I write this post through stinging, blinding tears. The wounds in my heart are still raw and oozing. The grief is palpable.
We lost our beloved Loki only three days ago. It feels like an eternity has passed without him, yet it feels like he should still be here.
I adopted him when he was just 8 weeks old, and he spent 13 not-long-enough years being my closest companion. I’m simultaneously a rookie and an expert on grief.
I choke back sobs as I look for photos of him to use in this post. I pull the first few I can find, because I can’t bear to look for better ones.
Here’s what they don’t tell you about coping with pet loss and the guilt that comes with it:
They don’t tell you that after losing a pet, you’ll cry. All the time. A lot. You’ll be wracked with sobs then wracked with guilt.
Guilt for “letting” your pet die, guilt for putting him down, guilt for every time you left him at home when you went to work, guilt for shooing him off the bed the night before he left you forever…then guilt for feeling like your world is torn apart over a cat.
Then you’ll cry more. You’ll remember bringing him home for the first time, when he climbed up onto your shoulder and wailed for his mommy. Then you became his mommy. And now you’re the one wailing.
They don’t tell you that even though you hated cats, that somehow this little bugger will weasel his way into your very soul with his big eyes.
They don’t tell you that even if you think cats are assholes (and let’s not canonize the dead…Loki could be a grade-A jerkface at times) one day you will miss the creature that shredded all your important papers.
The one who tracked cat litter onto your desk.
The one who sat on your keyboard while you were working. The one who bit your toes and pawed your face at 3am because he wanted to play.
You’ll miss all the douchey things. Every single one of them.
They don’t tell you that one day your cat will die, and you will go to throw away his litter box and somehow that poop receptacle will make you break down into uncontrollable sobs, to the point where your neighbors might actually call the cops for fear that you are being stabbed. But the only thing that’s stabbing you is heartache.
Then you realize that you’re crying over a shit box. You cry harder.
They don’t tell you that after losing a pet that there won’t be words for your anguish, that you’ll feel powerless to explain how you really feel, and likely a swath of guilt. So instead of trying to articulate the knot in your stomach, you tell everyone you’re “fine”.
They don’t tell you that after losing a pet, even when you *know* you made the right decision whether to put him down or not, you’ll question everything. You’ll agonize over every decision you’ve made in his life. Did you take him off the kitten chow formula too soon? Was he maybe allergic to that cat litter?
Did he feel the same soul-crushing love for you as you did for him? Did he know that you had soul-crushing love for him? What if you didn’t show him how much you loved him?
They don’t tell you that after losing a pet, you’ll wish you spent more time with him. Maybe you wish you could have taken a leave of absence from work to soak up all the love you could before it was all ripped away from you. Maybe you know that’s crazy, but right now you don’t care.
They don’t tell you that after losing a pet his memory will haunt you. You’ll think you see and hear him. You’ll panic for a moment you forgot to feed him. Or wonder where he is. You will remember he’s gone and then you’ll die a little inside all over again.
They don’t tell you that after losing a cat, your dog will look at you like you’re out of your mind every time you start to sob for no reason. He knows something is up, but mostly he’s excited that he gets all the attention. They don’t tell you that secretly, you’ll resent him and his blissful ignorance because secretly the cat was your favorite as he was your first pet.
Then you’ll feel guilty about that too.
What they DO tell you about losing a pet is that in time, the wounds heal and life goes on. And they are right about that.
In time, we will heal. The wounds will scab over, and the pain will subside. Eventually scars will form, never fully returning to “normal” but to a new normal. But every day, I’ll miss that little rascal who earned the name Loki with his mischievous antics. And I will never forget the 13 years of love and shredded paper he gave us.
There is no wrong way to grieve, so long as the grief is a flowing river, not a stagnant pond. Don’t unpack and live in your grief. Let it flow at whatever speed you choose, but don’t let it get the best of you. <3
If you’ve recently lost a pet, I’m holding space for you in my heart, and sending all my love and condolences and I hope this post helps you heal in whatever way possible.
Liz
Thursday 6th of March 2025
Moggy was 6. Only 6. And we still don't know how or why her white blood cells destroyed the red, how her kidneys began to fail, how she became so dehydrated and lost half her body weight in less than a week. It has been a month since she died in my arms while her person (my husband) was at his work.
Thank you for this article. I needed to read what you wrote.
Masya
Monday 13th of January 2025
Thank you for that post, thank you all for your comments. Comments I read before I posted this. My fluffy orange tabby was 15 and half, oral tumour. I decided to keep him as long as he still can eat, adopting and changing food so he can manage. Painkillers, bleeding , drooling , hard to clean him …. But he was going to the patio on not too cold days, purring when cleaned, bright eyes, very alert. We managed 6 weeks. 2 days ago he stopped eating- just physically couldn’t . Tumour is too big. Still has appetite, hunger, still loving and bright, not hiding, puts himself in the middle to see everything and everybody. I wasn’t going to see him asking for food and not being able to eat no matter what food is offered, not being able to rest because of hunger, bleeding from his mouth, getting close to not being able to breathe… he was euthanized this afternoon, wasn’t scared, he was already used to going to vet every 3-4 days for shot of painkiller. They did it gently. He used to be the baby in my fur family, now he was the oldest. He is gone, but my love and pain is still there.
Masya
Monday 13th of January 2025
Big part of me is grieving and weirdly in disbelieve that he is gone, little part of me is relieved - I was constantly wiping blood of his face, seeing him in such misery was really hard.
ruralrockies
Friday 10th of January 2025
Thank you for writing this. It was helpful, especially the part about guilt for the all the reasons you cite, and then particularly for guilt for feeling devastated at the loss of only a cat. I lost mine last night. I had thought something was wrong with him, made an appointment with the vet for the morning, but things went downhill fast in the evening and his death was prolonged, and painful as he cried out in pain, making yowling noises I'd never heard him make before, and he struggled to breathe. He was hurting and scared, but true to his sweet nature, he let me try and comfort him until the very end.
I have four other cats who are all closely bonded to me, but he was my favorite not just of them, but of all time. He was the sweetest humblest cat I'd ever met. At about 6 or 7 mos of age, someone running a trap-neuter-release program dumped him and his littermate in a parking lot near my office, because they knew there was a feral cat colony there being fed by a cat lady. Every day for four months (including weekends), I'd feed the two of them lunch and spend time petting them. Even then, despite being ferals, they were suckers for belly rubs, real ones, not the kind where the cat seems to ask for one and then scratches you without warning.
Later, I'd often get a sick feeling thinking I left the two of there for four months (something unimaginable once I'd taken them in). But eventually, I just couldn't stop thinking about if they were okay out in the elements, with cars and hostile people, dogs, freezing nights, etc. With the help of the cat lady we trapped the two of them and I adopted them.
Not too long after, he had a urinary tract blockage that he didn't let me know about until it had become acute, (bladder distended, ready to burst, and him yowling in pain). It was after hours and the emergency vet I took him to soaked me for $2,900, so I sometimes thought of him as my $3,000 "free" cat. No more dry food after that, wet food only (take note, cat people).
He was devote to me, almost needy. The past six years, I've worked from home. I have pet beds on the desk on either side of my laptop. He, more than any of the others, spent every single day, curled up snoozing next to me, on my desk, while I typed. Anytime I went to another room, he'd come to be next to me. In fact, any day that I was still working by 7 pm or so, he'd get restless and start walking in between me and the keyboard, because he knew that was about the time I should normally be quitting, and go sit on the couch and watch some video, with him curled up tight against me. He spent virtually every night, not merely on the bed as is common with the other cats too, but pressed up against me all night. And unlike many other cats, he never took attention for granted. He was always humble about seeking it out, making eye contact to make sure it was okay.
He died at 10 pm last night. I took him off the floor where he had finally collapsed on his side while I listened to his heartbeat slow and stop, and lay him on the couch. This morning, I could almost convince myself he was just sleeping. As I fed the other cats, it stung when I almost grabbed one too many dishes. It stung again when I pulled out the new reduced number of cans of food from the previous routine of the past 12 years. It seemed wrong. It didn't seem real.
I went out to buy a box to bury him in, stopped at the copy place to print out a picture of him. Upon coming home, I wasn't ready to let him go yet. I put him in the pet bed next to my laptop and did an assignment where he'd normally be every morning. To the unknowing, it would have looked like any other day. I frequently looked over at him and sometimes it even seemed I could see his side moving as if he was breathing, just an illusion. When I finished 3 or 4 hours later, it was time. I wrote him a letter telling him how loved he was, how special he was of all the cats I've known, the best of all of them, that I already missed him terribly.
It took a fair amount of time to dig the hole. He was a large tabby and the ground is super stony. I cried as I put him in the box, having to push him together against the rigor mortis, in order for him to fit. His favorite toy was a large plush rat. It was both his prey and his girlfriend. He'd walk around the house with it in his mouth, doing that particular call they do to alert his brother that he'd "caught" something. Other times, he'd stand on it with his forepaws, with his hips jerking as if he was trying to mount it (hence the "girlfriend"). As a result, it was permanently squashed flat, sideways like a flounder, even after going through the washing machine. None of the other cats took to that plush rat like he did. It was truly his. I put it in the box, under his head like a pillow. I put a short plastic wand attached to a fabric "tail". It was the first toy I'd ever given him, back when he was feral and still living outside with his brother under a bush at a parking lot. He not only took to it, but immediately absconded with it as if were prey, taking it into the bushes. I had to go retrieve it so we could play with it other days. I'd kept it the past 12 years, Now I put that in the box too.
I put his photo and my letter to him in a ziploc bag, and lay it on top of him. It started to snow as I covered him in rocky dirt and filled in the hole, and replaced the sod. The spot in the backyard isn't far from the back window where his favorite cat tree sits and you can see it from the top perch, his favorite spot and one that he developed a particular game for getting into, where he'd get my attention, start to paw at the base of the tree, waiting for me to lift up his back end, lifting him only at the same rate as his front paws walked up the tree. It must have seemed like magic to him, as if he were weightless. He'd then collapse onto his side on the top shelf and soak in all the petting that would ensue with seemingly loving eye contact.
Did I mention I miss him? His feral littermate is definitely bonded to me, and seeks me our affection, but it's only the past couple years, that he's started being a lap cat (or trying, he's big). He's started sleeping next to me like his brother did. And hard to believe but true, he's also recently started imitating that "help me climb the cat tree" game after seeing his brother play it dozens of times. Now when he does it, from the top platform of the cat tree, he can see where his brother is buried, if he knew it.
Thank you for writing your piece. It was what I needed.
Monday 16th of December 2024
You have described what I am feeling right now. In a weird way this article made me feel that I am not alone.. or crazy
Leana
Tuesday 3rd of December 2024
My beloved rescue baby died on Sunday at the age of 16... she was ripped out of our lives. Someone's dog attacked her in front of our house and they just left her there in pain... like a piece of trash. I can't get her little bruised body out of my mind. It is all that I can see. I am just thankful that I saw her lying on the grass a few feet from the door that I could take her to the vet to take the pain away and hold her with her final breathe. I miss my cat baby so much. I am angry that she had to die. I am angry that her last few moments was in such excrusioating pain. I am angry that someone could just leave her like that... on my lawn... She didnt deserve any of that. She was like a child to me.