Forever Yours

In our lives we lose many things we love. To some an animal dying could be even harder than the death of a grandparent. Children or adults who live alone seem to make more special bonds with their animals and take it really hard when they must leave them or if their beloved pet dies because that pet is seen as more than just a pet to them. I know this from experience because I have experienced this loss and have been more influenced than when either of my grandpas died.

From the time I can remember I have always had two cats, and one grew up with me from the very beginning. At my age thirteen my little boy cat was just turning 12. He always was a "trouble maker" and he was always getting hit by other cats by being so. So when he started pawing his mouth and he had a swollen lip, we thought nothing of it. After a while the problem didn’t go away so I bugged and bugged my mom to take him to the vet. She made an appointment more to get me to leave her alone then anything else and she took him in while I was at school. As it happens that day, the power went out during his appointment so they rescheduled him for the next day.

While I was in first period the next day I got called down to the office to go home. Everyone looked at me and asked me questions about why I was leaving and where I was going. Everyone thought I was so lucky, but I wasn’t so sure.

The only things that came to mind about why I could be leaving were that my mom had forgotten about some appointment or that something had happened to my girl cat who, being in her twenties, wasn’t doing too well. It never occurred to me it could be my little baby boy.
I went down to the office and waited for my mom to arrive. After ten minutes she arrived and I felt a cold shiver go down my back as I saw her. Something had happened. I went out to the car and saw my brother inside, and knew I didn’t want to know. My mom got in and told me my little boy had severe cancer and there was nothing they could do. My brother and I were being picked up to go to the vet and say goodbye before he was to be put to sleep.

As you could guess I fell completely apart and couldn’t catch my breath with all the crying I did. After burying him and skipping school for two days, I finally got to a place of complete shutdown. I watched TV and movies just so I wouldn’t have to think and shut myself in my room a lot more. I went on a summer trip not long after, and when I returned, I had a month with my girl before she too passed on from old age and my grieving started all over again. I was crushed with no one left. They were my best friends, and now my home was empty and kittyless. It felt wrong, as if something was missing from my life and I couldn’t understand why.

Now, a little over a year later I have gotten two new babies. They are another boy and girl but actual siblings and though I miss my first two very much I have found a place for these two in my heart as well. I don’t know how I would react if anything ever happened to them now.

In contrast when I lost both my granddads I cried a little but was fine after a day or two but when my babies passed I was a wreck for weeks and still can’t let go of what once was.
Though they were my grandparents, I wasn’t as close to them as I was with my kittens and didn’t feel the same way when they passed as I did when I lost my kittens mainly because it was a regular part of my life to see them daily.