My cat Izzy has passed away and I'm grief stricken.

[Brian Davison]

Hello, everyone. 

 I've recently signed up, and as it is now 2 weeks from his passing I feel I am ready to tell the sad story of my cat and best friend Izzy's 

departure from this world and the drastic effect it is having on me.

I have read many posts here about pet deaths, a lot with circumstances much worse than mine and my heart goes out to each and 

every one of them - I now know how it feels. Not that I'd forgotten my previous cat Sam's death in 1979, but this has brought that all back too.

Let me start out by saying I have no religion, not believing in an afterlife, etc., so I don't have that to help me but I respect and am not 

in any way against those who have these beliefs, and sincerely hope that no one is offended by this.

Izzy was my faithful best friend and sole companion for the eighteen years of his life and gave me, an old man, the greatest company 

anyone could wish for. Now he is gone and the grief, sorrow, and loneliness have left me with no end in sight. I truly loved that little animal, 

and am bereft almost beyond words, made even worse by none of my friends seemingly wanting to even mention him any more. 

I want to talk to somebody about him,

 but if I try, I just choke up almost to the point of tears and have to change the subject to avoid embarrassment.

If anybody here wants to hear the full story of Izzy's passing and more details of the effects on me, I would be more than willing to 

recount the whole sad tale in detail. 

[emma12]

I am really sorry about your loss.It's very hard when we lose them.It's been a month since i lost my cat and i am still not ready to write about it but this forum has helped a lot,cause people  here truly understand.Unfortunately i hadn't be "lucky" with my friends either,at first they told they would be near me whenever i needed them but they were lost.We realize that in that journey of grief only one or two person of our circle will sympathize.Please feel free to share your story with us.

[Jack Russell]

Hello Brian Davison I am so sorry to hear about your Izzy.  I too am still so sad after the loss of my beautiful little Kelly of 16.  Please share your story with us.  You will find it helps to write about your lovely Izzy. 

[JellyBean04]

Hi Brian, I'm so sorry for your loss of Izzy. For me it's been 6 weeks since the loss of my 15 year old girl, and it has been very difficult. Like you I didn't have many people around  to talk to about it, not that I could've anyway because it would have been too upsetting. 

It may help you to share your story here, if you are ready to do that. I know it helped me to talk about my old girl and to know that there were people who understood what I was going through.

[KayC]

Hi Brian,

I know it can be hard to tell, but if you feel up to sharing your story, it can also be therapeutic to do so.  I can't imagine going through this without belief in afterlife, but it helps to know that regardless they live on in our memories and we are their keepers of who they were and always they live on in our hearts.

I'm very sorry for your loss, I've lost way too many in my life, both pets and people, my husband, parents, sister, niece, nephew, grandparents, friends.  Our furry family members can be some of the hardest we have to endure because they're in our everyday lives and we had constant interaction with them, our ties were close and those little rituals we did whether letting them out in the morning or feeding them, giving them belly rubs, those things are quiet and absent now and that's a huge trigger to us that they're gone and hits us afresh.  It takes a while to get used to those changes.  My heart goes out to you.

[Beatriz]

Yes, Brian please do share Izzy’s story with us. Tell us how he came into your life as well - my car Tripps was 18 and 3 months when he died. I am still grieving for both my cats and strugglng to come to terms with how my life changed and is now mostly shaped by their absence. I have filled the pages of two notebooks writing about and for my cats since I lost them -  The pain was so excruciating I felt the need to elaborate a bit on it in order to survive . It helped me to know others had experienced the same devastation and were here trying to comfort me and acknowledging my despair and deep distress. We are here for you. 

[Brian Davison]

 

Thank you all  for the kind responses above. I'd like to reply to everyone individually but for now I would just like to hereby convey my appreciation and thanks to all of you for writing. I am still grieving deeply and it's comforting to know that others are sympathetic and fully understand. I'm going to take up the suggestion by Beatriz, which I hadn't thought of myself, of telling how Izzy came into my life:  It had been 21 years since Sam, Izzy's predecessor, had died and back in 1979.  I was determined never to have another cat because of what I suffered after he died - (just like I'm doing now).  However, in late 2000 I happened to hear through a friend that his wife had found a mother cat out in the woods with 5 newborn kittens, which she had brought into the house and given them shelter and food until they reached about 6 to 8 weeks old. She was looking for good homes for the kittens so I decided there and then I would check them out. 

I wanted a male tabby or black cat and it transpired that only one in the litter was male and (a slightly gingery) black, so I arranged for a viewing.    The rest is history.  What completely sold me on him that day was his relaxed attitude when lifted - no claws out or tensing up. With his gingery black  semi-long hair coat he certainly wasn't going to win any prizes at cat shows but to me he was utterly irresistible, and so began a very happy eighteen years together.    I booked a neutering visit to the vet soon after I brought him home and that went smoothly, but when the vet asked me for his name I didn't have an answer so I hastily named him Izzy, because when he had been out investigating somewhere in the backyard I would go around calling "Where is he - where is he" so that's how he got his name !    He never strayed, always went outside to do what he had to do, happy to eat basic supermarket  tinned  cat food and drink water, and moved house with me when he was six years old with no trouble.  He never gave me any bother at all, and I never saw him cross the dangerous road in front of the house. Even his lifetime vet's bills didn't amount to more than a couple of hundred pounds. But best of all, his friendship was unconditional . I have been advised that it helps the grieving process by thinking about the good times you had with your pet - well in my case it was all good times !

That's the happy part of the story over. In the last month or two of his life I noticed he was losing weight and then becoming unsteady on his back legs, stumbling  occasionally at first, but it kept getting worse so I booked a blood test with the vet to see if anything could be done.   All the £70 blood test revealed was what he wasn't suffering from, and their opinion was that it might be some sort of  stomach cancer which they could operate on, but with no guarantee of success. In view of his age and the fact that I didn't want him to suffer, I declined that option.  I was as this point that I realised he was going to die sooner rather than later.               So I set about making preparations - I measured him up and made a rectangular coffin box out of pallet wood and dug a two feet deep hole to suit in the front garden.  I knew he was waning fast but when the end did eventually come a few weeks later it still came as a devastating shock. 

I think I have written enough for now, but I intend to continue the sad story soon, provided everybody here would like to hear it.........                                                                                                                              

 

 

[AJWCat]

Brian, read your posts, I hope it feels a little better to get it out? To tell the story?

I lost my last cat (we had him for 10 years) in a sudden and horrible way. He was like my child and it broke my heart to watch him go like he did in his last couple hours. And that was not even as bad as once he was finally gone. The silence. Physical absence. It does not matter how prepared you are or how logically you understand it - when they are gone it is incredibly painful. It did take my months to get over my anger and sadness of our last moments together. So I tried to look at the positives. At least I was there.  

So please continue when you can. We all know what you are going though, no matter how we lose them, the end result is the same and we all understand. 

[Jack Russell]

Brian please continue your story.  Yes they do say to remember all the good times and I'm sure you have them in abundance.  It is clear as you said you had nothing but good ones.  I haven't moved past all the horrible memories of my little Kellys death and I am so wanting to remember the good ones.  Please share the rest of your story.

[KayC]

Brian,

Yes, do continue your story, when you are ready to share.  I love the story of how he got his name, that's too cute!  I didn't know my cat until she was ten, and she was named Mama Kitty because she gave birth to so many kittens, she populated a trailer court with them...when I got her and brought her to my place in the country, I dropped the Mama part and just called her Kitty because she was done with all that.  I think she was annoyed with the kitties part of it anyway because people would keep the kitties and throw her out, she was abandoned more times that could be counted.  Now she's 23 and seems to like her retirement.

I had a cat, George, but then married a George so dubbed the cat King George, he lived to 19 and like your Izzy, he got cancer.  When I discovered it, he'd already lost 1/3 of his body weight and was suffering, so I had him put to sleep.  I couldn't bear his suffering another day once I found out it was something he couldn't recover from.  He was the sweetest cat in the world, always my greeter.

I'm glad you have good memories of your cat's life lived with you.  They are the bond with us, and we carry on their memory...always.  I know it's painful but it's the price paid for love and I wouldn't do anything different no matter what the cost to me.

I wish your pain to subside a little each day...

[Guppy1973]

I feel your pain Brian, so so tough.

Tell your story when you are ready, they love unconditionally which makes their loss so very hard.

 

[Brian Davison]

 

Thanks guys for your very welcome and heart felt sympathy expressed above - it's good to know somebody cares as nobody around me has even  mentioned him since his death - it seems as far as they're concerned he's just dropped 'off the map' and that's it.  Well he NEVER will for me and that's  for CERTAIN. I am still grieving badly with only the merest glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel .  I hope you won't think I have told this part of the story  in  too graphic detail but this telling is undoubtedly helping me, (and I hope others), together with the responses I've received from you kind folks. 

Now to that fateful night:   Everything was more or less normal during the day except at tea-time he didn't eat his food. He had been eating and drinking  if anything more than usual during the time he had got so thin, four meals per day, but this suddenly stopped at teatime on the 17th of October.                I tried some of his favourite 'treat' food but no go. He didn't come upstairs to the computer room as he often did to sit on my knee  and when I went down   to make the supper he was still in the kitchen. So, at bed time, I went down to get him and I then realised he was definitely not well and very weak.  I warmed the bed beside me with a hot water bottle and set him down there hoping a bit of warmth and a cuddle which he had always loved, would help  him . He stayed there for only about five minutes and then struggled to get up, which, with help from me he did and went slowly to the edge of the bed  and jumped down collapsing in a heap on the floor. He then managed to get up by himself and went out onto the landing outside the open bedroom door  and crouched down there where I could see him. I decided to leave him there, as if I had brought him back onto the bed the same thing might have  happened so I left him alone and went uneasily to sleep. About 2:00 a.m. I got up to go to the bathroom and to check on him.  He was still in the same  place and his head was nose down on the carpet - both not normal. I knelt down and gave him a stroke and a hug, saying "are you not well ?" and gave  him a kiss.

 WHY DID I NOT REALISE THERE AND THEN THAT HE WAS DYING - UNFORGIVABLE !  This is my first and biggest regret - I should have put him on the bed next to me and nursed him until he died, but I didn't and it torments me now when I think of this.  I had a bad feeling next morning when I got up   at 8:00 a.m. as he hadn't come into the bedroom as usual about 7:00 a.m. to pat me on the nose to wake me. He wasn't where I had left him earlier but  he had moved into the computer room (on the way to the upstairs cat flap which leads onto an outside flight of steps). and there he was on his right side - fully stretched out with mouth wide open, and staring unseeing eyes - DEAD.                                                             He did NOT look good. Rigor mortis had set in too. I am shaking as I type this. The memory of the shock I got at that moment will stay with me for ever.  I would have given everything I had to turn the clock back six hours, but I'm just left with the terrible guilt for not acting earlier. The final outcome would  have been just the same but he would have died beside me, which would have upset me badly, but at least I would have been left with a better memory  of his death to help me now in my grieving. In the stunned state I was in at that time I think I must have just gone into 'automatic pilot' from then on.  I brought him down to the kitchen and laid him on a towel on the couch - he was as stiff as a board with no hope whatsoever of getting him into his coffin  box in the pose he was in so I left him there to see if the rigor mortis would ease with some warmth and time.  Immediately after breakfast I gathered up  all his food (I had recently stocked up with a big supply of tins, pouches, and crunchies) and drove round to my friend's house about a half mile away and  gave all the food to them, for their cat and a stray they were feeding. They had similarly given me left over food a few years ago when their fifteen year  old cat Suzie had died). I was so choked up I could hardly say a thing so I had to leave very quickly. Back to the house - a morgue it now felt like. After  about an hour I was able to slowly fold his arms and legs by pressing carefully for a few minutes and shut his eyes and mouth by gently pressing his chin).  I then put a clean tea towel in his coffin box and placed him comfortably inside - he finally looked 'himself' - at rest.  I lifted his head,  gave him a kiss and a stroke goodbye and nailed down the lid, took him out and placed him deep in his grave in the garden and filled it in.

 Now the second great regret which I am still suffering from: All this was FAR TOO QUICK, and again, with hindsight I would give anything to turn the clock back. What I should have done (so blindingly obvious now), was to let him lie 'in state' for at least a day so that I could say an extended goodbye and thus try to eradicate the awful memory of the sight of him lying dead upstairs and replace it with the picture of him lying peacefully 'asleep' in his coffin box.  Alas it is never to be. 

I would like to finish off this sorrowful story soon with another final (?) chapter with some more thoughts and reminiscences, if you'd like to hear them.  Thankyou all for bearing with me so far....

 

 

[emma12]

I am so sorry Brian about the sudden death of your beloved cat and about the guilt you are feeling about not putting him in your bed with you and i know how torturing it is to feel you should have done it other way but please don't blame your self because it was very sudden so you couldn't  know...often with cats we don't know until it's too late,but guilds always come after,it is natural even if we couldn't do anything...it's normal to be extremely socked cause it all happened really suddenly.Be sure that he was fully aware of your love and he wasn't "alone" when he died,he was in his home with you and he felt safe..also keep in mind that even if you had put him on your bed he still might have jumped down cause many times when a cat feels that her end is near uses to hide herself,cause she doesn't want to upset her loved ones...usually people around us underestimate our grief but as you say the important is that he will  always be a special a part of you.... please share the final chapter of your story with us and have in mind that we understand how hard it is...

[AJWCat]

Yes Brian when you are ready please add to your story. 

I know how guilty you feel... but I have read that cats although they love us, often prefer to go to other side on their own. They isolate. As Emma12 was saying too, although not with you exactly, he was at home and safe and warm to go in peace. So many people's pets do not get that.

I have to look at the positive which - my cat's end was so so NOT what I wanted, so traumatic and violent that I have to at least appreciate what little positives there were. 

I know that vision of him was also not what you wanted. After a year I was finally able, thank goodness, to think of my cat in his prime, his face in happy times, not at the end. I wish that for you as well - so just keep thinking of Izzy in best moments - I am sure you have many wonderful memories. I still think of my guy even if for a moment every single day. He is in my heart forever.  

[KayC]

Brian,

Reading your story reminded me of when I lost my Fluffy (dog), it's been over 21 years but it seems like yesterday in my recall.  He was a wonderful family dog and he had climbed into our van and hidden, unbeknownst to me, and I found him that night when I opened up my front door to put my lunchbox in after getting off work.  He rolled out into my arms, stiff as a board.  I was shocked!  It killed me to think that when he was dying (from heat with the windows rolled up) I was just inside my office, a few feet away, and had no idea he was in distress.  Did he try to summon my attention?  I'll never know.

It's very hard when we have these haunting memories and images in our minds.  We wanted to be there for them, more than anything in the world, but we didn't know.  How can you fault yourself for something you didn't know?  I don't know, but it's much the way I felt when I found out my Fluffy had died.  Eventually I had to accept the fact that he was gone, that I'd have to live my life without him.  I can only look forward to the time we'll be together again and I can tell him I'm so sorry for the way he died.  But then he already knew that I loved him, more than anything.

AJWCat is right, eventually we are able to think back on the wonderful times we had together and not focus merely on the death, but remember the good times we shared and the love between us...that love continues, not even death can halt it, so in that sense, our love is greater and more powerful than the death that stopped their bodies.

I'm very sorry for the pain you are in.  It takes much time for this to lessen to something more palpable that we can carry.

[Brian Davison]

Once again a big thankyou to those who have sent me your kind messages since my last post.   It is now one month to the day since Izzy's passing and  although I am missing him terribly, I can report that there are signs that things are easing - albeit only fractionally. I read somewhere a few weeks ago that  a  measure of progress in the grieving  process can be gauged by the gradual increase in the amount of time in the day when you are not  thinking of your pet. For the  first few days this might amount to five minutes or even less, but as time passes this increases.  At this point in time, I reckon I'm up to between a 1/2 hour and an hour  total, (although he's ever present in my thoughts constantly at all other times of the day and night). I'm looking at this as positive progress for me,  and I hope this will help to give some hope to those recently bereaved here, although I must emphasise that there won't ever come a time when I don't think about him every day, as I still think about Sam, his predecessor of 39 years ago.           

In my extremely distressed state a couple of days after he died, I decided to ring a pets bereavement site called Blue Cross here in U.K.and I cannot speak too      highly of the help I got on two successive days from a lady and a gentleman volunteer on the site. These two calls, (about 1/2 hour + each), were of considerable  consolation to me at the time and I would strongly recommend these good people to anyone suffering loss of their pet.   One of the issues I raised with the  gentleman was my thoughts on exhuming Izzy and opening his coffin box in order that that I could let him lie in the house for a whole day,                                so that I could give him the long goodbye that I so regret not giving him the morning he was buried.  He was only two days down at that stage so I didn't think he would have deteriorated at all in appearance.  It was probably right that he gently talked me out of this idea, although  I'm still left with thoughts that I should have done this anyway -  of course, it's far too late now, but this still haunts me.   

One of my pastimes is playing the guitar and singing songs, (to myself only now - no Izzy sitting beside me), and a country song I was working on at the time has a  line in it - "I can't leave you with a bad goodbye".  I have had to abandon this one as this line just spooks me because it describes exactly what I did....

The word never - much misused, has taken on a new sinister meaning for me since.  Never will he come running out to meet me when I get back to the  house, never will he visit me in my workshop at intervals during the day,  never will I keep titbits of bacon fat or fish pieces for him which he loved (the birds  get that now), never keep the empty sardine or tuna tins for him to lick out, never go down the pet food aisle again in the supermarket, never see him chase the other local cats out of the yard, never have him visit me in the  bedroom or computer room, never to wake me in the mornings on the pillow,                                                        never to always appear when a visitor calls and sit between us or jump up on my knee -  (he seemed to  enjoy conversation and company!)  He was my true 'buddy'.

It may seem extreme to say this but I feel I have lost 75% of my reason for living without him to care for and interact with, but I'll survive on the remaining 25% -    there's no choice, I'll just have to...

If any of you kind people have any comments to make on what I've said here - positive or negative - please do go ahead. At least when writing it's helping me briefly with my loneliness and loss, and I hope others too.   And, what's more, this will stay as a record of how I felt at the time when looking back in times to come.                                                                              

[AJWCat]

A couple thoughts Brian. I think of my Courage the cat a bit every day over a year later but in those early days, it was every second and it was merely repeating: he's gone, he's gone. I just couldn't believe it. Maybe that was why my mind was constantly repeating that mantra.

I knew I'd survive but I just felt despondent, like you do. If it ever gets really bad... like you dip below 25%, please seek out help again right away. 

About the physical stuff: my cat seemed to be reacting to a poison, at the house and later at the vet, he was convulsing, drooling, and howling. It was a nightmare. As I've said, I try to look for the good - at least I was there with him. Thank God the vet said our cat was really unaware of what was happening. His organs were failing and his central nervous system was reacting.

Brian I share all of this not to upset you or me, but I choose to believe that my cat wasn't "all there" for this episode and at the end, he was just exhausted, he was dying and we decided to end his life to help him move on quicker.  

We don't really understand death because no one is able to recount their last hours once they are gone of course. Izzy was shutting down and his body was ready. Make sure you aren't ascribing human thoughts to him in those last moments like "where is my human?!" I am certain it wasn't like that. He was moving on and nothing was going to change that either. 

When you found him, that was Izzy's body, but his wonderful sweet spirit was no longer in the tired, failing body that could no longer function - he was free.

No matter if you'd kept him that day or brought him back in latter on, that is not him anymore. His spirit is with you now and has been from the moment he left his physical body. Sit down and pull out a photo and chat with him and you'll be closer than having his physical body with you.     

[KayC]

7 hours ago, Brian Davison said:

The word never - much misused, has taken on a new sinister meaning for me since

My husband died over 13 years ago.  I don't think of it in final terms, I believe in the hereafter and rather than say goodbye, I prefer "See ya later".  I know I'll be with him again, and I hope regardless of what beliefs you hold that you consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe...there's some things we know and a whole lot we don't know...I leave room for keeping my mind open to those possibilities and say, "See ya later".

[Brian Davison]

In response to AJWcat's three kind replies above, in particular the most recent one, I'd first like to say how horrific your poor cat Courage's untimely death truly was, having been poisoned with those horrendous consequences, and although the word 'sympathies' is nowhere near strong enough, I can't think of a better way to offer you mine right now.  Your story has at least made me think how 'lucky' I was for Izzy to die the natural death that he did, and this makes it a little easier to accept. 

With regard to the 25%, I believe that this will increase, however slowly, over time with no possibility of it decreasing, (I would never entertain any thoughts of s**c**e), so don't have any worries on my behalf about that, but thanks for your concern.

Although he definitely did have some human-like traits, I know he was not thinking on that fateful night "where is my human*. He knew where I was and as you said "he was moving on" which I still wish I had realised a few hours earlier. Also, I'm taking on board what you said about it being just his body that was left and that his spirit is with me now - it definitely is and will always stay that way.  I still look at the all too few photographs I have of him regularly but it chokes me up every time I do.  Another great regret is that I didn't take anywhere near enough and better pictures of him - oh well, at least I've got the ones that I have.

Thanks again, AJWcat - your responses (and the other's above which I've yet to reply to) are helping me in my grieving...

 

[AJWCat]

Thanks for the reply, I am happy that I've been able to give you some comfort. @KayC and others were here when I needed to share and they listen and commented so I am trying to pay ti forward. And I really understand where you are right now - I think we can feel so alone like no one else gets it but there are people who do so keep coming for the support.  

[Brian Davison]

Hello again, pet people,

Inevitably these posts must come to an end at some point, so I'll finish off with this brief, report on how things now are. Things have improved insofar as my mental state is concerned, as I think I have passed through the immediate grief stage and moved onto the mourning stage for the loss of my dearly beloved cat Izzy since his loss 6 weeks ago. I now no longer expect to see him in the usual places and am now closing doors behind me, (which I never did before in order to allow him free access to anywhere in the house), and the time not thinking about him during the day is slowly increasing, all of which I must consider to be progress. However I emphasise again that he will ALWAYS be very sorely missed and NEVER forgotten, and can/will NEVER be replaced, so whatever years I am left with will be spent alone, with nothing but the memory of the 'good times' and a few photographs. 

I have been regularly reading other pet posts on this forum and some of the stories are truly awful, in particular those from 'iwouldhireme' with Mitsu and 'MyNuni' with Noodles . It makes me realise how comparatively 'fortunate' it was that Izzy died the natural death that he did after eighteen good years of life. My heart goes out to these poor people and it makes me 'thankful for small mercies'. 

And finally, a massive thank you again to those of you who responded to my grief outpourings - it gave me some much needed solace in my grief stricken state.

Brian.