my 7 month old kitty fell from the 30th floor and i wasnt there

[raha]

ive been here now reading and crying, decided to write about my loss. this has all happened in the last 24 hours so i think i need to write a long one.

I adopted two kittens about seven months ago and moved to a new apartment about a month ago. this apartment is on the 30th floor and has a balcony so i would usually take my two girls out with a leash and harness whenever i would go to read. one of them (nox) is very shy and cautious, she enjoys the balcony but hesitated to come out even if the door is wide open, and once she’s on the balcony she’s very careful of her surroundings. my other cat on the other hand (zorro) is an absolute maniac who loses all sense of saftey and height when she sees pigeons so i always make sure her leash doesn’t allow her to jump on the rails. two days ago i left to go camping for 1 day and 1 night, making sure the door to the balcony was locked. i kept the windows open so that they would have fresh air but all the windows have a mental screen. during camping one thing led to another and i decided to stay for an extra night. i was a little hesitant because i had never left my cats alone for more than a single night. i got back this afternoon missing them both so much, so excited to see them as they’re my best friends. once i got home i was greeted by nox but i didn’t see zorro which was odd since zorro is usually the first one to greet me. i started calling her name and looking everywhere but i couldn’t find her. then i noticed that the metal screen on the window that’s on the balcony door was completely off the door and on the ground. i went on my balcony and saw cat fences everywhere but still no zorro. i searched up and down my building knocking on doors and talking to security, putting up missing posters for almost 4 hours until i got an email informing me that they saw my cats body on top of a car parked right below my balcony and had moved it to the side, she also said that the body was later removed by city workers. i ran downstairs and i saw the car. the entire back window was shattered with a dent the size of zorro on the metal roof and once i saw that i absolutely lost it. i have been bawling my eyes out for the past 5 hours and nox has been cuddling with me this whole time. i know that this could’ve happened at anytime, the screen falling was out of my control, but i just can’t help it, i keep thinking to myself about how i stayed an extra day. if i had come back a day earlier zorro might’ve still been alive. i could’ve found her on the balcony and brought her in. i can’t help but to blame myself even though i know it was out of my control. 

[KayC]

I am so sorry for your loss and especially the way it all happened, it must have felt horrific to learn that and envision it. I remember someone else losing their cat that way, it wasn't 30 stories up but it had the same result.  

It's common to feel guilt in early grief, we feel responsible for them, like a parent, yet so many things are beyond our control.  We go through all of the "what ifs" in an effort to find some different possible outcome other than the one that happened as it seems unfathomable to us   Try to remember that while we may FEEL guilty, that does not MAKE us guilty, feelings are not always factual.  Still, it's pretty hard to talk someone out of feeling a particular way.

Comfort for Grieving Animal Lovers
A Dangerous Villain: Guilt
http://www.pet-loss.net/guilt.shtml
http://www.griefhealing.com/article-loss-and-the-burden-of-guilt.htm
https://www.griefhealingblog.com/2019/08/pet-loss-when-guilt-overshadows-grief.html
https://www.griefhealingblog.com/2017/07/pet-loss-when-guilt-goes-unresolved.html

I hope this short video brings you some comfort and peace.

 

 

 

[foreverhis]

I just want to say that I am so sorry you and your precious Nox are going through this painful loss.  Some people don't or can't understand how deeply bonded we are to our most beloved pets, our fur family.

I can't really add much to what Kay has written, except to say I agree with her 100%.  I won't try to "talk you out" of your guilt because, in my experience, it's part of the grieving journey.  I will urge you to allow yourself to feel however you feel and, as time goes on, to try to shift your feelings of guilt to feelings of regret.  I'm still working on that myself.  After I lost my husband, I spent months, more than a year really, convinced that I was to blame.  We're the ones left here, so naturally we look in the mirror and point at ourselves.  We wish so much for a different outcome, a better story that we can't help but believe we should have been able to change things.

Please allow yourself to grieve in whatever way and for however long you need.  Understand that your and Nox's lives are forever changed, but that doesn't mean you will always feel the way you do now.  Grief changes and evolves as we learn to carry it with us forward, keeping our love in our hearts forever.

[KayC]

Yes, just know that you're not alone in what you're feeling, we've been there.  I cooked for my Arlie (dog) his whole life because he had acute chronic Colitis his whole life and couldn't tolerate the vet's dogfoods, nor any antibiotics.  In the end, he got cancer and I berated myself because I'd used brown rice in his diet.  Rice has carbs and can cause cancer growth.  I wondered, what if I'd fed him an all meat diet or with some of his vegetables.  I thought I was doing a good thing for him!  I spent more on his food than my own, but I lost him anyway, having giving him Probios and fish oil his whole life, SAME-e for mood elevation, Milk Thistle for liver support...his liver was giving out with the cancer.

We do the best we know with the knowledge we have at the time, and believe me, I'd done a lot of research, got no suggestions from vets.  BTW, his vet did not catch his cancer until it was too late, he'd had a physical just two weeks before!  Sometimes it's out of our hands, and yet still, we berate ourselves.