How did you cope after the sudden loss of a beloved cat?

[Koolkatz]

My beautiful cat died last week. He had a catastrophic seizure which came completely unexpectedly. He had been fit and healthy. Just a few minutes before he died I gave him a stroke and he purred. Then he was suddenly fitting all over the room.

I feel beyond devastated at this loss. The shock of it, the feeling we should have had more time and he should have been allowed to grow old. Also the lack of emotion from my children who are carrying on with their happy lives thankfully. The way I’m just expected to carry on like he didn’t mean much.
The way he died replays in my mind.

He was the best cat, always happy and like a little shadow to us. He always had such a twinkle in his eye, and his purr was so loud. I will miss him so much and feel like a part of me has gone with him.

For anyone whose been through it, what helped you cope with the shock and devastation of this?

Oh @Koolkatz that is so sad, my beautiful cat died just as suddenly so I know what a shock it is.

If you need to have a small ceremony to say goodbye then do just that - in the garden or in your house in his favourite place. I put away my cat's bowls but kept her toy mouse out for a bit, along with a small collection of fluff that she had deposited in all the usual places, and a beautiful photo of her in the middle of it all.

Then when you're ready, just have the photo, stick it up somewhere prominent so that you can see him and talk to him whenever you need to.

It is no consolation at all, I know, but I'm sure he had a very lovely life with you, even if it was shorter than you both would have liked. Now he is over the Rainbow Bridge waiting for you (no doubt you know the poem so I won't print it on here), and one day you will be together again.

Take care of yourself.

Nothing helps really, we bury ours in the garden usually with a toy or where they liked to snooze and I think of them and their little personalities every time I walk past.

Mine were all ferals that wandered into our garden, who we adopted and treated and neutered and fed and loved and enjoyed so giving them a place to just be safer than they might otherwise have been is the best thing about it.

Each day they turn up for breakfast is a good day. When one doesnt and we cant find them im in bits all day, and if we find out one has left this world I go get them, and bring them back to where they were safest.

And there are always tears, lots of them. It is totally normal to be devastated when one passes.

If you feel that posting in a large community with people sharing a similar loss would help the Blue Cross pet support group on Facebook is amazing. I lost my dog and it was the worst pain, the first few weeks were breathtakingly awful. But I promise it gets easier. The group has helped me a lot as I didn't feel alone with it. I feel for you so much, only people who have truly loved a pet get it.

It’s truly heartbreaking, I’m sorry for your loss. You never forget them but it does get easier in time. The hole in our home was so big that I got two new rescue kittens in an indecently short time, they helped ease the pain. Absolutely not the same nor expected to fill original Dcat’s place but lovely bundles of fluff to love in their own right. Not the right way of coping for everyone but it worked for us.
Big hugs - it will get less sharp in time.

One of our cats died after extensive surgery for a bowel issue that came on very suddenly , he was 3 . I was devastated at the time and I just can’t think about him that much as after 15 months I’m still wondering if there was something else I could have done . Sorry for your loss @Koolkatz 💐

Agree with what everyone has said. Would also add that, from my experience, seizures are particularly traumatic for the pet owner. They come out of the blue, happen so quickly, and you think the pet is undergoing a lot of trauma.

I have been told by more than one vet that actually, when a pet (in my case, a cat) has a seizure, they aren’t aware of anything. So am passing this on in the hopes it might help you (though hopefully some vet had already told you this too).

Otherwise, the only things that helped ease my pain at all with the sudden death of previous cats was talking to other pet owners, being open with colleagues about how you are feeling, and getting all the paw prints and the fur clippings etc that you may need.

I had similar last week. One deteriorated quickly in the hot weather, she was quite old though and was put to sleep at the vets.
Then two days later one of my other cats died exactly as you described. The vet did say he had a heart murmur but they'd said that previously for other cats so I wasn't overly concerned. It's really shocking.

My reaction isn't really noticeable to others publicly but I do think about them a lot.

So sorry for your loss, OP. It’s absolutely not for everyone, but we adopted our boy very soon after having our lovely girl pts. I saw him on the Cats Protection website and just knew he would be our cat. He’d been a stray kitten and it was a real “project” to get him to be our cat and us to be his people, and it was just what I needed. Two years on and he’s the sweetest, cuddliest, funniest boy, and while I’m still so sad she had to go for him to come, I’m sure she sent him.

Our circumstances were different in that we were able to say a proper goodbye, and give her a lovely last week, but her diagnosis (cancer) was totally out of the blue, and really blindsided us. I pulled together a lot of photos and had some printed and framed. We also got her individually cremated so we have her ashes in the hearth with one of my favourite photos of her in a silver frame. Again, absolutely not for everyone, but I had the vet take her paw prints and got one tattooed on my inner arm so she’s always with me.

We’re just over the two year mark and I still get waves of grief at weird moments. Earlier this week we had a decorator in doing some painting, and DP came across her tunnel in the hall cupboard when we were moving stuff around so the painter could get in. He then found a video of her playing in it, popping her head out the hole in the top. She wasn’t really a toy cat, but she bloody loved that thing. Seeing the video I just burst into tears out of the blue!

I had to have one of my cats PTS really suddenly. Left her at the vets for an x-ray as she didn't seem to be recovering from an operation on her stomach very well and 15 minutes after getting home, got a telephone call saying they had found tumours on her lungs and it would be best for her to be PTS and did I want to go back or should they PTS there and then.

I felt as if I had been kicked, I just barely got the words out that I would go back, no way could I let her go without me being with her. I cried solidly in the vets and even got a letter from the vet a few days later who dealt with her saying how sorry she was and how it's the worst part of their job.

It took months for me not to get tearful if I started thinking of her but it did get better although for years after I would still get the sadness feeling if we talked about her or she was mentioned by someone.

It's really hard and does knock you for six for ages but it does get less painful as time goes on.

Just like with any bereavement, time is the only thing.

Losing my late cat a couple of years ago hit me so hard too. I'm sorry for your loss x