Farewell my dear feline friend

Regarding the cat in the GIF of my moniker:

Just a few hours ago, I took Carmelita to Jules vet to put her to rest. She had a badly abscessed tooth and had stopped eating. She must have been in a great deal of pain. The last few days I noticed she couldn’t chew any food. She could lick pureed food. Beyond that, she was also slowly dying of kidney failure, which made oral surgery inadvisable. Putting her to rest was very stressful emotionally. I cried on the way to the vet, I cried at the vet, I cried on the way home.

I know I will miss her dearly. When I stop to think how she would rest on my chest when I rested on the recliner; that she would cuddle up against my right arm when I slept in bed; that she would sit on the kitchen table right next to my plate and wait for a handout; that her cat food and water were on the left-arm desk extension on my computer desk and while I was on the computer, she would step onto my stomach and want to be cuddled; that she would purr when I gently blew warm air on her neck; and that, when I used to be able to go for walks, she would follow me like a puppy and want to be with me -- all those memories come rushing in and cause me to break down and cry yet again. I know that I made the right decision, but that doesn’t stop me from missing her. Tonight will be the first night without her next to me in bed. I doubt I’ll sleep very much.

Being a student of scripture for the past 40+ years, I am well aware that unlike humankind who has the hope of the resurrection, animals have no such arrangement by God. When they are gone, that is all there is. I know that some religions, even my former Catholic faith, have grossly deviated from the Bible teaching and have even invented the false hope that animals go to heaven. The Bible doesn't teach that & I do not believe that. I am grateful to the creator, the God Jehovah, that I had the wonderful experience of having Carmelita in my life for the past 15 years. I am only writing this here because I feel she deserves to be memorialized.

 

@JFB: That's okay. I really just needed somewhere to voice my sorrow. It still hits me hard when I think about it but I don't break down and cry as readily as I did at first. My wife has a cat she loves, but even my wife has acknowledged that her cat could never hold a candle to my dear Carmelita. She seemed to have a self-awareness and street smarts. I am still blown away with her unique personality. I never thought I could care so much for an animal. To me, she was a fellow companion, not a "lower life form," but an equal. If I could have given up some years of my life so she could live longer I would have readily done so. The logical side of me tells me that she was not human, but sometimes she amazed me with things she did. Even though she lived much longer than indoor / outdoor cats live (average of 8 to 10 years), I feel she deserved much more than the 14 years of life she had.

 

@Jay2TheRescue: I had a friend that also lost his dog about 2 months ago. I recommended he write his fond and quirky memories about the dog as a therapy and permanent remembrance. It took him 2 months to even be able to think about the pet without becoming emotional. He said he started it last week. I started my recollections about Carmelita a few weeks before I actually put her down because I knew that once I did, I would be unable to deal with it for some time. I created another remembrance for a dog we had for 15 years. Including all the pictures I had of her, it was nearly 20 pages long.