Yesterday we had our cat Gordon put to sleep. His health started deteriorating in December, and the vet diagnosed him with cancer. She prescribed some medicine to help alleviate his symptoms. The meds helped for a while, but last weekend Gordon took a turn for the worse. He was barely eating and really struggled to walk. We knew it was time. We loved him very much; it was very hard and very sad to say goodbye.
Gordon was 15 years old. He spent the first 6 years of his life in a shelter, and the last 9 years with us. Today, actually, is the 9 year anniversary of him coming to live with us.
Wendy said something yesterday, which I whole-heartedly agree with: "I've always felt sorry for people when they had to have their pet put to sleep. But now that I've been through it, I realize I haven't felt sorry enough!" It's just an awful thing to go through.
I'm also grateful that Wendy reminded me of a blog post I wrote a year ago about a book called "After Life". I wrote this:
Lastly, we identified a few positive things about the pandemic:"[The book] mentioned the five stages of grief, but said the problem with it is that it implies a linear approach, where you come out the other end suddenly feeling better. The book suggested a different idea, the shape of the number 8, where grief is more like a cycle. The positive feelings are on top and the negative on the bottom, and you can move around in any order, at any time."
- We didn't travel for Christmas, so we didn't have to leave Gordon while he was sick.
- Since we both have to work remotely, we've been around Gordon all day every day for the last 10 months. For example, I usually keep the door to the office closed while I work. When Gordon wanted to hang out with me during the day, he would scratch at the door until I let him in. And when he was done hanging out with me, he would sit with his nose about an inch away from the door until I let him out. We performed that dance many, many times thanks to the pandemic.
I'll end this post with some pictures. RIP, Mr. G.
