- Date posted
- 3y
How do you deal with the loss of a pet?
2 days ago I've had the realization that my cats have become old, that they have already lived two thirds of their life and that they won't be gone too long from now. My mum said that we have to start being mentally prepared. They've been always with me since I was a kid, I cared about them but I never played too much with them. They're very kind and special cats but I didn't give them what they deserve. I set them aside, I took them for granted, I thought they'd be with me for my whole life. I used to joke with my mum saying that our cats were becoming old, not realizing that they already were. I thought we had more time. I never really experienced death in my life. I've never become an "adult" in that sense. I've never dealt with it. I know that if my cats died now I'd be full of regrets, because I didn't make any "special" memories with them. I'm afraid that once they're gone I won't have enough mediums to remember them, to cherish them. I don't have a lot of meaningful photos or special videos about them, they're all generic, random and scattered somewhere in my phone. There isn't a moment that could capture the specialness of my cats. I want to have special videos about my cats like from the videos of that yt channel called Dodo. It pains me knowing that I won't be able to capture the perfect memory of my cats, in all of their details, uniquenessses, the affection they show us. It's not like an ending of a show, a book or a comic, where you can always relive every moment you want, rewatching from the start. Those things are also remembered by many more people, and because of that they're timeless. But this is is something limited in its form, I don't know how to explain it well. I want to keep and remember everything of their existence. Maybe I want to have proof that there was love. It would also be unhappy, who would want to cerish the memories if it made us sad? I'd be holding the memory of their existences. If I forgot them, they'd be gone for good. And if I died who would remember them? Then they'd be gone for real. I don't know if this has something to do with perfectionism OCD. It hurts. Since then I've been grieving the possibility of my cats dying and I spiraled into gloominess, reflecting about death, our mortality. The meaninglessness of things. I feel a bit blank, and a void in my chest. I don't want my cats to die, but one day, not far away, they will. I can't imagine how I'd feel. I literally can't, I tried.