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Post by deathbymelancholy on Mar 5, 2018 18:38:53 GMT
How did you get over that replay in your mind?
Thanks.
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Asmoridin
Junior Strategist
Getting back into the game after too long a hiatus!
Posts: 323
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Post by Asmoridin on Mar 6, 2018 17:06:23 GMT
We had a cat that we had to put to sleep (Chylothorax). It was pretty tough for us for a time, but we did a few things to help.
One, we actually have a box in the living room (still- this is a nice wooden box) with her favorite toys, some pictures, her whiskers (they gave them to us after putting her to sleep), and random things that remind us of her. For a time, we would look through the box, but we try to push off how frequently we do it over time (we haven't touched it in over a year now).
Two, we try to remind ourselves WHY we did it. In our case, our cat, Izzi, was starting to suffocate. We really did EVERYTHING we could to keep her alive and healthy. She was just out of time. We knew that, but man it was tough. We fought on her side for over a year before realizing it was over. When it was over, we knew (and she knew).
Finally, after we healed a bit... we got a kitten. She can't replace Izzi, but our new cat fills some of those holes, and has new quirks that help ease the pain. We've had Sylvia for three years now. We miss Izzi, of course, but at the end, we did EVERYTHING possible, but it wasn't enough. Izzi knew she was loved. And now, Sylvia knows she's loved.
Time is going to be your best healer, overall.
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Post by deathbymelancholy on Mar 6, 2018 19:35:58 GMT
Had my dog for 16 years. Held her as her heart stopped, feeling her end, and that's the one that sticks. Keep trying to replace it with something better when it flashes across my brain, but it's tough. I've got some memorial stuff in the works, and we made a large donation to our local humane society as a thing as well. Totally not ready for the "next new pet" phase though. Just wish my head would lose that one particular memory.
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Asmoridin
Junior Strategist
Getting back into the game after too long a hiatus!
Posts: 323
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Post by Asmoridin on Mar 7, 2018 13:44:15 GMT
Oh yeah- it took us over a year to get a new pet. Like, you definitely shouldn't rush there.
That's hard- you're losing a member of the family, after all. But it will get better! A memorial definitely helped give us... maybe a symbolic place that she's always able to present in our house. Somewhere we can still see her *somewhat*.
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Post by macdaddy on Mar 8, 2018 9:04:39 GMT
The best thing i can say is to Take your time with this, I understand how you feel. It’s tough but what my family did was set up a little memorial to our dog in our house, and just let time work out the grieving.
Sorry for your loss. I understand how rough it can be.
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Miafan
Junior Strategist
Eater of Brains
Posts: 130
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Post by Miafan on Mar 10, 2018 20:06:10 GMT
Of our two cats, one died her own quiet death at age 22 in 2010, other one we had to put to sleep at age 24 in 2009. By that time she was blind, deaf, completely lost sense of direction (she went blind first and that actually hardly affected her at all) and basically was a walking vegetable - one that periodically started screaming. Doctors said that putting her to sleep was the one and only way - it took A LOT of effort to get my stepfather, whos cat it was her whole life, to cope with that, at some point we was afraid that he was going to have a heart attack (he had one about half a year before that). My parents later moved to another country to seaside due to health problems, had other cats from streat, but I never managed to get another pet. So I guess I never really got over that.
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Post by Soul Samurai on Mar 14, 2018 12:51:32 GMT
I'm sorry for your loss deathbymelancholy, and everyone else. My mother refused to let us get another cat after one we had for 12 years died, because she couldn't stand the thought of suffering through that pain again. We can't seem to stop strays from getting attached to us though (something to do with the fact that we keep feeding them...), so right now we've got 3 in the garden. We don't let them in the house though.
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Asmoridin
Junior Strategist
Getting back into the game after too long a hiatus!
Posts: 323
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Post by Asmoridin on Mar 14, 2018 14:33:41 GMT
I'm sorry for your loss deathbymelancholy , and everyone else. My mother refused to let us get another cat after one we had for 12 years died, because she couldn't stand the thought of suffering through that pain again. We can't seem to stop strays from getting attached to us though (something to do with the fact that we keep feeding them...), so right now we've got 3 in the garden. We don't let them in the house though. Have you guys named them? I've always been afraid of that with the wife- she gets really attached to animals. If she's named them, she starts getting attached real quick (although thankfully the one stray cat she named we just took to one of the shelters, and he got adopted in like two weeks).
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Post by Soul Samurai on Mar 15, 2018 4:05:29 GMT
Have you guys named them? Yes, although I generally just call all cats "cat" when speaking to them. This is Mingming (which apparently means or is slang for "cat" in Indonesian or something - I wasn't the one who named her): post-136776-0-71603100-1516095065.jpg (60.54 KB) For some reason she likes to claw her way up my clothes to sit on my shoulders and either lick or sometimes bite my head. I don't have the heart to stop her.
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Asmoridin
Junior Strategist
Getting back into the game after too long a hiatus!
Posts: 323
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Post by Asmoridin on Mar 15, 2018 14:36:15 GMT
Awwwww, she looks friendly! My cat loves to climb... but doesn't climb me. Thankfully.
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kaernak
Junior Strategist
Either pray to Menoth or feel his fury. You'll burn either way.
Posts: 172
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Post by kaernak on Mar 20, 2018 23:28:31 GMT
After 20 years I had to put my best friend down one Cyber Monday a few years ago. She was the best cat that ever lived (and I will fight you if you disagree.) The funny thing is about an hour after it happened I heard her scratch at my bedroom door (which was my office at the time) and heard her meow to be let in. When I opened the door and she wasn't there I was an absolute wreck.
It takes time. A lot of time. Take as much as you need. Sorry for your loss.
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Asmoridin
Junior Strategist
Getting back into the game after too long a hiatus!
Posts: 323
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Post by Asmoridin on Mar 22, 2018 13:09:34 GMT
After 20 years I had to put my best friend down one Cyber Monday a few years ago. She was the best cat that ever lived (and I will fight you if you disagree.) The funny thing is about an hour after it happened I heard her scratch at my bedroom door (which was my office at the time) and heard her meow to be let in. When I opened the door and she wasn't there I was an absolute wreck. It takes time. A lot of time. Take as much as you need. Sorry for your loss. Oh man, when we put our first cat (Izzi) to sleep, we used to hear her meowing for a while, just randomly. Once, we "felt" her walking on the bed (of course, she wasn't, a spring just creaked more than it should have). I think it brought a bit of comfort to my wife, who insisted the cat was still around in some form.
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kaernak
Junior Strategist
Either pray to Menoth or feel his fury. You'll burn either way.
Posts: 172
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Post by kaernak on Mar 22, 2018 13:17:08 GMT
After 20 years I had to put my best friend down one Cyber Monday a few years ago. She was the best cat that ever lived (and I will fight you if you disagree.) The funny thing is about an hour after it happened I heard her scratch at my bedroom door (which was my office at the time) and heard her meow to be let in. When I opened the door and she wasn't there I was an absolute wreck. It takes time. A lot of time. Take as much as you need. Sorry for your loss. Oh man, when we put our first cat (Izzi) to sleep, we used to hear her meowing for a while, just randomly. Once, we "felt" her walking on the bed (of course, she wasn't, a spring just creaked more than it should have). I think it brought a bit of comfort to my wife, who insisted the cat was still around in some form. I've moved from the place I lived when my cat passed. At my new place I kept seeing her out of the corner of my eye in places that I KNOW she'd have loved. My current cats react to another cat being in the house (which has happened a few times since my neighborhood has the friendliest strays). If that could all be passed off as happenstance(it can be, I admit) we've had a very strange occurrence. My fiancée and I were in bed one night and both felt a cat jump up on the bed, our cats both weigh 16+ lbs(large breeds are the best)so we weren't mistaking the feeling. I turned, expecting to see one of them but watched in surprise as an invisible.....cat?...left paw indentations on our thick comforter that stopped at my chest, where my old cat used to sleep at night. We both looked at it, at each other, said hi to my old cat and both thought we heard her chirp in response. Strange...but I always feel like she's still around.
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Post by Havock on May 17, 2018 2:48:22 GMT
Yeah, I come from a family used to pets (and not having them means it's "empty", so something always was around, dog, then two cats. Then one cat. Then one cat and a dog, then one dog.
Said dog is a German/Belgian Shepherd cross and 11 years old now. She's currently staying at my place because work changed for my parents, and leaving our girl alone for possibly up to 11 hours is a bit much.
Still, she's 11 years old. And neither breed is especially long-lived (12 is old) and her hip dysplasia does not help. So that moment will happen sometime in the near future and it's going to suck.
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kaernak
Junior Strategist
Either pray to Menoth or feel his fury. You'll burn either way.
Posts: 172
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Post by kaernak on May 17, 2018 16:31:03 GMT
I'm very sorry for you Havock. We had something like that go on with my fiancée's family. Their dog had gotten to the point that she could hardly stand at all.
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