Establishing cat's death cause

[Margret]

Geezee, I'm very sorry for your loss.  Most of us have already lost cats; all of us will one day.  Their lives are just too short in comparison with ours.  So, I'll say what I always say.

1. Grieving is extremely important.  Do not try to skip this step.  You have to grieve in order to heal.
2. It hurts as much as it hurts.  Sometimes it's more painful to lose a pet than a parent, not because we care less about the parent, but because our pets believe we can fix anything, and we can't, so we feel that we've let them down.  (Our parents never have that illusion about us.  They remember changing our diapers.)  Don't let anyone get away with telling you "It was just a cat.  Get over it."  She (not "it") was not "just" anything.  She was a member of your family.
3. It takes as long as it takes.  Don't let anyone get away with telling you "It's already been three (six, nine, whatever) months.  Get over it already!"  Your grief is your own, and you grieve in your own way and time, and no one else has the right to tell you that you're doing it wrong.
4. There are no shortcuts and no bypasses.  The only way to the other side of grief is straight through the middle.  Attempting to shorten the process merely ensures that you will never finish it.  It can haunt you forever if that happens.
5. Cut yourself a bit of slack at this time.  You may find yourself forgetting things.  That's what notepads are for.  Make lists if they help you.  You may want to supplement your B vitamins; they help your body to deal with stress.  (To quote a doctor of mine, from, maybe, 35 years ago, "Avoid stress."  "What?!  Avoid stress?!" said I [another doctor had been causing me a great deal of stress, which is why I had called her].  "And if you can't avoid stress, take lots of B vitamins.")

Losing a loved one is a lot like an amputation.  Something has been taken that was a part of you, and you'll never get that back.  But the wound must be attended to, by grieving, so that it can heal cleanly.  Eventually it gets better.  There will always be a hole in your heart that is shaped like this particular cat, and no other cat can fill that hole.  But, someday, you will be ready to adopt a new cat, for his or her own sake, and that cat will make its own place in your heart.  And, I'm sorry to say, eventually it will leave its own hole in your heart, as well.  This is the price we pay for loving cats, and it is a price worth paying.

Margret