For me, the most difficult loss I’ve suffered was my 21 year old cat that passed during my Sophomore year of college. This cat, named Marc, was a kitten that my mom got before she became pregnant with me after adopting his brother previously. When I was about 10, my parents had started to prepare me for the idea that he might not last forever and that he could go any day, they had no idea that I would have so much longer with him.
The last month of his life, his stomach became distended and he started having some issues walking. He was still walking, eating, and didn’t seem in a lot of pain. We had scheduled a vet appointment for a Friday night that I had planned on going to with my mother, because some part of me had thought that he might not come out of it. I couldn’t live with myself if he went to the vet and needed to be put down and I couldn’t be there.
That Friday morning, I get a call from my mother before 7 am saying Marc had a seizure and passed away in her arms. She had put him in a separate room to get his wet food due to his age, we didn’t want the other cats to bother him. She heard him start to cry out and found him having this seizure. She was crying and wanted to know if I wanted to see him..of course.
My mother drove straight to my apartment near my college campus and I spent the next hour with him before I had a quiz. I went to this quiz, had forgotten my keys in the car, and she had to wait for me to come out. I rode with her to take Marc to my grandparent’s house to be buried as we couldn’t bury him at a rented house my mother lived in.
Marc was like a brother to me, I had known him for the first 20 years of my life and I am forever grateful I had so long with him and that my mother went back for him after adopting his brother all that time ago. I hope he is now enjoying being at peace and, if heaven exists, he’s enjoying spending all the time with his brother that passed when they were 7 that he never got to have.
My Life Story 