Happy Holidays 2025, Part VII: One Week On

 Days until Christmas: 9

 Days until my birthday: 4

It has now been a full week since we lost Pete. 

There are times where it seems like it was years ago, and there are times where it feels like it happened just this morning. 

I wanted to share a few photos here of the better times from his last few days and weeks:

October 14
Pete and Charlie

November 17

Pete and Empress

December 5 -- four days before he died
Pete and Empress

December 2 -- one week before he died

Pete and Gary

Pete so loved the other cats. He loved being the center of attention and loved that they wanted to snuggle with him and love on him, and all of them also loved having him there to love on. I'm sure they have all noticed his absence in one form or another. Interestingly though, as when Sadie passed, none of them seem to outwardly express it. Not a single one of these cats (the ones we had at the time, anyway) looked for Sadie once she was gone. It was as if all of them knew yeah, old lady is on the way out and then yep, old lady is gone, we expected that. With Pete, aside from them looking around for him on the morning of his death after we returned from the vet, and Emmy's where is he stares at me for around 24 hours afterwards, it was also like they realized pretty quickly that he was gone and wasn't coming back. 

They say cats can't reason, that they don't have the cognitive abilities for it, but I am sure they have the logic skills of "oh, he's sick, we can smell it" and then "oh, maybe he's dying" and then "oh, he's no longer here." You can't tell me they don't make those logical leaps because I've seen it, and I think some animals have more of an ability to express their emotions than others. As I've mentioned here before, when Maggie died, Pete lost his mind looking for her throughout the house, wailing and trying to get into any closed door to see if she was possibly in there -- while Sadie and Hank didn't seem to care that much. Interestingly enough, Hank was the shadow of each of the old girls in their final days and months; he used to lay with Sadie and watch over her when she wasn't feeling well -- he could tell. He wouldn't like, cuddle with her or anything, but he would sit or lay next to her pretty closely as if he were her protector. In Maggie's final days, Hank was still a little guy (only about six months old), but he formed a bond with her and would lay with her at night as she was there on the couch with me, as her body was slowly shutting down:

January 2024, a few short days before Maggie's death on January 19.

So yeah, I'm convinced they know, in at least some capacity.

How are we?

I won't lie, it's been hard and sad. Pete was such a fixture of this household that it does not feel like we just lost a cat, it feels like we lost our son. You can try to steel yourself against the upcoming pain of loss all you want, but no amount of preparation will ever truly prepare you for when it happens. 

Truthfully though, at this point, it's been a little easier for me because I'm used to it. Pete wasn't the first cat to go, of course -- the girls went before him -- so I knew what to expect from an emotional perspective and from more of an acceptance perspective. I say acceptance perspective because I knew the aftermath of losing a cat. I knew from previous experience with Maggie and Sadie that it hurts and it sucks, but once they're gone, they're gone and life moves on. I don't say that to sound cold or callous, but that's what it is. There has always been a hard line of distinction between before a cat passes and then after it happens. Suddenly they're just no longer there and you realize and accept that, and then to an extent it is out of sight, out of mind -- almost as if they never existed.

That sounds like a shock, I'm sure, but it is what it feels like. 

What is left is the empty hole of where they used to be, where those feelings persist and linger -- but even then your mind and soul have to slowly heal; you can't mourn forever. I sometimes feel pangs of guilt, like I am not mourning enough, as if I am forcing myself to move on before I naturally should, but...even then, I have to remind myself that I am human and I feel things, but I am also allowed to let my life go on as it should be going. 

Sometimes that gives me comfort, and other times it does not.

Anyway.

We do not have his ashes back yet, nor have we been called to retrieve them. I'm surprised they're taking this long, but...holidays.