Mourning for My Puppy

Saturday was the end of the line for my sweet Puppy cat. As I mentioned before, he'd was diagnosed with large-cell gastrointestinal lymphoma back in October, and that's a pretty grim diagnosis. When he stopped eating, stopped drinking, and retreated to a hiding spot, I knew it was time to say goodbye.

Over the past two days, I've noticed I've reacted to his death the same way many people react to deaths of loved ones, both people and pets: We want the reminders of their illnesses gone, right away.

* I gave the unused medicines back to the vet, to give away to someone else in need.

* I had a number of special foods I'd bought to tempt Puppy to eat. Some went back to the store where I bought them. The ones I couldn't return, including open packages, went to a friend with a cat who would enjoy them. (My other cats would, too, but I'd rather keep them on their normal diet.)

* I gave the baby food — another tempt-Puppy-to-eat item — to my neighbors, who will in turn give it to people they know who have babies.

But the other things, that remind me of good times, I'm not ready to decide about, and there's no rush to make any decisions. That box he's curled up in, that he loved so much for many years — no, I'm not ready to do anything with that.

Again, this mirrors how many people deal with items after any loss; we wait a bit, and make decisions as we're ready.