Saying Goodbye To An Old Friend

'Cat' is definitely valid in the scrabble dictionary, right?

A couple of weeks back, we had to take my cat to the vets to have him put down because he'd basically got too old to function properly any more. Don't worry, this isn't going to be a letter telling him how much I'll miss him kind-of-post (I've seen a fair few of these in my time), because 1) He was a cat and therefore was pretty unlikely to read a letter anyway and 2) I can't help but feel like these sort of posts can be a little ridiculous-full of emotion and grief and heartache and, to be honest, I don't really understand.

We got Midnight (aforementioned cat) when I was 6 or 7 so he was a pretty grand age for a moggy, and was showing it. He was half blind, probably deaf and for the past year or so had been becoming more and more decrepit looking as he stopped looking after himself properly-I have no doubts that this was the right thing to do for him.
It's slightly weird to think that he'd been around for 2/3 of my life though-he'd met all of my boyfriends and a lot of my friends,  and left lasting impressions (and by impressions I mean scars!) on many of them, as well as all of my family. He'd put up with horrible children poking and prodding and chasing him for the last few years with a remarkable level of tolerance to say that he'd never really had the nicest temperament and was just as likely to gouge chunks out of your arm as he was to curl up on your knee. He was basically the grumpiest cat in the world, but he was well loved 'til the end. But that's it really. I mean he was just a cat. I don't know if I'm just particularly pragmatic about these things or particularly heartless but I'm really not too sad that he's gone. I mean sure, I keep seeing bundles of dark-coloured-somethings and thinking it's him curled up somewhere until I remember that it's not, and yes, that makes me a bit sad but I'm not heartbroken by it, I'm not all emotional, I'm not grieving. My Dad cried at the vets a few times but my eyes were dry-I felt a little choked up as it happened but otherwise I'm fine about it, really. At the end of the day, he was a pet, not a person-I dunno, it just feels strange to me that people can get so tied up in grieving for an animal. We were asked if we wanted to cremate him, which seemed really ridiculous to me. It's a cat.

It did make me think though-this is the first time I have ever really experienced death on a personal level. I've been lucky enough to get to 23 years old and still have three living grandparents-which I know is something that not everyone is able to claim. My other Grandad died when I was 6 or 7, when I was too young to really care too much. I've never been to a funeral, even, and touch wood I won't have to for a little while longer yet. My grandparents are no longer in the greatest of health, and they, like the cat, are starting to look a little run down, but they're still here-for now. That's what I've really learned from this-that I should thank my lucky stars that the I've never known grief, that the only death I've ever experienced was that of my cat. And I know that this won't last forever, that one day I'll know the sadness of someone I love dying, but I will find a way to deal with that when the time comes. For now I'm just appreciating how lucky I am that all the people I care about are still here, for however much longer that will last.

My cat had a good run and was well loved and looked after, and had a painless end, and really, I can only hope that when the time comes I can say the same for me and the people I love.

-Jenni-