Reflections on my loss, 2+ years ago, for those on the precipice

It’s been 2 years and almost 3 months. I’ve wanted to write something to pass along what’s been happening in my mind since then, but it never felt like the right time. And although it still doesn’t feel right, this may be as close as it gets. This is a short essay, I guess, on my experience, and I know it won’t be relatable in everyone’s case. But I hope someone can get something from it at least, to know what they can expect, and if it’s valuable to them, to know that someone else has gone through it.
I also may never get close to understanding how any other person feels when going through the loss of a pet. In my own life, my sweet old lady cat had come to be the only thing I had to care for, and cared for. From what I’ve seen in life, you add slices as you go through it. Some slices get bigger over time, some smaller. Some are taken away. For me, she was the only slice left, and she was my entire reason for being. So although I had feared the worst for years leading up to that day, nothing could prepare me for the loss of everything.
9 years prior, when her sister passed, it was devastating. From the moment I knew something was wrong, to the moment she stopped breathing, it was about 20 seconds. There was never anything I could have done, and I loved her so dearly, and I had to see her sister deal with the loss. But there were other things and people in my life. I still feel guilty about that; moving forward and leaving her in the past. 2 years and 3 months ago was orders of magnitude worse.
I won’t go into great detail about the emotions I felt because I could never do it justice. It was desperation, anxiety, homesickness, devastation. I’ll just say that for a brief time, about a month later while the wound was still fresh and bleeding, I saw it. I reached out over the edge into the abyss, and felt what it must feel like when you truly cannot take it anymore. And to anyone else that thinks they might be feeling that way, just know that I don’t feel like that anymore, and I haven’t for a long while. I miss her relentlessly, and I am desperate to find out if she’s there waiting for me after my own journey is done, but that undiluted, blinding agony is behind me. It can be for you too.
For those still reading, I would like you to also know a few things about her, because she deserves to be remembered. I gave her pills every day for a year, and every other day for the year before that. Not once did she raise a claw to me. She loved sunbeams and french fries. She curled up on my lap after meals, not in defiance to callous and aloof stereotypes, but simply because they never applied to her. A lot of people claim they have the best cat in the world. I’m sorry to say, but I am the only one who was telling the truth.
I haven’t gotten another cat and I don’t think I ever will. There is no offer, earthly or divine, that could convince me to change my past in a way that separates her from my life for even one second. And it’s hard to go into a journey with another cat, knowing I guess that maybe the bar is set as high as it goes. Or that in the best case scenario, I get to another last day, and I’m much closer to the abyss than I was last time. I’m not eager to do that. Maybe in a healthier time in my life, when my heart is ready. But she was just such a massive presence, in a tiny tori body, that I’m still milling around in the track of her paw print.
In conclusion, it’s going to hurt. I know that sucks, and it’ll feel like a ton of bricks on the best days, but there is a reason for it. You can’t add a loving, adoring, loyal creature to your life without paying the price at the end; but they are paying it too. Go with them now, every day, and all the last days they have. Cherish them and add love into your heart as you go. It will ease over time.
I think this was more rambling than I wanted it to be. Off the cuff being what it is.