An empty bowl

This week, my cat passed and now my heart hurts

Last week, I said goodbye to Pudding, my mum’s cat, who was almost 20 and who I’d been looking after since last April. I was her ‘retirement home’ and we formed a real bond in that short time.

After the event, I wanted to put into words how I was feeling. I wanted to share it raw, as an emotional stream of consciousness, allowing the words to tumble out, unedited.

The result is the following, and after reading it to my writers group on Saturday, I feel compelled to warn you that tears may follow.

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Pudleigh “Pudding” Marks, 2007 - 2026

“I'm walking through the world today, having just seen my cat pass. She was put to sleep at nearly 20 years old, and there's a strange disconnect when you lose a living being who is sweet and dear. You're walking through the spaces that you always walk through day after day, and yet somehow it all seems different. The cars are slower, the air feels heavier, everything seems muffled. You're looking at shops and streets that are familiar, and yet somehow everything seems like you're in some kind of weird matrix. You're othered because you're processing a loss, an irreparable loss. Even if you know you did absolutely the right thing, there's no coming back from it, and it's not, well, comfortable. Her breathing had become laboured, she was skin and bones. She'd lost so much weight, even the last three days, that she wasn’t able to sit comfortably. And so it was a traumatic decision to make to make the call to the vet a couple of days ago, and then take her in today, and have that discussion and finally, make that decision. I say a discussion, but it really was just me crying and snotting, knowing what needed to be done. But then knowing that she was at peace. And she was peaceful. I held her little pink fleecy blanket, papoosed and quiet, and ready for that transition to somewhere where she could once again eat well, sleep well, sit comfortably, breathe easily, and all this is happening in a world that's just going on around me normally. A car has just turned its engine on, and the noise has gone right through me. The sun has just hit me in the face as I turn a corner and now it's burning my eyes, my watery eyes. I'm short of breath. It's a blow to the chest. But you know, Pudding was cat who shouldn't have lived, and she lived for nearly 20 years. She did that because my mum looked after her and then carried her across oceans so they could stay together. And then when mum couldn't look after her anymore, Pudding came to live with me. And I will miss her little squeak, which she hasn't even been able to do in the last few days. And I will miss her sitting there waiting patiently for her breakfast. I will not miss her waking me up at 3 in the morning for her breakfast but maybe I will. And I will miss her sweet temperament, and us sitting on the sofa together, and me giving her what I used to call ‘spa day’, when I would brush her coat, so she was all glossy, and she would love that. And I'd tickle her belly, which is something I'd never been able to do before because she was always so wary by nature, but she wasn't fearful at the end. I gave her soft belly a little rub as she went to sleep, and I kissed her head many, many times, making it wet with my tears. You're losing comfort in a pet. You lose that unconditional love, you lose the joy and that emotion that you get when they do something really silly, like when she used to drink out of the flower pot and her paw would dangle. A little dangly flower pot paw. Or, before she got too weak, she would run around the living room after her little bouncy balls that she used to enjoy playing with, and I haven't seen her do that for a little while. And it's all the little things that add up, and you suddenly realise that the cat you love is really a shadow of her former self, and then that's the point where you go, “What is it I have to do now?” And you know what you have to do but that doesn't necessarily make it any easier. There's the rational side and then there's that selfish side. You don't want to say goodbye. Why would you? This is a life that brings you comfort in a world that often doesn't. So onward she goes now, and as I'm walking back home, trying to process all of this, I can feel the wind in my hair, and I'm watching a leaf blow across the road. I can hear a lawnmower somewhere, and I'm looking at the clouds in the sky, and I'm walking through a world that she is no longer in, but will always be a part of, having given nearly 20 years of love and light to the people who cared for her. It's the purest form of a relationship with a pet. You love them; they love you. That's it. It's simple. It's how it should be, and it's pure, and it means something. And her little life meant something, because ultimately, she wasn't meant to have that glorious long life after being found as a stray, the runt of the litter, not getting any food until my mum decided, for the first time in her life, to have a pet who, as she just told me, taught her patience and love. And honestly, what a gift. So yes, I’m distraught but I'm grateful. What a privilege it has been to get to know Pudding and live with her for the last 15 months. And now the walk home continues, just as her journey onward continues. The little cat that shouldn't have lived thrived for nearly two decades on this planet, and I think she really did make the most of it, and we made the most of her.

Life goes on.”