Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

Everyone who knows me is likely to get tired of seeing me updating my life based on this event.
I have just lost one of the most important people in my life. My cat, Ruby, was fifteen years old when she was put to sleep today. She had been in my life for fourteen of those fifteen years. She was like my child and she was always with me and always there for me. She was the most constant person in my life and she never left me.
This last June, she had to have surgery because some of her teeth had rotted and caused an abcess to form. It was $550 for the surgery and everything that came with it, or put her to sleep. I refused to have her put down, because all of the tests had come back and said that she was 100% healthy, aside from those few teeth. So my mom's husband paid for half of the surgery. She was fine after that.
Except that she slowly started losing weight. Today I found out that her kidneys had started to fail. I was only at the vet for a half hour. In that half our I heard the news about her kidneys and at the end, I was there holding her when they put her to sleep. I held her when my mom drove us back to her place.
I cleaned her up and I wrapped her linen, adding crushed rose petals to the makeshift coffin that we settled her in. I left a tissu stained with my tears with her, so she would know even in death that I love and miss her more than anything.
She is buried in a grove of four trees now. There is a black and red marble slab that marks the spot and a jagged red slab acts as a headstone.
All I could say when I heard the news was "no, my baby." over and over again. I watched her go slack in my arms when they gave her the shot and the doctor checked her heartbeat. She said, "Her little heart has stopped." She was purring to the very end.
This is probably stupid to some people, but she wasn't my pet, she was my baby. I've never had someone close to me die before. I've gone to funerals for family, but I never really knew them. I have never felt so crushed and mortal before.