Do we just live and suffer and die?
Your cat had a good life and loved you and then died. There doesn’t have to be a point, there’s more good than suffering.
My experience has been a net negative and I don’t event have it that bad.
The world does suck right now. All the more reason to find something like a cat or some other thing that makes you happy to help ignore all the bullshit.
I have a cat, two dogs, married, high paying 30 hour a week job, no debt, several good friends, tight family. Still net negative.
I’d ask to switch with you, except I know very well that anyone’s life can be much more complicated than it seems on the surface, and happiness does not automatically come from any of that. Therapy doesn’t help everyone be happier, but it’s something worth trying or trying again.
No there isn’t.
The point is to give someone vulnerable a full life, with safety and warmth.
From your perspective, time went by too fast; from their perspective, it was a long and peaceful lifetime, they were incredibly fortunate to have someone like you.Also, there is an implicit assumption we carry around that to be immortal is some sort of blessing or state to aspire to, while it may very well be that being mortal is itself the blessing.
In my opinion, the highest tribute one can pay to a departed friend and companion is to again open one’s home to another vulnerable creature and make him/her family.
Do it in your departed friend’s memory and honor. If you could communicate again with them, you would let them know this is part of their proud and gentle legacy, to reduce suffering on the world - “Look what you did, by being who and what you were for me in life, you opened the door for someone else when their turn came.”
This is what I have done, and do not regret a minute of it.
🥲
My cat died April 16th, 2023. Had a few, never have another. Can I share my story? I swear there’s a point at the end.
Adopted her from a local redditor, who had only had her a month. She was always tiny, but at some point, cancer wasted her overnight. By the time I noticed her collar falling off her 1.5" neck it was too late. We found her dead in the hallway the next night.
She sat on my lap every night, and that’s all she wanted, simple affection. I was single and living alone, excepting a friend with benefits across the street, I was terribly alone. She was my solace, my peace. She was my friend, not an animal, not a pet, my friend. And gods how I cried because I felt I had let my dear friend down. Hell, crying now.
“WHY?!”, I screamed. Why was such a blameless and harmless friend dead when I’ve done such evil in life?! I’ve tried to be one of the good guys, but I’ve done bad things. She had no concept of evil, she just was, and only asked for comfort. Call it survivor guilt, guess it is. But a life like hers clearly deserved more life than my tainted soul.
She didn’t do any of the typical cat meme stuff, just kinda hung around. Rarely left the yard, just sat in the shadow of my truck when it was hot, chilled inside when it was cold. Always low energy, but no issues the vet could point to.
Anyway, I buried her out at my personal chunk of swamp in the boonies. Fought for 30 minutes to cut through cypress roots, but I wanted her to rest in a nice shady spot by the water. Literal blood, sweat and tears getting that tiny grave open. Didn’t think anyone would give a shit, but my friends all rolled out. I’m the guy in the cowboy hat. I salute her grave every time I pass.
Mom died 2-weeks ago, on my birthday. I cried for that cat far more than for her. I get you. I feel you. LOL, I’m sure mom cried more for the death of her mountain lions than she would have for me. So it goes.
So yeah, we live and we die. Our friends and family die. Suffering? I dunno. Did my cat suffer? She certainly did for at least some of her life. But she certainly didn’t after I got her. At least she was as happy as I knew how to make her.
Suffering is only possible if you’re alive. Hell, we could be atoms embedded in a Jovian moon, but at least we’re here to feel. And that’s pretty fucking wild if you think about it. I’ve suffered like hell, but I’ve also experienced and loved more than the vast majority of humans ever will. (And if you looked at our pics, the little Asian woman is now my wife. Funny how life works out.) If I died tonight, I’d call it a win. Being alive is a fabulous gift, even though it has its downsides.
How about you tell us about your cat? Your turn OP. Step up and let us have it.
I truly appreciate your story because I’ve been there. Had my best friend for 13 years - the cat who would be waiting by the door when I got home from work, who would cry out in the house if she didn’t know what room I was in. The one who was always on my lap and who slept right next to me snuggled up against me in bed at night. She was the perfect cat and friend, and even though it’s been 8 years, I still think about her on an almost daily basis.
I love how you gave your friend such a loving and caring place to rest. I’m sending you random internet stranger hugs and good vibes. <3
Man, I can’t believe I’m still crying about a fucking cat. But you get me.
She was always there. She was there when I was so very lonely and depressed. She wasn’t bitchy or loud or insistent, she just appeared on my lap when I finally sat down for the evening.
Check the videos I posted, those are people who never gave a shit about a cat and loved her dearly. I know, they came to the funeral for me, those events are always for the survivors, but still, they had words.
Glad OP posted this so we could all share, get it out some.
What’s wrong about crying about a cat? It’s like losing a family member after all.
I lost my cat two years ago and miss her dearly. We vowed no more pets but as time went on we missed having a pet. So we got another cat.
It’s hard when the end feels so cruel but having years of joy outweighs the weeks of sadness.
I’m sorry for your loss, bud. I lost my dog last week in a similar way. I took her in for a routine tooth cleaning, they found a mass in her abdomen, and her body wasn’t strong enough to recover from the anesthesia 😞.
She was so young, and as you point out, so incontrovertibly innocent. It’s been a difficult time this week accepting that she’s suddenly gone from my and my partner’s life.
A friend shared this with me and it’s been “living rent free” as they say.
Time is an illusion that makes things make sense,
So we’re always living in the present tense.
It seems so unforgiving when a good thing ends,
But you and I will always be back then.
Here’s to animal friends making us our most human selves.
Welcome to the philosophy of absurdism.
Life has no meaning, nothing has purpose.
In this freedom find the space to make your own meaning and your own purpose.
You kitty likely had a long kitty life with someone who loved them and who they loved. You created purpose where none existed for the both of you.
I am sorry for the loss of your kitty my dude, I’m sorry you’re hurting.
This is how I’ve made sense of the world… Nothing actually matters so I get to choose what matters to me.
Oh for sure - I’ve been calling myself an Absurdist for years. It just fits and makes the most sense to me.
nothing really matters, that’s what gives our presence meaning. there is no grand score keeping, which makes things like kindness all the more meaningful.
when nothing matters, how we live and express ourselves becomes even more meaningful.
I said this at work, and my boss was not happy. Maybe don’t spend 30 years at the same job pretending you’re changing the world?
I work in a career where some folks can really drink the coolaid… But, like, we’re not really changing anything? At all.
But who cares? It is what it is - do the job, get paid, go home and do something fun.
Don’t be a reductionist. If that’s all your cat was and that’s all your relationship was, then fine. If it wasn’t, you owe it to that cat to remember all the good times you two had between when it came to life and when it lost its life. Do it for the cat.
Then, when you’ve finally moved past this point, realize how much joy you gave that cat. Know that you did something beautiful in letting that cat know it was loved from beginning to end. Think about the cat’s perspective. Its death may have sucked; they rarely don’t. Now think about every moment that cat experienced growing up and being with you. Every sense of relief that cat felt when you came home. Every wave of comfort when you gave it pets. Every moment of safety it felt when you cared for it.
I know how sad you are, and I know this is tough love here, but that’s what carried me through losing my dog on Christmas 2022 and her sister December 16th 2023. We did our best. They couldn’t have had happier lives. I’m glad we could do that for them. It was worth the weeks of agonizing grief for the 14 and 16 years of happiness they experienced.
My dog is only 3, almost 4, but I try to think about stuff like this every day I come home from work and give him attention. I’m not crying, but my eyes certainly aren’t dry anymore.
I can’t find the original, so this is a link to a repost on Twitter. Hope it makes you smile like it always does for me.
https://twitter.com/The_YUNiversity/status/1381262764178604032
Bonus: https://imgur.com/oSiajTF
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ive had to say goodby to a few pet friends now. i dont regret having my pet friends.
we got to enjoy each others company, and honestly the pet gets the better end of this deal if their people are sound.
the pet gets the better end
The one comforting thing is that my cat probably doesn’t care about leaving as much as I do. He loves sleeping anyway
were all ships passing in the night. a few get to know each other before moving on.
i just got my first dog. i hate dogs. i now only hate all other dogs. and this dog… well, its already bothering me i will have to say goodbye.
but it reminds me of that south park episode
Butters is too damn pure for South Park (most of the time). He’s probably my favorite side character.
The point is that he got born and got to live with you for many years.
Don’t focus on the end, focus on all the great moments you had together.
I didn’t write this, but I reread it every time I lose someone I love, and it has helped me a lot. Hope it can do the same for you.
"Alright, here goes. I’m old. What that means is that I’ve survived (so far) and a lot of people I’ve known and loved did not. I’ve lost friends, best friends, acquaintances, co-workers, grandparents, mom, relatives, teachers, mentors, students, neighbors, and a host of other folks. I have no children, and I can’t imagine the pain it must be to lose a child. But here’s my two cents.
I wish I could say you get used to people dying. I never did. I don’t want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the circumstances. But I don’t want it to “not matter”. I don’t want it to be something that just passes. My scars are a testament to the love and the relationship that I had for and with that person. And if the scar is deep, so was the love. So be it. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are a testament that I can love deeply and live deeply and be cut, or even gouged, and that I can heal and continue to live and continue to love. And the scar tissue is stronger than the original flesh ever was. Scars are a testament to life. Scars are only ugly to people who can’t see.
As for grief, you’ll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you’re drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it’s some physical thing. Maybe it’s a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it’s a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.
In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don’t even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you’ll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what’s going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything…and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.
Somewhere down the line, and it’s different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O’Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you’ll come out.
Take it from an old guy. The waves never stop coming, and somehow you don’t really want them to. But you learn that you’ll survive them. And other waves will come. And you’ll survive them too. If you’re lucky, you’ll have lots of scars from lots of loves. And lots of shipwrecks."
I needed something like this in my life
Reddit used to have a lot of good posts full of wisdom. This was posted there around 10 years ago in reply to someone struggling with losing their child… It has helped me, and countless others, immensely with putting grief and loss in a proper perspective. Just beautiful.
I had read this before. Then I searched for it and found it when I lost my father last year. And then I told this metaphor to my mother to give her something to hold on to. I think this dude may have touched a lot more lives than he knows.
It can be helpful to see these attacks of grief over the sudden memory of now passed family, friends, and pets in a different way:
Which is how incredibly lucky you are to have had those experiences and memories in your life as opposed to not having had them at all. Which is something to be grateful for.
When my dog died a few months ago, I cried harder than I had in probably 15 years on and off for a solid week. It’s brutal. But I promise it will get a little more bearable as time passes. Doesn’t feel like it right now, but it will. And the best part is that it’s not like they just disappear from your life. It will become more bearable, and the tragedy will give way to wonderful memories that you share over and over.
Similar to when my cat died. I’m still sad 2 years later, but the memories are fond and when I see a photo of her it brings me more joy than sadness. I know I gave her the best life and I continue to do the same for my current pets. Yes life is short and feels fleeting, but if I could give my cat the life I gave her a second time , I’d do it again every time.
Same… its been 11 months. Best friends for over 15 years and then cancer wrecked her far too slowly.
Yes. Maybe enjoy things too. The universe is meaningless and we’re here by accident.
The only question is what to do about it.
Anyway, sorry about your cat. I’m sure it lived as nice a life as possible.
Yes. Life is a blip of mostly suffering and pain. But, within that whirlwind of time, there are incredibly warming and thought-provoking moments. For your cat, it was probably laying on your lap. Cozying up somewhere warm. Getting pet, and chasing something far too nimble to catch.
Life has genuine joy in it that makes the hard times worth it. It’s through the hard times that we can find the most sympathetic and connecting moments.
I’m sorry for your loss, I’m sure your cat loved their time here, with you.
If you are sad because you lost your cat, that means you loved it. So yes, you live, you suffer but you also love. Im sure you made your little friend very happy as it made you and Im sure you gave it a great life that few creatures in this planet can have. If you made such a difference on a living creature, you can do it again. Maybe that is the point of all this.
Applause to you for this.
It hurts. I had to put my cat of 18 years down last year and it hurt for a long while. But I wouldn’t trade having her as my friend; the end was sad and rough, but I made sure she had as good of a life as I could give her the entire time she was with me. We can’t do much better than that for our furry friends.
Hang in there friend, it does get better with time.
We are approaching exaxtly this. Got her as a palm-sized mini-furball 17 years ago. A true lap-cat, always on top of us. It won’t be much longer; I am absolutely not looking forward to that day. Well, she will be the most cared for elderly cat in the region. That’s about all we can do. It’s insane how a mostly asleep tiny creature that never learns anything can affect one’s life.
18-years is damned rough OP. Jesus, I feel for you. But 18-years is a hella life for a cat, so good job fellow human. You did your part. Can’t say if I’ll ever have a relationship that long, but my kids are young, who knows!
Yeah pretty much. What you do in the meantime is up to you.
Pets are particularly weird because we get them knowing damn well we will outlive them. I view it as giving the little babies as close to a perfect life, and as comfortable a passing as pawssible.
If we could set the lifespan of our pets, how would we? On one hand, giving them as much time as possible seems like a no-brainer. On the other, it’s a lot more weighty to get a pet that you have to keep forever and maybe pass on to children.
You gave your cat years of love, how can all that be meaningless? It will be a sad day when my 19yr old buddy passes but I’m grateful for his love everyday and happy I can love him back. Death is inevitable but life is what you make of it.
