The First Week's the Worst (Remembering Manny...)

[Dem Agog]

It just hit me today, which is the two week-aversary marking the extremely sudden, and painful death of our 5 year old cat. He was in my arms, as we were rushing to the emergency clinic, when he finally died. It's not as calm to remember as it sounds. We were screaming his name, "Manny! Stay with us Manny!" as my husband ran red lights at 9:45PM on a cold Thursday night. I was trying to give him mouth to mouth, which I don't know how to do to a cat, but it turned out it wouldn't have worked anyway. The emergency vet gave us a diagnosis of "cardiomyopathy", the hidden heart disease that kills perfectly healthy athletes on the playing field too.

The first week's the worst. The first Friday without him, then the first Saturday, and Sunday. Then realizing you've spent your first weekend without one of your best friends, who seemed fine just Wednesday night.

The second week's at least not full of all the firsts. But it still hurts. And I still can't see straight through the tears everytime it comes back to my head. When I'm going to sleep I remember his last minutes, and it sends me into sobs. I don't know how people get by, knowing someone they loved and cared so much about struggled so painfully in their last minutes on earth. I honestly don't know how people live with that on their shoulders, especially when they lose a loved one violently.

People keep telling me "at least" he died in my arms, with a person he loved so much. But that's not helping. At times I wonder if it would take chopping my arms off to remove the painful feeling of my cat's life vanishing in them. But the memory would still be there.

Christmas sucks.