My cat died

My cat died(Simon Shaw) On Monday, our cat died. She had degenerating kidneys and in the end could not even stand up.

For over 14 year whenever I came home, there was a friendly face that greeted me, no matter how my day went, whether I had good or bad day at work, or whether I had been good or bad. It wasn't my wife and kids, who would sometimes be angry at me or not home yet. It was a constant friendly presence.

Now I will forever miss her, her looks at me when she is sitting on the fish tank looking at me working from home during Covid. Her whiskers pointing forward when I patted her, her claws tapping on the hallway as she joined me or the wife of the kids when we went to sleep; she curled up next to our feet. Now she was gone and the house which felt so welcoming for so may years seems cold and quite despite the wife and kids (6 and 12). My heart is breaking and it doesn't seem that anything will be the same again.

My 12 year old talked to me late on the day cat died. He explained that the smile on his face was fake, cat who sat with him when he watched his IPad, who also investigated him when he went to sleep, was gone. He also said that on top of that his Pop (my wife's father, his grandfather) died of cancer about 3 months ago, he had never seen his mum cry (she has clinical depression and find it difficult to express any emotion) even at her father's funeral.

This really broke my heart, maybe I had been focussing too much on my own grieve. Cat had been family to everyone, was always welcoming to everyone. We all loved her dearly and she always considered us her family, looking at everyone from the top of the fish tank, where the light was warm, making sure she knew where everyone was sleeping at night.

Both the kids' first word was cat, at it nosed around and investigated the babies when they were born. As cat was a little more than 2 years older than the oldest, they had always know her and always thought she would be around. The older one realised that she would pass one day but always thought that she would be around until he finished high school.

Now she was gone and the whole family, her family were very sad.

It is now my job to navigate my family through their grieve and this time, cat will not be around to help.