When my dog died almost a year ago to the day, it was one of the worst things my wife and I have ever gone through. I know that’s proof of my privilege—but I think it’s also proof of how much animals mean to us. They’re pure good. I work a lot of weird shifts; when I come home my wife may not be awake or present, but my dog was always there. It initiated intense, physical grief in both of us.

Lean on any friends or family you have. Post here. Don’t deny how bad you’re hurting, but look for another animal to help after you grieve. I feel like our pets represent different chapters in our life, and when one leaves us a new chapter opens. That chapter may come with a different pet for a different time of your life. We chose to use the closing of our chapter as a transition point—we had a few horrible months at first but ultimately kicked some bad habits we had been building for a while. But where you are right now is horrible, and as another human being I understand to an extent how badly you’re hurting.

I hate platitudes, but I did hear the saying something like grief is love with nowhere to go. The amount of suffering you feel is proportional to the amount of love you gave your cat, so it sounds like your cat was exceptionally lucky overall.

We lost our cat a few years ago. She was quirky and weird and sick her entire short life. She had lymphoma - the vet never even tested for it because she was too young. The day we were supposed to bring her home from an overnight stay was the day we had to put her down, and it scarred us deeply. My work sent me home, I was so useless. I cried for hours when I realised our other cat had stopped eating from half of the bowl they shared.

It sucks. It always sucks. It feels like it will never get better, and it won't, but it'll get dimmer. You'll be able to remember the good stuff more often without the final moments crashing in. It just takes time.

For now if you have to wallow in despair, do it. You lost a loved one. It's your right. Remember though, you're going through all this because your pet didn't have to. You held up your end of the deal, and your pet got a great life because you took the pain of loss away from them.

Yes, you are correct on broad terms. Life has no objective meaning. It has a lot of subjective meaning, though.

You loved your cat and your cat loved you. You wouldn’t be upset about this if those two things weren’t true. Does that matter in the grand scheme of things? No, but it matters to you and it mattered to your cat.

I understand where you’re coming from. I have lived in despair after friends, family, and pets have “moved on”. It never gets easier, and I am tearing up thinking about the many moments like this that I have experienced, and the many more that I will experience.

It’s probably very hard to hear right now, but you should soldier through this. You don’t have to, but there are a lot of relationships that you will experience that you don’t even know about yet. There are people and pets that you haven’t met yet or that haven’t even been born yet who you will have an impact on, and who will have an impact on you.

And though this kind of loss is not something that a human can ever really leave behind, one day you will understand it, and you’ll leave a comment like this one. And you’ll know that every relationship we have is valuable (in one way or another) and worth sticking around to experience.

Life is meaningless, but only on a grand scale. The pain you’re feeling now only tells you that life is worth experiencing, even if it doesn’t really mean anything in the end.

RIP to your cat. You probably won’t ever really, “get over” the loss, but this relationship has helped you understand how to love.

I'm sorry. We just got back from taking a cat we loved to be cremated.

Do we just live and suffer and die?

Yep, that's pretty much it as far as I can tell.

The living part can be good sometimes. There's cheese and purring. But living suffering and dieing pretty much covers it.

If you find comfort in words and ideas, I found the chinese text called the Zhuangzi helped me come to accept the world with less bitterness. It's quite funny and thoughtful, silly and logical.

Yes and no. On one (nihilistic) hand, you live to die. The other hand (the better one) is that you give your own meaning to live. Fill in the spaces between the living, dying, and suffering parts, to make them seem insufficient in comparison. Just like the time you spent with your cat.

Nothing makes either side any less true - it's all up to interpretation. For your mental health, though, it's better to follow the latter.

yeah pretty much. You're living now though, so you've got no choice right? you try to make the best of it.

I'm sorry for your loss. losing cats is harder than losing humans sometimes. we don't deserve the love that they give.

On the large scale of thing, we're only able to witness time through a small window we call our existence, entirely locked from interacting with what happens before or after. It's a bit sad to know that we won't ever be able to witness some historical events, but that's just how life is.

There's no universal reason in living, it's just a wild ride that we witness and try to make sense of. Consider this: your cat's existence, however long or short, contained mostly your presence and affection, and while he's now gone, remember that you gave him the best life you could, filled with you in it. From your point of view, it's a small time window, but for him it was an entire life.

My condolences, and hope you can find some solace by reminiscing the time spent together with him.

I think we don't really appreciate time until we know it ends. Unfortunately, we outlive some animals, but we get to enjoy time with them and doing everything possible to make their life better.

I lost my dog last year, it was rough. My family wasn't there, I had to go by myself and the vet couldn't do more to save her, but I was there, she wasn't alone, she never was. I always watched her, played with her, even danced with her because she was very tall. I remember the first time I saw that she couldn't peek at the window anymore, she was getting old and fragile and she couldn't get up, I realized that I could only give her all the love I could, but I distanced myself some days from her because I didn't wanna suffer her loss, I was afraid of what was going to come in the next months.

After some time, I realized I was being very selfish because I would remember all the love I had for her, but she would remember how in her last months I abandoned her, and I couldn't let that happen. My love for her, my time with her; our time together was what make some parts of my life great! She made me feel better a lot of times and I always reciprocated.

I think one of the points of life, at least mine, is to make other lives better, that includes to help all the animals I can, even if I'll have to suffer when they're gone, because they will be happy all the time they lived.

"Just"? No. At least, but we can also do more. Keep going. Choose your own point. Good luck.

You sound like an attentive cat carer. Cat was lucky to have you. The point of all this is different for everyone, but cats are a big part of the point for me. Maybe for you, you can give more cats a good life as well. When you're ready of course, you may need time to grieve.

Life sucks, no doubt, but you're here and you have to get used to it. The best advice I can provide is slurp up all the good moments you can and savor the taste, so their memories will get you through the hard spots. Repeat until dead.

Life is change. It's literally the only thing you can 100% depend on. Once you accept that, not fear it, just accept it, you can move on to the great things that are here and now in the present.

Life is. Some is suffering, some is great. Altogether it is temporary. Some have argued that the great would be bland without the temporary or the suffering. The resolution to that argument will be clear at the end, or it won't, and maybe nothing will. So it goes.

By my estimation, in any case the best course of action is to enjoy the great. Perhaps it's also best to appreciate the great in context of the temporary, and the suffering. It's macabre, but it's either poetic, or it's making the best of a fundamentally macabre situation. So it goes.

I'm sorry that I dumped my grief upon you people but I'm also glad that I did. You are so kind and amazing for sharing your thoughts which makes this thread a beautify place. Reading the comments does help and I think it turns out to be something helpful to others too.

The grief haven't get better but I'm starting to get a grasp on it. I'm scared for being so alone the first time in many years. I tried to distract myself by watching shows and playing games. After a while I'd go check my cat to see if he's ok, before remembering that I won't find him anywhere. I'm, however, grateful for those sad thoughts and stupid habits as it assures me that my cat will always be with me. And that's way better than forgetting.

I'm sure my cat had at least some good time through out the 19 years (like the time we sleep together in the sunshine). It's sad to think that I can't give him more good things but it's comforting to think that he won't feel pain anymore. I think he doesn't care too much being the little asshole he always was. Fricking cats...

Maybe there doesn't have to be a point. Or maybe the point is to love and to help. I still don't have an answer but I'm glad that I asked. And I'm grateful that many of you who have it figured out cared enough to share your answers. Thank you, kind internet strangers.

We live to produce value for the shareholders

Yes