How do you survive a pet loss?
How do you survive a pet loss?
My baby would be turning 18 on the 25th, but she’s struggling. I know the time is near. I have to make the appointment. It’s probably going to be this week.
How?
She’s struggling. Every day, I spoon-feed her, help her walk, and sleep with her. She’s so beyond strong, much stronger than me. She’s my world, the air that I breathe, the beat in my chest, the reason I’m still here.
She has seen me grow up from middle school to high school, to undergrad, and even to grad school. From my first solo trip to every apartment. She has seen me in the midst of my darkest times and has been the light that showed me the way.
She was supposed to walk me down the aisle, meet her siblings, and live the life I worked so hard to provide her.
She’s my baby. She’s my world. She’s my everything.
How do I let her go?
How do I make the call and the appointment? Most of all, how do I show up and hold her hand through it?
I told her about Heaven last night. I told her all the people she’ll see again and that one day she’ll see me again. She’s going to be so scared, and I won’t be there to reassure her and show her she’s in a great place.
No more Christmas cards. No more hugs or kisses. No more “I love yous.”
If the reason I breathe is no longer here, how do I breathe?
She’s still here, and it’s already harder to breathe.
I know she’ll be in a better place and that she won’t be in any pain or have health issues, but I want HER here by my side forever. And even then, forever wouldn’t be enough.
There’s an old R&B song that goes, “How do I breathe without you by my side? Where do I go when your love brought me through the light?”
That’s what I keep thinking.
What happens when Christmas comes and I don’t have a baby to shop for or holiday photos to take?
What happens when her birthday comes and she’s not there for me to celebrate?
What about when the next life moment happens and she’s no longer there?
When I walk through my doors and the first thing I say is, “Where is my baby?” and she’s not there.
What about when others ask about her and I have to say, “She passed”?
What happens when the days get dark and the only thing I need is her love?
How do I keep going?
The crazy thing is, I’m not even a great mom. She deserves so much better, and I wish I could have been better for her. I feel like I shouldn’t be feeling like this when I could have been so much better to her.
I think the phone call will be okay. I’ll be able to get through the form. But I don’t know how I’m going to go to a building with her and never leave without her.
I don’t know how I will hold her hand as she takes her last breath.
I have to be there. She’s known me all her life, and even now, when she’s having a hard time, it’s me she wants.
But I feel like the only way I’ll leave that room is with me in an ambulance.
I really don’t know.
I don’t know how anybody does it.
@callmeRM
That's really difficult.
Enjoy the precious time you have left with them.
Making memories
Knowing it hurts, but soon they won't be in any pain.
Sending you my best wishes at this difficult time 💛
@callmeRM pet loss is something that at least for me you never truly get over, maybe some do. But it's been 3 years since I had to put my dog down and I still wish he was around, on walks with me, near me when I was sad, having anxiety, anxious. But I know that he isn't in the pain that he was in before he went to sleep peacefully.
I know that when my dogs health was declining I didn't want him to give up on me, I was scared to be without him. BUT he has visited me many times in my subconscious mind so its made the process of living without him bearable
@callmeRM I have to admit this was hard for me to read because one of the hardest goodbyes I've ever said was the ones to my furry family.
You say you don't think you were a good pet parent but everything you wrote here says otherwise. You love her that's what matters, that's all that matters. You're making the hardest decision there is because it's what's best for her.
