My cat Coco passed away last night..

I went out of my room to get a drink and I saw him lying the ground with my parents around him. They were trying to get him into a cage because he couldn't use his back-right leg and could only drag himself around. He probably started having an anxiety attack or something because he started panting heavily, and his other back leg stopped working. We called the vet and he said it couldn't be helped without a lot of surgery and a lot of time, so he offered to come into the office even though it was so late and.. he was euthanised there..

It was so heartbreaking to see him like that. I didn't want to lose him.. I knew that it would have to happen sooner or later, and he was getting old, "a grumpy old man" as my mother puts it.. but I still wasn't ready for this. It happened so fast. The vet said that it's common and happens rather quickly. It's essentially a stroke. I don't remember the exact details but a blog clot forms and their back just gets disabled. After that, no way to get out of it unless we spend $10k and send him away for 10 months (maybe it was weeks?) to the university for just a chance that he might make it. He's a stubborn one, though, so I bet he would've made it out.. but that's still a lot of money for just a chance. The vet even said that he literally gave him enough sedative for a 50-pound dog and it barely affected him. Also said "That was enough for a horse, buddy!" so that gave us a bit of a chuckle to relieve us for a bit..

I remember when we first brought him in. My father was allergic to cats but saw Coco and seemed to have fallen in love. He wasn't too allergic to him so he brought him home. This was back in.. 2002? He was a just a kitten. I remember him climbing all over my father as we were discussing keeping him. I was so excited to possibly have a kitten, so you can imagine my glee when we did keep him. Remembering how cute and tiny he was back then.. it's so surreal to think of how large he had gotten. He was overweight now and had arthritis and a very sensitive spot at the base of his tail. I remember being afraid of him, though, because his playfulness involved his claws and I had a very low tolerance to pain. I thought he was attacking me a lot of the time when I pet him when he probably was actually just playing. Maybe if I wasn't so afraid of him so easily he wouldn't have been so grumpy and lethargic later, but that's just speculation and really can't be helped. I also remember when he was still a kitten I trapped him under the bed for fun. I heard my parents talking in the other room about my mother taking her car to go out. I thought they were going out to try to look for him, so I quickly moved things out of his way and rushed outside crying to tell my mother that he was fine and in the house. Turned out she was just going for pizza. Then there's the countless times that I trapped him under a laundry basket. This was still when he was fairly active, so he'd meow and move the basket around the room. Nowadays he'd either just lay there or swat through the basket hole. And oh god, his eyes would get so wide when he was stimulated with a toy or just playing or something. Whenever he saw one of us peeking around something, he used to crouch down, his eyes would dilate, his butt would wiggle, and he'd pounce. It.. really doesn't seem like that was too long ago, but thinking about it, I don't remember him doing that any time recently. Just lay around the house in one of his favourite spots. I also remember playing with him when we had a bunk bed a long time ago. We put him on the top bunk and my parents and I were on the bottom bunk, and we'd peek our head out and he'd chase where we were. Or another time when I was on the top bunk with a fishing rod cat toy and I played with him like that. Later on he started catching the toy and chewed on the string so it broke a few times though. And then there's several times when I tried catching him in a box by propping it up and pulling a string when he went under it, and when I would try getting him in my blanket as if it was a sack. The latter one.. didn't work out well. It ended up with him either getting out before I closed it off or he was too heavy and managed to slip out the side. God.. so many memories of him..

Last night was so.. fast.. so sudden. Like I said, it was heartbreaking. When my mother got off the phone she said "you better say your goodbyes now because this may be the end," visibly trying to hold back tears. He peed himself on the way over, which might be why he was trying so hard to get to the other room, so that's.. really sad to me. The vet wrapped him in a blanket and sedated him, talking about how this condition works. Hearing him start talking about euthanasia and.. "what we wanted to do with him" was way too soon. It didn't immediately sink ink that this was the end. Whether it was grief or my depression, I don't know. I think I was the first to start crying, though. I told Coco how much I love him, and how much I'll miss him. I remember making the mistake of not saying goodbye to my dog, so I made sure that I did it to Coco. I gave him a kiss and.. the vet put him down.. We were all crying around him. Even my father was crying. I.. I don't think I've ever seen my father cry before. Seeing him cry made my crying worse. It really helped me to see that this was it.. that he really was gone..

I'm still crying over him.. I keep wanting to go out and pet his soft, fluffy fur, but then it hits me that I can't.. I love you Coco, and I'll miss you so much..

Sorry, I just really needed to get this out..