On Sunday early morning, 14th of November 2021 I lost my best friend. Never did I feel so much pain in life and never did I feel so lonely.

My beloved cat Tom stayed with me for 10 years. He was born in August of 2008 and I adopted him 3 years later. He was the most cuddly cat ever, was purring through the day and everybody who met him became a fan of him. I gave him the most loving existence a cat could wish for. Always the best food, never getting punished for anything (he did almost nothing punishable), being pet very often, being allowed to go and sit everywhere, and given a life of freedom by letting him outside whenever he wanted, not forcing him to spend a life in custody.
He was happy all the time and he was rolling around in satisfaction. Stress and aggressions were nothing that he needed to deal with. We had the most beautiful relationship.

Approximately a week before the 14th, he started to be more lazy. More sleeping, less going outside. Nothing worrisome, he had times were he needed to wear off a slight sickness. It got more and more so, that at some point, it started to be worrisome. Additionally, he started eating and drinking less, he got slimmer quickly and obviously had little energy. He had a hard time getting up, so on Friday afternoon, I decided to use my last chance for the week to get to a vet on Saturday morning.

I hate getting up early, but this was truely necessary. When I got up, Tom was even weaker and couldn't walk properly anymore. I hoped it was only because of general weakness and quickly got to the vet by myself on the bicycle, because I don't have a car currently. I demanded an appointment for the same day, and got one for 11.30am. They could also borrow me a transport cage, because I gave away mine when caring for some birds a while back. Back at home, I attached towels with the help of plastic wrap all around the cage, because it lowers stress for animals, when they can't see all the weird stuff around them, when they are getting carried around town. Especially in my case, since I only had a bike and nobody with a car close, I needed to get Tom there this way. It was a very tough job for my arms, but whatever, at 11.20am, I arrived there with my friend.

The doctor recognized his rather bad shaped, took a bit of blood and went away for 10 minutes for instant analysis. The diagnosis hit me hard: severe kidney failure. At this point, the apparent realization of his possible soon death crossed my mind and I had a hard time holding back first tears. Not only that, but the doctor also assumed Tom to carry some kind of virus. He gave him a shot of meds to potentially help his kidneys and I should come back on Monday to see, if the blood values indicate his kidneys to recover, even though that was seen as very unlikely. At this point, I was incredibly sad already, and while my mind didn't expect any good news on Monday, my friend was still there afterall.
After another exhausting ride, we got back home. I placed my weak cat in his favorite spot again and, according to the infos from the vet, tried to make him eat and drink something. But he didn't take any. He was not looking good, but at least seeming relaxed and painfree, still purring quietly when I pet him. Later in the evening, it looked like he wanted to get up, but sat down again when I pet him. I don't know, if he only wanted to change position, what he finally did, or if he wanted to get up but couldn't. He was laying on the window all the time, so since he can only move badly, I decided to put him on the ground with his blanket and all food, water and litterbox in easy reach. Later I went to bed, but out of worry about him, it took me hours to fall asleep. But eventually I did sleep away.

But only for something like 2 hours, when I got woken up. Usually I sleep deeply, but Tom always managed to wake me up through meowing, when he wanted to get out at unholy times. It always annoyed me, when he did this. This time, at 2am at night, I also got woken up by something. It was by a kind of meowing, that was rather worrisome. I got up and left the lights out, Tom was meowing in a negative fashion, since I didn't feel like I could do much right now, I put myself next to him, pet him and talked quietly to him, which made him meow less.
At some point I turned on the lights when I had to realize, that he seems to be in some kind of agony. He was disoriented, moved his head around like I never saw before, meowed awfully and didn't seem to have the ability to properly move. I have never seen that before and realizing, that this is critical, I almost started panicking. I am a very thoughtful person and I don't remember any time so far, where I felt out of control or options, but this time...... I felt overwhelmed with what my mind potentially realized. I knew there is no regular vet open and I didn't know what to do. I quickly turned on my computer to search for emergency services. The closest one in the next big city 20 miles away had to tell me though, they are not active in my town. He gave me the info about the 2 closest emergency vet clinics, and hang up and looked them up. Problem is, emergency clinics are supposed to have staff there at night, for well...... emergencies. But you can't call them at night, you need to get there and hope, that the clinic is active right now. I did all this research, while I kept hearing the bad meowing of my friend and I was under constant mental stress and pain like never before. The logic part of me realized, when this is supposed to be the end now, it needs to be as quick and painless as possible.
So the online info about the closer clinic wasn't clear, if they have night staff, so I decided to go for the further one, where the website clearly says, there is always night staff there. Now my next thought was, how do I get Tom to there? I do not have a car and it's 15 miles away. I started terror ringing the 2 people I know, who could borrow me a car, but nobody answered their phone, since it was deep at night. I started panicking more, since I could not put him through the torture to be brought there by bike, over 1 hour shaking in a dark cage with weird noise all around him. I felt helpless and horrible for a few moments, when only then it hit my mind, that I should look for a taxi. I usually never use taxis or even public transit, you can count it on one hand, how often I did that in life, so the idea of a taxi didn't immediately slip my mind, but eventually it did. I looked up the service and gladly, they were driving at such times. I told the service guy, I need a cab ASAP, and so he sent one. It should take 10 minutes, in which I got myself ready and put my disoriented and very weak little friend into the cage. I am glad I had the mental power to think of the whole situation - my phone was almost dead, but I will need it, so I put my powerbank into the backpack and charged my phone in there.

I got the cage down the stairs carefully and stood out there, waiting for the car to come and trying to comfort Tom. He was disoriented, but I don't think he was under real pain. Still I was all stressed out and not patient for the taxi, but only after another minute, it arrived. Some friendly power sent me not a normal cab, but a van, in which I could also bring my bicycle. I asked the driver and ran up again, to bring down my bike, because of particular worries. The taxi driver was some asian guy, who didn't speak my language well, but understood enough and was very supporting with my situation. I told him to not risk his driver licence, but as far as he can, get there as soon as possible - and so he did, I did not watch the tachometer (I had other concerns), but out of the window, he seemed quite a bit over the speed limit.
Despite driving so fast, the ride felt like an eternity. I felt the need to check the GPS on my phone, if he's going right, but he really did drive the fastest route. At some point, we arrived and I had the mental stability to make sure, to give the driver a good tip for doing his best to support me in this situation. The clinic building was dark, but the door bell was answered and I was let in. A woman was receiving me and I hastily explaned the situation to her. She remained calm but understanding, took the cage with my friend to a room, while I was told to fill in the required papers. I did just that and then for a couple more minutes sat there, with the biggest worry of my life.
Moments later, she came back and took me with her, while in the meantime she has taken first care of my cat. We entered the room, where my friend was laying on a table. His disorientation seemed gone, because she told me, she gave him a relaxant. But since she recognized his state when taking him out of the box while I filled out the papers, she had no good news to tell. First I told her about the bad news about his kidneys, which I received like only 14 hours ago. She took it into account, it was her assumption too. Additionally, she told me that his disorientation could not really be explained by kidney failure and there might be some kind of brain tumor as well - all in the most calm and caring tone in her voice. Understanding the ultimate truth, I kind of foolishly asked, if there was something that we could do. While she counted down the possible diagnostics, that could be done on my friend, it was basically only a way of slowly leading me to the conclusion, that was no realistic hope anymore to be had. Since the logical part of me realized that a lot earlier, I could only agree to that. I asked her to explain to me, how the procedure would be done, after which she left the room for another 10 minutes for a final good-bye.

I kneeled down to face height of my friend, crying all the time like I never did before in life. He was not very responsive, not purring anymore, but at least relaxed and without pain. I pet him all the time, kept crying and just looked at him. At the same time, the moments seemed endless but also way too short. So soon the lady came back, with the necessary shots. After some more caring talk, she gave him the first shot, turning him unconscious. He layed there with open eyes, alive but sleeping. She took the second shot and asked me, if she should do it. The logic part of me knew, that if this wasn't happening now, he would only live longer to go through pain and agony. So I told her to do it.

On Sunday morning, 14th of November 2021 at 2.45am, the heart of my best friend stopped beating.

The woman left the room for another 10 minutes. I sat there, still petting him, in absolute disbelief. I never lost a close person before. And even if, I am not the biggest fan of people, since the world is full of hate, anger, ignorance and disgust. But this little creature never expressed anything negative. Over the years, I have truely loved him. Like parents love their kids. And I felt the same deep pain, a level of pain I have never known before.

My best friend is gone, never to come back.

After those 10 minutes, the woman came back to check again for his heart to make sure, that he won't potentially wake up again in a horrible state. But everything ran as expected. To quickly and painlessly end the life of my beloved cat. So in constant emotional agony, I put the dead body onto Tom's favorite blanket I had in the box with him and put both back in there. I paid the high bill, which I didn't care for at all, and left the building. Knowing, that now I do not have the need to hurry anymore, I sat down on the ground in this surprisingly mild night and started writing the sad message to my aunt, who gave Tom to me 10 years back and who cared for him every now and then. I believe I was sitting there for an hour or so. I had a charged phone and my bike with me, because my logical mind knew early, that this night would turn out with Tom not going back with me alive. After sitting there forever, I attached his box gently to my bike and started riding through the night.

I was going rather slowly and took far longer for the way home, than I normally would. Not only was I physically exhausted because of 2 nights with way too little sleep, but I was mentally exhausted like crazy. And the exhaustion kept coming. Of course those over 2 hours of riding, I was thinking about nothing but my friend. How he's always been with me, how he's always been my constant company in my apartment, and suddenly........... it will be empty. I was always surrounded by loving life at home. Not so anymore. The creature I always did my best to be as comfortable as humanly possible, suddenly left this world. Not being seperated from me for a while, but his whole existence wiped out. This thought is like acid on my mind.

When I arrived at home, his body was still soft and warm, his eyes closed and he looked exactly like sleeping. But he would never wake up again. I decided to put his body into the freezer so that it stays alright until I will have done some things I wanted to do now. One of which you see here, having drawn my only picture of a normal animal ever. It is now exactly 3 days since his death. I am doing a lot better now, I did not hesitate to vent my horribly grief at any point, which supposedly helps to deal with it better, than if your mind tried to deny it. My general sadness will last a lot longer, but I am not ending in the same horrible grief again by finding my conclusions. These are, that I gave my friend a dream of a cat's life, he got littered with love all over those years and that his death came with a minimum of pain and anxiety. His death could have been a lot worse, like one of my absolute nightmares would have been, if one day I found him at the side of the road, still alive but in horrible pain and agony............ If such a thing happened, it would have had such an impact on my mind, that I would carry a damage from that for the rest of my life.
The other things I am busy with, are getting the cage back to the vet, working out the planning for his grave and getting the necessary items for it. Like a shovel, wood for a self made coffin, a grave candle and desperately trying to find lovely plants for purchase, which would survive the winter. But since there are none of those for purchase anymore until spring, I decided to use artificial plants. They are beautiful and certainly stay the same through any cold. Getting Tom's picture done has taken me 3 days (among other actions) it is now Wednesday night. His funeral can not be had any sooner than Sunday, due to my stupid responsibilities until Saturday, which are taking up almost all of the little remaining daylight here in Europe. Since I need to find the right spot in a forest and dig the whole thing, it is rather not an option to do that in the dark. The body of my beloved friend will stay in perfect condition until then. I needed to get him out of the freezer today for taking measurements for his coffin. He still looks like sleeping, despite his body being solid. Not crying much anymore, I did do so however when seeing and touching him again, realizing once again, that he completely left this world. And I will cry again, when I see and touch him for the last time ever, when placing him in his coffin. Gladly I own a bike trailer, with which I can take him on his last journey. I rather do it this way than with a car from someone. I want to celebrate the illusion, that for a last time, I will be together with him, doing something that I enjoy doing. It will be a sad Sunday, but also a nice day, because when I will finally have finished all those tasks around his death, then I finally get the feeling of having given him all the love and recognition possible through life and death.

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That was the story of my emotionally worst time of my life. Some of you cannot understand, why I am so sensitive about an animal having died. But as I said, I am not the biggest fan of people. I cherish animal life. In my understanding, the relevance of human life and animal life is barely any different, as long as it is a living creature with feelings. And certainly cats have feelings. They feel anxiety and pain, but also joy and happiness. With this mindset, over 10 years you get heavily attached to a little ball of fur, that always welcomes you in a sweet manner. That cuddles with you every day, that follows you when you move another direction, that keeps purring all day long only by being remotely close to you, that gives you a feeling of being loved. I am a person, that wasn't too lucky with people. I have lost many friends in life, some due to bad vibes from my side, some I kicked off because they have done things I can not tolerate, and some went quiet on me for no reason or with refusing to tell me the reason. People are complicated and idiotic and have let me down and turned away from me numerous times. My cat never turned away from me, this little fellow sticked with me through the majority of his life, until it suddenly ended. He was my daily target to receive all the love I can give and gave me back all the love you can expect from a cat. Tom was a pillar of my life, always made my day better, made me smile, let me feel loved and appreciated, where others were ignorant and dismissive. Having lost him is far worse than having gotten left by any person before, and so it's only normal for me to go through the grief and prepare a funeral for him, like people normally do for other people. Many of you have your best friend, how would you react, when he suddenly died?

My best friend was this cat, and I keep treating him just like that.