Tag: pets

Life update (11/17/2025)

On By Jon UreñaIn Escritura, Slice of lifeLeave a comment

These last two days I have gotten decent sleep (about five and a half hours, or six), compared to the previous five days, in which I was lucky if I got two hours a night. I woke up spontaneously, and the first thought in my mind was my beloved cat who recently died. I see her face turned toward me from the bed, her eyes narrowed with affection. A couple of days ago I had an auditory hallucination in which I heard her distinctive meow coming from the spot of the bed where she liked to sit down. I walked over and hugged the empty space, in case something of her was still there.

Whenever I think about my cat, tears rush to my eyes. Even as I try to distract myself, I deal with random crying spells. This cat was my constant during my whole adult life. No matter what, I could always count on her kind, gentle, and loving nature. And now I will never see her again. On one side, I want to jot down, set in stone somehow, all the memories that remain of her. On the other side, I should forget them, as remembering isn’t going to bring her back, and I need to move forward.

Yesterday I wanted to drag myself out of the apartment, but I couldn’t muster the drive to do so. I tried to lift weights instead, but after the second set, I ran out of energy. I feel like I’m filled with lead. It’s not just my beloved cat dying, although that’s sitting on top of it all; I’ve been unemployed since September but I’ve done nothing to find a new job, as I know the routine will just hurt me. The world outside these walls feels utterly wrong and hostile. My only way to interact with it involves the temporary oblivion that my guitar provides, but I can’t bring myself to play now. I wonder if I felt like this back in my twenties during those periods in which I didn’t leave the house for what seemed like weeks. I have retained very few memories of that decade and the person I used to be.

I feel like I’m missing something important I should say, but I don’t know what. I’m encased in misery, and all I can do is sit tight and get used to the dark.

My cat died

On By Jon UreñaIn Escritura, Slice of lifeLeave a comment

We got her as a stray when I was nineteen or so. She was pregnant, and ended up birthing three of my other cats. She outlived them. She was good, kind, and loving. She was around during my twenties, during the periods when I couldn’t get myself to leave my bedroom, and she was around during my thirties when I returned home exhausted from my job. Just four or five days ago she just stopped being herself, and a blink later she was dead.

Words are distractions; the truth is that nothing we can think or say is going to stop the joy and love in our lives from eventually withering and dying.

Still, I struggle to figure out if I have something more meaningful to get out of this other than sadness. I could tell myself that I’ve posted this photo to remember her, but the truth is that I barely remember her already. Just a few two-seconds-long sequences of her looking at me from my bed, or asking me food from my plate. The weight of her limp body in my arms is the last thing I’m going to remember of her. She had a good, long life, certainly better than mine, if that counts for anything. But when years from now I look at photos of her, like it happens with all my other dead cats, the notion that I ever interacted with her won’t seem real anymore. And I will need to carry the weight of this sadness for the rest of my life. What was the point? It’s almost pure faith what you need to hold in your heart to believe that all of this counts for something.

Ever since my twenties, whenever I thought about killing myself, the thought came to mind that I couldn’t do that to my cats. I imagined them looking around for me, like they looked around for the other missing cats over the years. Soon enough I won’t feel responsible for anyone anymore, and maybe then it will finally be time to move on.

Life update (11/13/2025)

On By Jon UreñaIn Escritura, Slice of lifeLeave a comment

I mentioned before that I have two remaining cats: one about 18 years old, and the other about 22 years old. For the last two or three months, the 18-year-old one has shown respiratory issues, and for a while he refused to eat anything on his own. The vet diagnosed him with kidney failure. He has to take medication for the rest of his likely short life, but he now moves more or less normally, climbs stuff, responds, eats on his own.

About four days ago, though, my 22-year-old cat simply stopped being herself. Most of the time she lay there with blank eyes. When she climbed down from a chair or the sofa, she moved in this slow, wobbly manner that clearly indicated that something was wrong. However, there is nothing acutely wrong with her, in the sense that she doesn’t struggle to breathe; she suddenly just stopped eating, and barely moves. She has deteriorated to the extent that, although I have a vet visit scheduled for tomorrow, I wouldn’t be surprised if she dies before then. She’s now wrapped in a blanket, eyes open but blank, breathing but generally unresponsive. I suspect that something has happened to her brain. If so, this must have been the second time; the first one happened maybe two years ago: one afternoon, she suddenly started wobbling around, and got stuck in a loop of drinking water, walking to one end of the room, returning to drink water, and back to the other end of the room, to the extent that she kept pissing herself along the way. Somehow she recovered from that, although she wasn’t quite the same. This time, she looks like the most obvious “my time has come” case I’ve seen personally.

My eyes are teary, but it’s not hitting me as hard as I feel it should. This cat, while she was still herself, was the kindest, sweetest, most loving cat I’ve ever had and will ever have, as I don’t intend to own pets ever again. And from now, after she passes likely today or soon enough, for the rest of my life I’ll get reminded by intrusive thoughts about her death, ambushed no matter where I am or what I’m doing.

On the following photos, the cat on the left was the other’s daughter; she died. The one on the right is the cat I’m referring to on this post.

I guess there’s no much else that can be said. You love someone only for them to end up leaving forever. That always happens. As for why we even endure through all of this is something I don’t believe I’ll ever understand.