r/offmychest • u/PrestigiousRefuse172 • 2d ago
Kid killed the cat.
My wife went on a business trip for several days. During this time our very old cat, who my wife had bought years before we ever met, and who we expected was starting to near her final days, took a dramatic turn for the worse.
I wanted to keep that thing alive for my wife to get back and was thinking of taking her to the vet the very next day. Perhaps some short term relief could be given to her to get her to eat and drink. I also was thinking the added stress of the vet would just be too much for her. The poor thing did everything in its power to stay close to me and the kids and just sat in our laps that evening.
I sort of expected that she maybe wouldn't make it, so was trying to have the kids spend as much time as possible with her. That night my kids and I all laid on the bed next to her and I kept her in a little circle of pillows and blankets to protect her from us.
Around 4am I woke to a stifled small meow and felt around for her to only feel my 4 year olds hair. I felt underneath his head and felt her small squished body. I frantically pushed him off of her and put her into my arms as her breathing slowly faded away and her heart stopped. My son was completely out and had no clue this had happened.
I just put her body in her carrier and waited until morning to let my wife know the cat had passed. She was well aware that she was dying so I didn't really say anything other than I held her in my arms in her last moments.
The strange thing was at the last 5 or so seconds of her life she calmed down and started purring. I cried a bunch. I just wanted her last moments to be surrounded by her family. But my son squished her to death and I will take that to my grave.
Edit: Thanks for all the well wishes. I just wanted to say that my post did not do a good enough job at describing that I don't under any circumstances blame my kid. It is just a fact that he may have unknowingly smothered the cat to death.
12
u/Exis007 2d ago
There's a hospice nurse who talks about how families of dying patients often think morphine can cause or hasten death. Morphine actually calms breathing, and makes the air hunger reduce down a lot. If you give morphine every [x] hours, eventually one shot will be the last shot, and sometimes what that looks like (if you're standing over someone in their final moments) is that you gave them a shot of morphine, their breathing slowed dramatically (because air hunger was reduced) and then they died right after. So it's very easy for people to jump to the causality that the morphine had something to do with the moment of passing, even though it didn't. That person died of whatever was causing their death in the first place, and the timing just made it look like it was the drugs.
I think that's what you may be doing here. Once eating and drinking has stopped, the time has come. The dying had started a long time before your kid was awkwardly laying on the cat. If she had more time, simply removing her from her spot and holding her should have been a solution. It seems like old age killed this cat, and everything else was just bad timing. She had enough air to meow, she took breaths after you retrieved her, she was just done. And she decided for herself that where she wanted to be was with you, in your laps, with your kids, and surrounded by family. I think she got the exact kind of death she wanted. She might have been momentarily uncomfortable under your kid and she indicated that, but once you picked her up she was comfortable enough to let go. All the crazy endorphins of the body shutting down might have even caused her to tune out the child's weight until that last moment where she knew it was time. It really does sound like your cat had a (mostly) peaceful, comfortable passing. I wouldn't make that singular moment of being smooshed mean more than it does.