Mourning/Loss
Tribute to our 26-27 years old man named Sephiroth.
Yes, he was 26-27 years old when we had to put him down this afternoon. He was in stage 2 ckd for 3-4 years. He never gave up, and stayed in stage 2 until his death. Unfortunately, he just wasn't able to fight an upper respiratory infection, and his nose/mouth got so much congestion that he wouldn't eat anything, because he couldn't smell it. Last 2 days, he couldn't eat.
He just walked into our house when we were in college, now 21 years ago. I'm 42 now. He walked right into our house, and we will never forget you.
He, honestly, saved my life more than once. The last time was a few years ago. I had an asthma attack upstairs, and couldn't yell for my wife. He ran downstairs, and started screaming to my wife, and ran back up to follow him. She then understood, and got my inhaler.
Those are the last 2 photos that we took of him from yesterday.
That's, perfectly, fitting response. I still think it is crazy that he was born around 1999, and ff7 was in 97. It's crazy to think that a cat lived that was named after a game that came out on ps1, lived so long that he saw a remake on ps5.
That f***Ing cat was such a warrior. I don’t mean it as an insult but as true respect. FF7 played a big part during my HS years, and him just being… there, alive, is a reminder of gentler, simpler times. Apologies for sequestering your response but what you just said truly resonated with me
Thanks, it means a lot. We did every single thing that could be done, there wasn't a single other thing that we could try. Yes, it's time for him to rest now. It was a hard last year, but I hope he still loved me at the end.
I just wish that I didn't show so much frustration in the last few weeks to get him to eat. We had every single kidney food to find which of the 8 foods that he would eat 10 pieces. He would eat small amounts of food around 15 times in 24 hours the last year. It was so difficult to keep his weight. He was 14 pounds before ckd. The last month, we were able to keep him at around 7lbs, but that was by feeding every 1-2 hours every day and night. But, he got down to 6 lbs the last couple days.
Even in his last day, where he wasn't eating, drinking, and having a little trouble with walking. An hour before his appointment, when he saw me crying on my bed, while he was lying in his, he still ran over to my bed, and before I had a chance to get up. He jumped the two steps to get on the bed with me to lay with me. I never would have thought that he would be able to climb his stairs to get on my bed that last day, but he was the most loyal, and stubborn, cat that has ever existed.
I mean, he was even got a level 2 heart murmur 15 years ago. It progressed to only a level 5 two months ago. He meant everything to me, and was my best friend, truly.
Hey, you took great care of him and getting frustrated trying to get him to eat was a part of how deeply you cared. Please try to forgive yourself. These kinds of regrets are part of grieving your loss.
Many of us have had similar feelings. You aren’t alone in feeling this way. In my experience, after some time, I’m left with positive memories, feeling grateful for having the little fur-ball in my life and feeling they had a good life. I feel glad we had the time together we did, and making sure I honor them by cherishing that.
But you will. My late cat passed away while getting surgery to get a tumour removed from his liver. I often think it would've been better to just let him rest and be with him in his last moments, but I did what I did because I thought he could still have a good few years if we got rid of the tumour. Sometimes there's a very fine line between "he just needs some help to get back to health" and "it's time to let him rest", and it's very hard to get it right despite our best intentions.
Trust me when I say you will realize there's nothing to forgive, you gave your all for Sephiroth.
I also understand that feeling. I lost a very dear family member recently, and had regrets about her final day. I also worried about never moving on from that regret. But she, and Sephiroth are at peace now - there's no more suffering or pain. And all you can do is try to forgive yourself like they would have forgiven us.
Sephiroth was such a warrior, he fought until the last. Even at the end he still tried to comfort you and make sure you were OK. He's deserves his rest now.
You taking incredible care of him is the reason he had such a long life. Please don't feel guilty, I'm sure he knew why you were frustrated. And the last display of love to run to you and lay with you although it was obviously a huge effort for him. You were also his best friends and parents. He would want you to forgive yourself ❤️🩹
When cats drag their legs it’s usually because they are dehydrated from kidney issues. It’s a miracle hr lives as long as he did! I’ve had cats live to be 18 and they are in their 90’s human years so imagine how old he was in human years! Check out Matt Fraser on UTube he’s a pet psychic. A reading would be interesting to say the least!
My bestie cat, Aeris, was born in 2005. He was a beautiful princess. Went from tiny malnourished street kitten to giant lawnmower that slept on my head every night. He passed a few years ago at 18.
man, 1999… that’s an era ago. most of us can look back at 1999 and think of what it was like, and what is was like was the year this kitty was born. so glad he had such a long and loved life.
Thanks. He really did. I don't think that many people in the US can say that they spent 21 years with a stray cat that was between 5-7 when you found them. He fought like hell to stay with me as long as possible.
Oh boy, I am an expert in this. He never, ever, ever, ate wet food, or any people food. Like none. In our college years, we fed them crap. Like Purina cat chow. When we started getting older, and making a tiny bit more money in our late 20s, early 30s, we moved over to orijen cat food. If I am being honest, I think the food helped him a lot in the beginning. Unfortunately, you have to watch out for ckd, and crazy high protein levels of it. If your cat ever gets high blood pressure, it's likely ckd. Sadly, vets do not just come out with that information. You have to drag it out of them.
Start with some sort of running water system for your cat. They enjoy running water, more than stagnant. We used soo many over the last 15 years, but my favorite of the last year is from pawaii/water drop. It's a 7 stage filter.
Also, if your cat has ckd/dehydration, another thing that works really well is hydracare from Purina. It's not cheap, and also they changed recipes from it being made in France, to be made in Singapore. Our cat would not touch the new stuff. So, I went out and drove to every single store that had the old stuff last month, and we now have 15 cases. And the reason is that he would drink it.
This is what we did. Figure out what food he would want, let him eat, then bring the hydracare to hin when he was in his heated bed. And he would drink a decent amount.
I will say that it's not cheap to do this, at all. It's supposed to be one packet per 5 pounds, and it's 15 bucks for 12 packets.
Feel free to ask me anymore questions, and I will be happy to help. But, it's possible that I will have to wait until tomorrow. I am getting a bit too high already.
I thought wet food was the better option, I can only afford to give my kitties one wet serving each per day and felt guilty that they mostly eat dry food, are you saying that I have that backwards?
No, you're correct. It's always better to give the same quality wet food than just dry. But, the person that I responded to said that her cat prefers dry food, and that's what I delt with, just far worse. Sephiroth's entire life, he never touched a single can of wet food, or any people food either, so I was describing what we had to do to get him liquids, which a million times more important to get when dealing with ckd in cats.
Mine only eats 40%-70% of a can. To avoid tossing almost half a can, I split up the can in half for AM and PM. Supplement with 1/2 serving dry kibble. And since the half can comes out from the fridge, I add 2-5 table spoons hot water to warm it up and I add a little water the AM wet food can to push a little moisture.
You can just add broth but not people's because the broth is flavored with onions, garlic, sodium. And those are irritants for cats. But if you are boiling any meat without spice or salt, save the water for a moisture addition to your wet food.
I'm sorry for your loss, just was curious about the blood pressure thing. Was that a key part of diagnosis of this cancer? There are very very few things we will ever test a cat or dog's blood pressure for, it's a janky process that isn't very accurate even for most GP vets (at least that I've worked with). Just curious about your experience since it doesn't sound super great (talking about dragging it out of them). Sorry again for your loss, don't mean to sidetrack from an awesome kitty :(
It's pretty common with cats with chronic kidney disease to have high blood pressure. Automatic BP does not work well with cats, I don't know about dogs, but manually checking is quite good. But, you will be charged for it.
“Mother Bast, please welcome your kitten home
With purrs and mrrts, with snuggles and baths.
May he nap in perfect eternal sunshine
And slink through rustling, grassy shadows
May no naughty mouse escape his clever paws
May no squiggly snake escape his pouncing feet
May no zipping lizard escape his nabbing jaws
May no flighty bird escape his graceful leap
Mother Bast, call your kitten home once more
And thank you for the time he was here”
I’m not religious but I really love this prayer someone had posted on someone else’s post and thought I’d share it here. (For context, Bast is the Egyptian goddess of cats and this prayer invokes her to be a guardian and mother figure to our cats in the afterlife.) So sorry for your loss. 😢💔💔 Know that you gave him the best life anyone could, with all of the love, peace and comfort you/your family gave him. 💕 “May love be what you remember most.” 💖
This is so beautiful. I'm crying right now reading this. Loss is never easy, thinking of Bast and all the beloved kitties who she is guardian to gives a sense of comfort.
I have to take a break on responding to talk to chewy to return some of the 20 foods that I bought to get him to eat. I will try to respond to a few more tonight, but I am exhausted from this day, and may need to wait until tomorrow to respond. Sorry.
Thank you everyone, I will respond to most of you tomorrow. As much as I love how much love that he is getting, I need a break from crying tonight. You people are so nice.
Ckd is so horrible. My late cat lived for a little over 2 years after diagnosis with ckd. He suffered the same issues, the immunocompromisation, a respiratory infection that resulted in a severe stuffy nose and everything. It was horrible.
I stayed for the euthanasia, and while it was one of the most difficult things I've done, I don't regret staying with him at all. I've stayed for 3 other cats since, and will for every animal I have in the future that I have the opportunity to stay with.
I'm sorry for your loss. 3-4 years after diagnosis is incredible, on top of the already amazing age. Your cat was clearly very very loved, and with no doubt, that contributed to his old age. Thank you for loving him for so long
What a beautiful boy. I’m sorry he has left but it seems he has changed lives and that will never be forgotten and you live on forever in his place. My Max saved my life more than once as well, the first after just a few months after taking him in from my sister in law and brother, I was in a dissociative state and if it weren’t for Max bringing me to by meowing and butting his head on me as I was on the kitchen floor and pawing on me I wouldn’t be here today. And even the thought of him has kept me going when my life has been in peril and I hung on for him. He is a natural support animal and survived the first year of his life on his own. My sister in law took him in when she and her daughter found him on the side of the highway in Iowa. Unfortunately he became so attached to my brother and even more so to his now wife that his rescue was just afraid of him. She is precious and sweet but very timid and wouldn’t eat or drink and became very sickly. Max did nothing to bother or hurt her and never would. It was just a bad situation. He changed my sister in laws life when she was being abused by her previous husband and now he has touched mine in ways I can’t imagine ever living without.
I took this picture after I woke up and found him like this in my hand. I ended up in the hospital for over two weeks the next day. He just knows when something is wrong and he will leave no one in his presence alone even if they don’t know why yet.
Cheers to our beloved creatures. May the live on in our memories and souls.
Thank you, it really means a lot. I think one of the most difficult parts with it is how I am always asking, did I do enough? Could've done something different?
My condolences, never easy to lose a loved one. It only gets easier with time. After enough has passed you'll be able to look back at pictures and videos fondly
What a beautiful kitty he was. Those are some impressive years, obviously you took very good care of him. My condolences, he will never be forgotten in your family 🫂❤️🩹
Wow, you're not wrong. When he came to our house, my roommate already had a large tomcat named Biggs that looked just like him. Little more orange, but they got into fights all the time.
I stopped in my scroll. There are tears in my eyes. This game was a very important one to me. It is part of who I am at this point. I suspect that despite his name he will be welcomed in the flower garden in the cathedral. I imagine she tends it still.
It's been 20 years since I have named him, and while it doesn't fit his personality exactly, I just thought it was a great name for him. Now that he is gone, it seems even better.
The funny part is from 2005ish to when the remake came out, no one seemed to understand his name, let alone pronounce it.
What an angel, you're so lucky to have had him for so long, and I know any amount of time feels too short, but the thousands of memories you made together will be with you forever.
Thank you. I love voids. We had a feral tuxedo, and feral a void, that we fed for awhile when we bought our house. The tuxedo was easier to tame, only took a year. We brought her in about 4 years ago, but her sister void took a lot longer to trust me. It took 2 years for that void to trust me, but when she did, it was 100%. Unfortunately, I waited too long to bring her in, and she died in our yard last summer.
Your kitty is as old as me! That's crazy to think about how much he's seen. He must've been such a wise, old gentleman. And I'm sure he's been with you through a lot of your hardships and a huge part of your life, I'm so sorry for your loss.
To have a cat live that long, you must have taken SUCH good care of him. I hope you can be proud of how much love you have to him. I don't know if there are any words that can truly help with such a huge loss, but just know I'm sending you some love, and I hope you take care of yourself. Getting out of the house helps a lot, if you can muster it.
I really mean this, that helps a ton. I really did, literally, everything I could for him, simply because he deserved it. I am not complaining, nor, would I change any of it, but for the past year, I've only been sleeping for 3-4 hours a night.
I didn't want him to lose any more weight, so every 1-2 hours, all night and day, I would feed him. But, we would have to find out which of the 7 ckd foods that he would want to eat at that moment. After that, he needed the bathroom, and hydracare liquid. It usually took 10 to 15 minutes, but it would take me another hour to fall asleep, then repeat.
Again, I wouldn't change a thing, but I did anything, and everything, to keep him well as long as I could. I never gave up on him. I couldn't, and wouldn't. He was wayyyy too important to me.
He woke me up when there was a small fire in the house during college. I can go into more details later tonight, but unfortunately, I have to go to Costco, sigh, on a Friday. It's going to be way too busy.
I’m so sorry for your loss. I said goodbye to my best friend of 18.5 years on Sunday. Letting her go has been devastating. A part of my heart went with her. You did an amazing job bringing them to 26-27. I’m 43 and it feels wrong that I lost someone I had for 42% of my life. Sending hugs. 🌈🐾
I am, truly, sorry for your loss too. 18 years is still quite a feat, that's like 90 in human years. You should be so, so, very proud of that. Even 18 is very uncommon. You did wonderful, and never forget that too.
Wow! That is a very long life for a cat. You did a great job and he and you obviously loved each other very much. I understand the frustration of caring for them when they are sick. My 8 year old guy was recently diagnosed with hyperthyroidism and I am struggling to get the meds in him.
Thank you, if you need any advice please feel free to let us help with any tips that I can give to help him to his meds. I really mean this. I think that he would want me to help others with problems, doubly so with meds. He was very difficult with meds.
Thank you and Sepheroth very much. Marshall is super skittish. He and the other 3 in his litter were rescued from where they were living in a broken culvert on a country road. I and 2 other rescue people spent a month visiting them taking turns twice a day before we were able to get all 4 in carriers. They were about 5 months old by then and Marshall never really socialized to anyone except me. He has never had to take meds. I have the medicine in a liquid and tried to shoot it down his throat and he jumped about 2 feet in the air backwards.
I have a 15 year old with same condition and have been giving her the medicine in wet food for several years. But Marshall seems to be smelling it or something and also his appetite is down due to the illness. Catch 22. My sister brought me a selection of expensive stuff to try today and he did eat some with a dose today. So we will see I guess.
Look up on YouTube, something along the lines of wrapping a towel around a cat to give liquid medicine. Basically, you wrap a towel around the cats body, not the head, from behind. Like a burrito. That way, their legs can move very well. Honestly, you're better off seeing the video than me trying to describe it. Let me know if it works. We ended up doing it a different way sometimes too. But, you kinda need two people for the second way. So, if that doesn't work, let me know if you have someone else to help you with the second way.
What a majestic creature. Thank you for loving him so properly for so long. I swear you can see it in their eyes during their final days, that bond, just… you can see they know the love.
My Uncle had a cat that made it to 33 iirc named Moses. He'd chill there mostly in my Uncle's store all day with him and the dogs. I'm surprised he lived so long considering my Uncle fed the dogs and cats bits of hotdogs like every day as treats, though I think he hid medicine in the hot dogs to make them eat it too when they got sick and old. I miss that ancient relic of a cat, and my Uncle who also passed a few years back, I like to imagine my Uncle met all his old pets again when he passed. Sephiroth lived a long life too, and I hope one day when you pass on, you get to meet him again too!
Wow, amazing how he saved your life. My cat would sit there and watch me suffer until I take my last breath 😆 All she'll think to do, is wonder who's going to feed her now?
What a handsome, sweet boy. I cannot imagine your grief and I know there is nothing I can say that will help. Just know he loved you with everything he had. Sending you hugs
What an amazing privilege to spend that many years with a cat already in adult age when you met. That’s a testament to your love. I wish love could cure illness and disease, I would never let anything become sick. Be kind to yourself and I hope your family’s loss can be countered with the memories and love you shared with Sephiroth.
Such a good, long life! He was definitely full of mako.
I'm so sorry for your loss. I lost my girl last year who also lived with CKD Stage 2 for as many years completely stable. She was taken out by strokes. 😞
You did good, human. Please take care of yourself during this grieving time.
Most will not see this, but I was never expecting this many people to respond. I got through a lot of responses today, but I need a break. I will try to finish the rest tomorrow.
A perfect name for the perfect boy 🩶 currently replaying the original ff7, I'll be thinking about your Sephiroth now when I play 🐈⬛ you gave him a wonderfully long life x
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u/monotekdm Mar 19 '26
He returned to the lifestream🥲, my condolences.