Undo it, take it back, make every day the previous one until I am returned to the day before the one that made you gone. Or set me on an airplane traveling west, crossing the date line again and again, losing this day, then that, until the day of loss still lies ahead, and you are here instead of sorrow.”
Nessa Rapoport

Fly me west to the days when our precious grandcat Boobie was cancer-free. I want to stand motionless, poised on the international date line, betwixt and between every time – past or future – so that a singular moment that stretches into eternity is all there is – her healthy feline self, perched on her window hammock or cat tree, sweet face tilted towards the sun, leg stretched jauntily off the side, and her beautiful heart beating, still beating, with a vibrant aliveness.

In January of 2024, our daughter’s 11-year-old cat died peacefully at home via Lap of Love in-home euthanasia. We were and remain beyond heartbroken. It was a mutual rescue four years prior, just as the pandemic was having us lockdown a tiny bit earlier here in the Puget Sound than elsewhere.

Our family lived the width of those four years with her but sure wish we’d had all the years before 2020 and many more still ahead of us. My husband and I were like the grandparents who are always scheming to take their grandkids for the weekend – delighted for every moment we got with her and pathetically forlorn when it was time to send her back to her mama.

She was a beautiful snow marbled Bengal-ish cat with so much personality and spunk. In these last two years, she navigated diabetes and more recently, lung cancer. Until she couldn’t.

Pet loss is such an acute and particular grief unlike any other. I loathe that it’s been relegated to a category called secondary loss. There’s nothing secondary about our relationships with our animal companions. As a ritualist, I was thankful to be able to lean into my kitbag of grief rituals and resources. 

And I appreciate that there are folks like DVM Dr. Sarah Hoggan who are writing and talking about it. Her words are comforting and necessary, even and especially for the likes of me – a medical aid in dying volunteer, grief educator, and funeral celebrant who holds space for death on the regular and has lived all kinds of grief…but alas, not this specific one with this indelible cat.

Pet Loss Rituals
Here are a few of the rituals I chose to enact in those time before and after death.

Before she died, I blessed every part of her from head to toe with words of gratitude specific to that part of her – a variation of the blessing many of us use in deathcare. Normally, I would also have done pre and post bathing and anointing rituals but alas, she wasn’t my cat and my daughter was not keen on that idea.

The week prior, however, I made her a shroud by using a face stamp impression of her that my daughter had gifted me for Christmas and stamping that onto a white cloth with word stamps of her name and the word {love}. We then lined her cat basket with it and she ended up being wrapped in this shroud during her drive to Resting Waters, the amazing (best in the west) pet aquamation facility my daughter chose for disposition. Our grandcat’s favorite toy, an orange fishy, accompanied her on the drive and while she laid in grace during the viewing a couple of days later, during which my daughter was able to go and spend time with her alone to help her process her grief and have one last chance to see her in feline form.

During that weekend of grief and sorrow, I set a memorial altar with photos, her cat toys, candles, and other signification items. I then wrote a letter to her, printed it on water soluble paper and included a list of character trait words that best described her. After reading the letter aloud to my husband and shedding an equivalent bowl full of tears, I dissolved the letter into the water and began to float the words onto flower petals to float in my Ripples of Remembrance water bowl that featured a floating candle. As I repeated this gesture of floating descriptive words to then watch dissolve below the surface, I dimmed the lights and placed meditative music.

This water-based ritual was especially poignant because it was happening in tandem with her water-based cremation, which was set to take about 18-20 hours. 

Months later, my daughter set to work sewing an orange fish shaped cushion, a replica of her favorite cat toy. She wrote her own letter to her beloved cat which she then placed inside the pillow. 

I’ve yet to bring myself to craft her written and video tribute yet but I know that in time, it will be cathartic to undertake both of these tasks. In the meantime, I make a point of attending the local humane society’s bi-weekly pet loss group every few months, and I spend time each day, sifting through photos of her on my phone. And alas, the tears are still there. She was a one-of-a-kind cat who will be forever missed and loved.