For me, it was about learning to focus on all the happy memories I had with my cat, and not the stress and the fear and despair I felt at the end of his life. I choose to remember how he would wait at the door for me when I got home, or slept with me every night with his little paw in my hand (if I rolled over, he would climb over my head to the side I was facing so he could put his paw in my hand). Even how well he did taking his inhaler and how much life it gave him that he started playing again at 16. My funny pictures of him in a little sweater, or a bow tie. How he fussed until we gave him a chair of his own in the computer room so he could sit next to me, or lay on my desk as I was on the computer. How he seemed to know when I was sad and came to cuddle with me. How he was obsessed with boxes, so we had several around the house for him to sit in. Or even how he hid the remote for our sound bar and we didn’t find it until after he passed away, he never chewed on the buttons or anything, just put it in one of his boxes.

I choose to remember those good and happy times, and that I gave him the best care I could for the time I had him.