Literally. We knew what was coming so it wasn’t a surprise, which helps very little. We had to put one of our cats, Cassie (Cassiopia), to sleep this morning. She had been having considerable trouble breathing for some time, and she had ceased eating the night before. We already had a vet appointment for today, and we learned that the breathing problem, which was progressing, was not treatable. This was not the first time for us, and we knew what to do (and what it feels like).
1. August 2009: Hiding in the fireplace at the rescue house and 2. Arrival at our house. 3. April 2024: Her last morning — having a rough one.
I don’t know what to say, and I won’t say much. This certainly has been quite some week. Cassie was rescued somewhere in the fields outside Merced, California. She had just had kittens, and she was injured and having difficulting jumping. Yet she was a spirited survivor and we took her in. I taught her to lap-sit, and that became one of the big joys of her life. Her jumping improved considerably over the years, but her tail was always strange, twitching a bit like a squirrel’s as she walked.
She was a biter, but she could hunt and eat well enough to survive on her own. I remember finding her with a toy mouse, under the dining room table, that turned out not to be a toy. At least that one was dead, and it wasn’t partly eaten like the one we found her with in back another time. Then there were the lizards.
We harness-trained her and Bella — our other cat that came a little later and is still with us at nearly age 18 — in the back yard, which is a large garden. Eventually we could let them out in that fenced-in area and they would stay, so they lived as indoor-outdoor cats but they did not roam the neighborhood. With her health problems, which also included asthma, that was fine with Cassie. The garden was perfect for them. She would parade about the garden, “roaring” — she was a small cat, and it didn’t exactly come out sounding like a roar.
It is very sad to see her go, but I am very glad to see her now free of the suffering that this world brings.
My daughter put to sleep her old cat in the same situation as yours. Everybody in the family have ben so upset, the oldest of her two daughters carries his ashes in her neckless. Everything changed when my daughter picked up two charming kittens from the street. (Of course, before bringing them home, she brought them to the Animal clinic.Everybody is happy now, including kittens. By away, thank you for liking my comment to Hephzibzh.
You're welcome. I was left literally speechless when I read her post, and I relied upon others to speak.
We had those cats for something like 15 years. We're both childless only children, and the cats made it a family, sort of. We are also in our 70s, and any new cats coming in would have a good chance of outliving us. That might not go well for them.
There are other concerns as well. We continue to grieve the loss, but I grieve much more for this world, what it has come to and where it is headed.
About H.: I was and still is speechless also. I just don't understand, how it could happened.
About the cats, you are absolutely right. The same happened with us. We lost our (we picked her from the street and loved her dearly) dog and couldn't take other dog by the same reason, and we are even older. Thanks for a conversation. Just remember wise Solomon: "Everything passes."
When I lose a cat, my pain is greater than when losing a beloved human. I don't know why this is so but I consider that a cat has no sin before God. And I spend more time with cats than humans. I go in and out but cats always here so this their home and world I stay in. I do not know if cats have a one time soul or an eternal soul. Maybe will find out one day.
I’ve felt your feline loss too many times to remember over the years. Cats are here to teach is how quickly the life cycle completes itself. Take little for granted. Keep oil for your lamps and keep your wicks trimmed.
I am sorry for your loss of a wonderful cat. I do believe that animal's spirits are eternal and that we will meet up with them in the spirit realm again. I have no scripture to share about that , it's just intuition. Our current cat came into our yard a year ago and after a few months it ran into our house and decided to stay. I was not planning on having another cat. We thought it was a female but found out at the Veterinarian clinic that he had been neutered. He refuses to use a litter box and prefers to go outside to do his buisness. Perhaps you will find another cat or it will find you when the time is right.
Scripture suggests that we will have even more amazing bonds with all the animals, who like us will no longer be in bondage to a corrupt, fallen world. I believe we won't even remember our pets that have passed away (or non-saved humans) as that could bring back painful memories of sickness, sorrow, and death.
Can always get more cats and bond with them as relationship is everything. A new cat will replace the role of the departed cat. The empty spot will be filled. But the personality of the departed cat can't be replaced and will forever be missed. I used what departed cats taught me and bless the new cats in memory and honour or the departed cats.
We have our surviving cat, Bella, still. She's going on 18 years old (next month), with kidney disease and a heart murmur, and would likely not adapt well to introducing another cat to the house at this stage of her life.
We have another thought on our minds, about just how long we will survive, and what would become of the cat(s) if we were gone.
We feed ours well, although it is growing more difficult to find quality prepared foods, raw or cooked, and we both already have full days without trying to shop for and prepare from scratch something resembling a "species-appropriate diet" for them.
Our cats live long lives, and if we brought in new ones, it is quite possible that they would outlive us, who are in our 70s.
I don't know what happens at death when there is a human-animal relationship like this, and I will wait and see. What I know right now is that my mind doesn't want to accept that she's gone. I also know that I witnessed her death and she is indeed gone. The two will need to reconcile over time.
There would appear to be a connection with what has happened in the world over the past several years. I have been grieving the loss of the world that I thought existed from when I was growing up onward. It didn't die, but it was revealed to be something quite different and quite ugly. My mind wants not to accept that either, but I witnessed the unveiling of what lay underneath and again, time for reconciliation is needed.
Taking that out one more level, I am surrounded now by people that saw what has happened recently in the world and yet do not see it, and do not accept that it happened. They may or may not have witnessed the unveiling, but most seem not to have. How can reconciliation take place? What are the consequences of that?
I don't know. I share what I can the about truth as I understand it. Not the truth about what has happened, but about God, salvation, our purpose, and why these things happen in response to what we collectively do. This is what needs to be heard and understood. And it doesn't seem to receive much attention.
Planted seeds stay hidden until God gives them life.
Idk what the consequences of denial are in their entirety, though God does give us words of wisdom. Many words.
They believed a lie because they have no love for the truth.
You are fulfilling your duty to Him when you tell them the truth. If they turn away their blood isn't on your hands. Being a watchman is a lonely job, but only in relation to the loneliness of other people. Jesus is right there keeping company. The Holy Spirit.
About animals and their spirits. I don't know if this was just a dream, but it was lovely. I was entering Heaven and walking swiftly through a big field to get there and all around me were these beautiful bouncing balls of light and I knew them as the animals I had loved who were accompanying me to the gate. It was so wonderful.
I am sorry for your loss. How blessed we are that God created these soft, cuddly, beautiful creatures for us to love. I know I will be devastated when my kitty passes away.
I had to restrain myself here. But other cats chase balls. This one juggled them, with her paws, rearing up on her hind legs! It probably hurt, too. The two of us had quite a bit in common, considering, but I don't juggle.
Sounds just like cats in cartoons! That's quite the quirk to have, and it's funny (albeit not surprising) to think that we share so much in common with our pets. It likely goes both ways- we influence them just as much as they influence us!
Thank you. There are reasons it is hard. It causes us to look at things we wouldn't ordinarily look at. I guess that's a good thing, but right now I don't really know.
I'm sorry. We have cats, too, and have faced similar in the past. It never gets easier. Even the ones who aren't particularly my favorite leave me feeling desolate and adrift after they've gone. They are family. I read somewhere (one of Hugh Ross's books) that God made the nepesh animals partly for our enjoyment. Not sure I have that term right, but it means "soulish animals", and cats are certainly in that category. I like to think we might see them again one day, though I realize there's nothing much in the Bible one way or the other on that topic. Take care.
I am giving the matter further thought. There aren’t any direct biblical references, but there are clues in creation that reality might not be exactly as it appears. From there come possibilities.
I have a great many thoughts on animals in God's plans, but since most are pretty speculative I talk only to Him about them. I do agree that reality isn't exactly as it appears, and am curious as to where your train of thought is leading as it pertains to pets. Maybe an essay is on the way?
I use "emulation" in preference to "simulation" because emulations produce something real and functional, while simulations produce, well, simulations. Not real. Simulations can be useful for testing ideas, sometimes, or for scaring the population using fake data and bad code (see 2020 death toll prediction "models", and other examples, "model" being scientific talk for "an untestable something I made up").
Emulations get work done.
In the above comment I wrote about software emulation, which could conceivably have parallels elsewhere, such as in the way this universe is constructed. If I were creating a universe this dangerous, I think I would employ some form of emulation and sandboxing. Unfortunately I didn't archive my comment about sandboxing, or the link to it, but I have this link from my browser history that discusses the concept:
This still doesn't lead directly to what becomes of animals when they die, but within an emulated environment, anything is possible! That is the connection, weak as it is. The sandbox is critical for restricting what effects activities occurring within the emulation can have upon the environment in which the emulation exists and runs.
But why would I think that we are living in some form of emulation?
Well, miracles. The Bible contains accounts of many miracles that are impossible in terms of what we think we know about reality. Within an emulation, reality can be manipulated, since it is defined by the emulation. Things can be brought back that were gone. It is a possible clue, anyway.
Hmm, that got a little bit Pet Cemetery there at the end. I have to confess that I'm one of God's stupider children. I do not have a mind capable of really grasping the architecture of the digital network of doom. Now I know you have hedged and said that the emulation theory may not be correct but I'm still going to ask it: why would God operate in such a manner? He is the entire basis of reality, and he made the universe and everything in it, so why such complexity if He should want to briefly suspend the laws that He made in order to do things we call miracles? Would the emulation theory negate the notion of the supernatural? It just sounds like a bunch of code running and determining outcomes. Does He plug in a few lines of something, or take some out? Isn't that a form of determinism?
I never saw Pet Cemetery, so no inspiration came from there. My software emulation work was mostly in the 70s. It's not a matter of needing emulation. It's a question of what our reality is made out of. A functioning reality need not actually be bottom-level real ("bare metal" in software terms).
One of the uses of emulation, in the software world, is to ensure that stuff can't escape from an inner sandboxed one to an outer environment. Radically altering the inner one occasionally, for a particular purpose, breaking the rules, could be another. Providing for safe disposal when the usefulness of the emulation was over could be yet another, and "resurrecting" an earlier version momentarily in order to grab something out of it is another. That last one could pertain to pets.
Does any of that apply to our reality? I really have no idea. There wouldn't be any way to know for sure. There certainly should be other ways to accomplish what we see in this world. Nevertheless, from time to time I do get the uncanny feeling that we might be living in some kind of emulation-like universe that is not at all what it appears to be.
Emulation is one way to account for observed differences between the "scientific" worldview and the biblical one. Another way is to explore the possibility that the scientific view is demonstrably nonsensical. I listen to people who travel down both paths of exploration.
My daughter put to sleep her old cat in the same situation as yours. Everybody in the family have ben so upset, the oldest of her two daughters carries his ashes in her neckless. Everything changed when my daughter picked up two charming kittens from the street. (Of course, before bringing them home, she brought them to the Animal clinic.Everybody is happy now, including kittens. By away, thank you for liking my comment to Hephzibzh.
You're welcome. I was left literally speechless when I read her post, and I relied upon others to speak.
We had those cats for something like 15 years. We're both childless only children, and the cats made it a family, sort of. We are also in our 70s, and any new cats coming in would have a good chance of outliving us. That might not go well for them.
There are other concerns as well. We continue to grieve the loss, but I grieve much more for this world, what it has come to and where it is headed.
About H.: I was and still is speechless also. I just don't understand, how it could happened.
About the cats, you are absolutely right. The same happened with us. We lost our (we picked her from the street and loved her dearly) dog and couldn't take other dog by the same reason, and we are even older. Thanks for a conversation. Just remember wise Solomon: "Everything passes."
When I lose a cat, my pain is greater than when losing a beloved human. I don't know why this is so but I consider that a cat has no sin before God. And I spend more time with cats than humans. I go in and out but cats always here so this their home and world I stay in. I do not know if cats have a one time soul or an eternal soul. Maybe will find out one day.
💝🙏rest in peace dear Cassie🙏💝
She is free from suffering AND knew great love.
Yes. We were talking about that last night.
I’ve felt your feline loss too many times to remember over the years. Cats are here to teach is how quickly the life cycle completes itself. Take little for granted. Keep oil for your lamps and keep your wicks trimmed.
This is only the third for me, but with the fourth coming sometime soon. Bella hasn’t quite caught on, either, that her alpha, Cassie, is gone.
I am sorry for your loss of a wonderful cat. I do believe that animal's spirits are eternal and that we will meet up with them in the spirit realm again. I have no scripture to share about that , it's just intuition. Our current cat came into our yard a year ago and after a few months it ran into our house and decided to stay. I was not planning on having another cat. We thought it was a female but found out at the Veterinarian clinic that he had been neutered. He refuses to use a litter box and prefers to go outside to do his buisness. Perhaps you will find another cat or it will find you when the time is right.
Scripture suggests that we will have even more amazing bonds with all the animals, who like us will no longer be in bondage to a corrupt, fallen world. I believe we won't even remember our pets that have passed away (or non-saved humans) as that could bring back painful memories of sickness, sorrow, and death.
Can always get more cats and bond with them as relationship is everything. A new cat will replace the role of the departed cat. The empty spot will be filled. But the personality of the departed cat can't be replaced and will forever be missed. I used what departed cats taught me and bless the new cats in memory and honour or the departed cats.
We have our surviving cat, Bella, still. She's going on 18 years old (next month), with kidney disease and a heart murmur, and would likely not adapt well to introducing another cat to the house at this stage of her life.
We have another thought on our minds, about just how long we will survive, and what would become of the cat(s) if we were gone.
We feed ours well, although it is growing more difficult to find quality prepared foods, raw or cooked, and we both already have full days without trying to shop for and prepare from scratch something resembling a "species-appropriate diet" for them.
Our cats live long lives, and if we brought in new ones, it is quite possible that they would outlive us, who are in our 70s.
I don't know what happens at death when there is a human-animal relationship like this, and I will wait and see. What I know right now is that my mind doesn't want to accept that she's gone. I also know that I witnessed her death and she is indeed gone. The two will need to reconcile over time.
There would appear to be a connection with what has happened in the world over the past several years. I have been grieving the loss of the world that I thought existed from when I was growing up onward. It didn't die, but it was revealed to be something quite different and quite ugly. My mind wants not to accept that either, but I witnessed the unveiling of what lay underneath and again, time for reconciliation is needed.
Taking that out one more level, I am surrounded now by people that saw what has happened recently in the world and yet do not see it, and do not accept that it happened. They may or may not have witnessed the unveiling, but most seem not to have. How can reconciliation take place? What are the consequences of that?
I don't know. I share what I can the about truth as I understand it. Not the truth about what has happened, but about God, salvation, our purpose, and why these things happen in response to what we collectively do. This is what needs to be heard and understood. And it doesn't seem to receive much attention.
Planted seeds stay hidden until God gives them life.
Idk what the consequences of denial are in their entirety, though God does give us words of wisdom. Many words.
They believed a lie because they have no love for the truth.
You are fulfilling your duty to Him when you tell them the truth. If they turn away their blood isn't on your hands. Being a watchman is a lonely job, but only in relation to the loneliness of other people. Jesus is right there keeping company. The Holy Spirit.
About animals and their spirits. I don't know if this was just a dream, but it was lovely. I was entering Heaven and walking swiftly through a big field to get there and all around me were these beautiful bouncing balls of light and I knew them as the animals I had loved who were accompanying me to the gate. It was so wonderful.
Love never dies. Cassie is loved.
Cassie's ball just took on a glow, in my mind, anyway.
Speaking of which, I updated "Howls of Joy" (link above) with three photos. One is of her ball. It's not glowing in that picture, though.
I am sure the ball is glowing. They don't leave us just as love never dies.
She's saying hello. Not that I believe in ghosts. Who needs them when we have God's spirit?
I am sorry for your loss. How blessed we are that God created these soft, cuddly, beautiful creatures for us to love. I know I will be devastated when my kitty passes away.
Condolences on the loss ClearMiddle. It sounds like you and your family shared many moments with Cassie.
I had to restrain myself here. But other cats chase balls. This one juggled them, with her paws, rearing up on her hind legs! It probably hurt, too. The two of us had quite a bit in common, considering, but I don't juggle.
Sounds just like cats in cartoons! That's quite the quirk to have, and it's funny (albeit not surprising) to think that we share so much in common with our pets. It likely goes both ways- we influence them just as much as they influence us!
My condolences on the loss of your dear kitty-friend Cassie. It's a hard thing to lose a friend.
Thank you. There are reasons it is hard. It causes us to look at things we wouldn't ordinarily look at. I guess that's a good thing, but right now I don't really know.
One day at a time, friend.
I'm sorry. We have cats, too, and have faced similar in the past. It never gets easier. Even the ones who aren't particularly my favorite leave me feeling desolate and adrift after they've gone. They are family. I read somewhere (one of Hugh Ross's books) that God made the nepesh animals partly for our enjoyment. Not sure I have that term right, but it means "soulish animals", and cats are certainly in that category. I like to think we might see them again one day, though I realize there's nothing much in the Bible one way or the other on that topic. Take care.
I am giving the matter further thought. There aren’t any direct biblical references, but there are clues in creation that reality might not be exactly as it appears. From there come possibilities.
Well, that's opaque. :)
I have a great many thoughts on animals in God's plans, but since most are pretty speculative I talk only to Him about them. I do agree that reality isn't exactly as it appears, and am curious as to where your train of thought is leading as it pertains to pets. Maybe an essay is on the way?
OK, you asked for it. No essay, but I've commented on the general topic that I have in mind in places like this: https://crissiloveschrist.substack.com/p/blinded-brilliant-minds/comment/51523014
I use "emulation" in preference to "simulation" because emulations produce something real and functional, while simulations produce, well, simulations. Not real. Simulations can be useful for testing ideas, sometimes, or for scaring the population using fake data and bad code (see 2020 death toll prediction "models", and other examples, "model" being scientific talk for "an untestable something I made up").
Emulations get work done.
In the above comment I wrote about software emulation, which could conceivably have parallels elsewhere, such as in the way this universe is constructed. If I were creating a universe this dangerous, I think I would employ some form of emulation and sandboxing. Unfortunately I didn't archive my comment about sandboxing, or the link to it, but I have this link from my browser history that discusses the concept:
https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/definition/sandbox
This still doesn't lead directly to what becomes of animals when they die, but within an emulated environment, anything is possible! That is the connection, weak as it is. The sandbox is critical for restricting what effects activities occurring within the emulation can have upon the environment in which the emulation exists and runs.
But why would I think that we are living in some form of emulation?
Well, miracles. The Bible contains accounts of many miracles that are impossible in terms of what we think we know about reality. Within an emulation, reality can be manipulated, since it is defined by the emulation. Things can be brought back that were gone. It is a possible clue, anyway.
Hmm, that got a little bit Pet Cemetery there at the end. I have to confess that I'm one of God's stupider children. I do not have a mind capable of really grasping the architecture of the digital network of doom. Now I know you have hedged and said that the emulation theory may not be correct but I'm still going to ask it: why would God operate in such a manner? He is the entire basis of reality, and he made the universe and everything in it, so why such complexity if He should want to briefly suspend the laws that He made in order to do things we call miracles? Would the emulation theory negate the notion of the supernatural? It just sounds like a bunch of code running and determining outcomes. Does He plug in a few lines of something, or take some out? Isn't that a form of determinism?
I never saw Pet Cemetery, so no inspiration came from there. My software emulation work was mostly in the 70s. It's not a matter of needing emulation. It's a question of what our reality is made out of. A functioning reality need not actually be bottom-level real ("bare metal" in software terms).
One of the uses of emulation, in the software world, is to ensure that stuff can't escape from an inner sandboxed one to an outer environment. Radically altering the inner one occasionally, for a particular purpose, breaking the rules, could be another. Providing for safe disposal when the usefulness of the emulation was over could be yet another, and "resurrecting" an earlier version momentarily in order to grab something out of it is another. That last one could pertain to pets.
Does any of that apply to our reality? I really have no idea. There wouldn't be any way to know for sure. There certainly should be other ways to accomplish what we see in this world. Nevertheless, from time to time I do get the uncanny feeling that we might be living in some kind of emulation-like universe that is not at all what it appears to be.
Emulation is one way to account for observed differences between the "scientific" worldview and the biblical one. Another way is to explore the possibility that the scientific view is demonstrably nonsensical. I listen to people who travel down both paths of exploration.
I don't know. They certainly can entertain, but there is more to the relationship than that. And they can teach us about ourselves.