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Borodog,

Awesome posts. I think your big regret is that you weren't able to go about it on your terms, but look at it this way: it appears he did it on his.

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I had a cat get poisoned once. I kept trying to comfort it. Stroke it, keep it warm against my body, just lay a hand on it so it wouldn't feel completely alone in its pain, anything that I imagined could feel comforting. Eventually I started to feel bad, in a way. No matter how gentle my touch, even when holding perfectly still, the cat kept squirming to try to get away. I finally more or less admitted to myself that the cat just wanted to die alone. However they face pain and fear and death, sharing it must make it worse. But for a long time in her dragged out death, I gave her no other choice. I think I may have made a good chunk of her last hours more painful rather than less. It didn't make me feel good about myself. Maybe my own feelings were more important to me than I realized at the time, and I was focusing too much on myself. If so, I didn't feel any better for it either, so my efforts weren't a success either way.

If that happens again, I am going to try to let the animal's feelings direct me and not do anything as if I knew more than it did what would make it happiest. If it doesn't want me around, I'll just go. I think I'm probably a lot like the cat was too. I would feel worse dying if I knew I was pulling everyone down into sadness with me. I think I'd like to believe in a heaven for their sake, not mine, just so they wouldn't have to worry about me anymore. Maybe I'll pretend to have a deathbed conversion when the time is ripe, even though I'd really rather not be bothered.

You can't choose the terms of somebody else's death, and it's probably bad to try to impose them anyway. It's probably the last thing they need at the time. Boro, there's an excellent chance that your cat chose the best possible death that was within its understanding, and in its own way found a kind of satisfaction in it that there's nothing you could do to provide anyway.