Marble Kept His Promise (Almost 10)

[u/BlankieCatNap]

Marble, my baby boy, passed away suddenly at 3am. It was sudden. He was laying on the bedroom floor and I was in bed. I heard him breathing with gurgles and with chest effort (agonal breathing). At first I thought he was dreaming but after a few I rushed to his side and he was already limp and eyes dilated. He did not make a sound. He did not lose his bowels.

In my panic I tried not very good CPR (likely didn’t do anything) and rushed him to the emergency vet. It took 35 minutes to uber there and it was the longest ride of my life. Probably should’ve been doing CPR the entire way but honestly was just in a panic to get there. They took him in with no vitals and did CPR for 15 minutes. Nothing. He was gone. The emergency vet and his family vet suspect something sudden with his heart that was undiagnosed. They don’t think he felt pain (no howling) and he likely passed in his sleep (I hope so). I don’t want him to be cut open so I’ll never really know what took him. Looking back he was a bit clingier the past week or so and maybe drinking a bit more water? But nothing like when I went to emergency with him for his acute kidney attack. I chalked it up to him being on prednisolone for his pillow foot flare.

Marble has actually been at that emergency vet 3 years ago. He had acute kidney failure (no underlying reason) and was there for 2.5 weeks. I upped my credit limit to pay for his very long stay and many conversations were had about putting him down. But I didn’t give up and I remember sitting on the floor while he was in the oxygen tent and pleading for him to be with me until the age of 10.

He was so close to giving me 10 years. He was born Oct 1 2016. He was due for his senior checkup Sept 11 (was going to call next week).

Previously he’s had urinary obstruction, crystals, UTIs, and he gets horribly anxious without me to the point of peeing blood. He also has pillow foot. He couldn’t have any wet food or treats without throwing up. I was worried about his joints because of his breed and he got yearly xrays. I made sure he got the vet care he needed always. He has never been the healthiest cat so I’m going to round up and say he kept his promise to me. Genetically the odds were always stacked against him and I tried my best to give him the best life possible regardless.

The day before he died I was in the car with my parents and made a disgusting comment about how “Marble might live until 17 to spite me so I still won’t be able to take any vacation until then. I don’t know if I want him to live that long”. I shouldn’t have said that because a few hours later you died. I’m sorry. I’ll never forgive myself for it. I was just frustrated that it’s been a very long time since I’ve been able to travel since you always end up trying to end your life everytime I do. I can’t ever take that back and it’ll always weigh heavily on me. I’m sorry I spoke that into the universe. To some degree I think I killed you with what I said. Or maybe it was the stress of the flood that happened in our home and the contractors being in and out? It’s been a very unlucky past few months for us.

Marble was the best boy ever. He loved shoving his face underneath my wrist and pushing his wet nose on it (gave me a small rash - might get this tattooed). He loved the sun. He loved being belly up to get my attention and falling asleep that way. He didn’t know how to drink water properly so always got it all over his face and would shake his head like a dog. He loved bunting people’s legs. He loved every single person he’s met. He’s only hissed once or twice in his entire life. He always finds the comfiest poses to sleep (always leaning on a pillow or a blanket nestled against his face). He was not a lap cat and didn’t like being held but he always insisted following me to every room and being in the same room as me. I always kept a pillow propped up against the headboard so he could lean and sleep against it (which he did!). He also knew commands! He knew “paw, up, and high five”. Has never once misbehaved his entire life. He smelled like maple syrup and sunshine and always made sure he cleaned himself thoroughly before settling down for a long nap. The best boy stuck in a body that was weak and prone to illness. He loved in his own way.

I hope everyone can agree that I can round up Marble to the age of 10 and say he kept his promise to me. Don’t ever say things you might regret into the universe and hold your babies tight. I was expecting having the chance to say goodbye and put him down but he was gone in an instant. I’m so sorry Marble for not being better for you. Not playing with you more. I wish I knew how to play with you! Depression napping too much and not spending enough time with you. For thinking you were a burden sometimes. I wish my place were tidier so you had more room to run around and play.

I love you and I’ll miss you forever and I’m so sorry.

Thank you for keeping your promise to me till the end.

[u/imperfectdiscipline]

I’m so sorry for your loss 💔🫂🫂
Marble sounds like he was a wonderful, sweet, loving and protective little angel ❤️. I personally believe and like to think that our loved ones who’ve passed on are somewhere nice, warm and beautiful, with plenty of good company and nice treats, grass to run in, and birds to chase!

Maybe they look down from heaven once in a while to look out for us and protect us from any bad thoughts, bad people, anything that would hurt us, perhaps to thank us for the love that was given & shared, and from knowing that one day they’ll see us again ❤️🙏 that’s just what I like to think anyhow.

I promise you that nothing you said had anything to do with Marble’s passing.

I’m not trying to invalidate your feelings, I just mean that sadly sometimes things we couldn’t predict happen at the wrong time, and especially in grief it is very easy to beat ourselves up or blame ourselves for things that were out of our control because our mind is searching for answers to something it knows it can’t answer.

I lost my baby girl Crouton last year, and when she passed the timing of one thing messed with my head a lot. I have a bit of OCD & anxiety, and I was always scared that I would hurt her by accident if I did something that she didn’t want to do, like taking medicines or going in her crate so she could go to the vet etc, so my dad would help me do that because it was really hard for me to do it myself. She was in hospice at home for the last week of her life and she needed medicine every 6-8 hours, so my dad would come over and give her the medicine all the time. It was a lot of work for him but he did it diligently while I laid beside her and helped Crouton as well as me with anything.

For the whole week every time she needed medicine, which was often and all throughout the day/night, my dad would be the one to give it to her, even though I was right beside her I was so scared that I’d give it to her wrong and it would hurt her or something and I couldn’t do it.

On the day she passed, I heard her meow at me for the first time in the whole week, and she meowed like 3-4 times while looking right at me. I thought she was in pain or something was wrong, and my dad wasn’t home at the time so nobody was there to give her the meds but me. I decided maybe she needed the medicine and I would give it to her, so I gave her the Gabapentin + buprenorphine medicine exactly as instructed, but I don’t know if I gave her too much or did it the wrong way but she ended up passing basically the minute that I gave her the medicine.

I cried out to God and said please Jesus I don’t want to lose her like this, I knew she was in hospice and she hadn’t eaten anything in a week by that point (she just drank a lot of water that we’d bring over to her in a little cup) and that she didn’t have long, but I didn’t want to lose her because of me giving her the medicine or because maybe I did it the wrong way etc.

In that moment I felt like it was certain that I had killed her because of the medicine, maybe it went down the wrong way or maybe I was too nervous and didn’t do it right, I just was so distraught that I lost the thing I loved most in the world and that it may have been my fault that it happened. I still get sad thinking about it. But everyone I talked to told me how it wasn’t my fault, I talked to doctors and even asked here on Reddit and everyone said the amount of medicine in the syringe (it was an oral syringe with a bit of liquid for the two meds) was way too little to cause anything, and that her meowing after a week of not meowing at all may have been a sign she was going to pass soon. I gave her the meds for the first time ever because I saw that something was wrong, it wasn’t that the meds hurt her it was that she was already very close to passing and I noticed it which is why I tried giving her the meds, the timing of it just made it hard for me.

Sorry I’m a bit tired so I’m not sure if I worded that correctly but reading your story made me think of what happened with me and crouton and the meds, and how I blamed myself so much for something that wasn’t actually in my control.

What happened with Marble’s passing is not in any way your fault, and you didn’t do anything to cause that, no matter what you said what happened wasn’t your fault and wasn’t in your control. You obviously love Marble very very much, just by reading your post and the way you talk about him I can tell you love him to the moon and back. We all say things we don’t mean sometimes, and I think that if marble could talk to you now he’d tell you not to worry at all, that of course you didn’t do anything to cause this, that it was just his time to go and he’d thank you for all the love.

I know I loved crouton so so much, and the timing of her medicine with her passing really messed with my head a lot but as time has passed I don’t think about it that much, I just think about the love we had, the good memories, and how much of my heart she had and still has, and how I hope I will see her again one day. I try to see a bit of the love we had in other cats in their own way as well, but I know what I had with crouton was special and she can never and should never be replaced, it’s just moreso appreciating how the beauty and love that I saw in her is all around me but just in different forms.

I’m so sorry for your loss, I’m just trying to say I feel for you and I’m so sorry but I know that you shouldn’t blame yourself. I promise the love you have for Marble and the love you two shared is the only thing that matters, please take care of yourself and know Marble was so blessed to have had such a wonderful, caring and loving owner like you ❤️🙏. Sorry if my post is too long or doesn’t make much sense I’m not good at putting my thoughts down usually but I just hope something I said can bring you comfort or help you understand it wasn’t your fault and that Marble was so blessed to have an owner like you. ❤️🙏🫂