On March 15 2005 I had to have my precious Bbs put to sleep. It was a horrible gut wrenching time, and I didn't stop to think, to let my Sweet Pea boy (now also an Angel) say good bye. He was deeply bonded to both her and another cat who was still with us (now also an Angel), they raised him, together.
He was DEVASTATED. It was horrible. It was so terrible I never got to grieve properly for Bbs, because he was so out of his mind in grief. Even though he still had our other girl, whom he was also very bonded to, I didn't think he was ever going to get over the loss of his Bbs.
He hid away all day, I had to drag him out of his hiding spot to give him his medications (phenobarbital, l-lysine) and sryinge feed. At first, he met me at the door every night when I came home, with hope in his eyes, but when he saw I didn't have her with me, he went back to his hiding spot. At the three week mark I got so worried about him I took him to the vet where he was given a B-12 shot and fluids. I took fluids home with me, in case he needed more, if I couldn't get him to eat enough.
That trip to the vet seemed to break the thrall a little, he stopped looking for her when I came home, and started eating better. But..he cried for her, for months. At night he walked through the apartment calling for her. Just crying and crying. Oh my gosh, it was terrible.
Bbs was a Burrower. She used to sleep under the blanket folded at the bottom of my bed (The Lump, I called it), and he slept on top of her, on top of the blanket. On top of The Lump. One day a few months after she was gone I was making the bed and when I put the folded blanket down it puffed up in the middle. Oh it hurts even to write this. He saw the puffed up spot and with a cry of JOY he leapt up and put his paws on it, and of course it collapsed. I burst into tears, and if he could have, he would have too.
Lola, even though he had his other girl to sleep with, and SK (who had come a month before Bb left us) to play with, he still grieved for his loss. For a full year he grieved. Finally, one day in April of the following year I came home and found one of his Fur Mice on the stairs. I cried with joy and relief, because I knew, if he was playing with his Fur Mice again, he was better. He did eventually go almost completely back to normal, he was a very cheerful cat, a real practical joker, too. But he did lose a spark that never came back. He knew grief and loss, and it left it's mark.
He also developed an anxiety about losing the other cats. Any time I left with another cat in the carrier, he was at the door waiting for us when I came home. Many times I watched him wake from a nap and walk through the apartment checking to make sure all the other cats were still there.
When his second 'mother' left us in May of 2009 I feared so much he would go through it again, but it was a completely different situation. He grieved and missed her, but HE KNEW what happened to her. She weaned herself from him for several months before she left us. So, even though she was still with us, he had to get used to sleeping without her, before she finally left. And I made sure he said his good byes, too.
That's the hardest part some times, of losing a pet, seeing another grieve. I'm sorry Lola is still having such a hard time, but don't give up hope yet. My boy really did take a full year, maybe a little longer, to cope.