Saying goodbye to your pet

Inhuman chose a small white jar for her cat, Seven, and she followed the master who did the cremation to pick up the bones. Seven's tiny skull was still intact, with some fragments and white ash. While picking up the ashes in the jar, the master said: "Cremation is the cleanest, dead burned into a wisp of white smoke and there is nothing left. You don't bring it to life, you don't bring it to death."

Inhuman still remembers how Seven looked when he first entered the house: while kittens are usually afraid of new surroundings, Seven had a "this is my territory" attitude as soon as he entered the house, walking around confidently and jumping onto the table to stare at his new owner. Seven was so overbearing that Ian Ian, Inrush's original civet cat, was scared and had a fever, and was admitted to the hospital that night.

Inhuman remembered what her foster said to her, "Seven is very cold, he doesn't care about many people, he won't even touch or hug them, but he is very close to you when you first meet him. He likes you a lot, so adopt him, he chose you."

In 2012, Xingu had just graduated from college and rented a single room in an urban village, with a bed at the door.

Gradually, Seven became the "guardian" of the family. At half past seven on the lunar calendar, Xingu was awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of Seven's barking and saw him standing on his bed, barking menacingly out the window. I still think there must have been something unclean outside the window," recalls Inhuman. He could see it, he protected me, and I was so relieved."

Ian Ian, another cat in Inrush's family, also grew dependent on Seven, always being next to him and acting like a little girl in front of him. Seven also took good care of Ian Ian. When Ian Ian was depressed after the spaying, Seven kept watch over him and kept licking his fur.

After having a cat, Xingu felt that her personality had become softer. When she was in a bad mood, the cat clung to her and whined with her, and half of her heart melted away and she stopped thinking about what was bothering her. "They have the amazing power to heal you."

Inhuman believes that Seven and Ian Ian are like family members who accompany her, but with different feelings than family brings. "Pets love you without reservation. Even in a relationship, your boyfriend can't understand you completely, and your parents won't fully understand you. But a pet will spend all of its time with you, so their companionship is valuable."

In February 2014, Seven got sick and after seeing a doctor and taking medication, he was still in bad shape. At that time, Xingu was busy with the company's annual meeting and had to go to the venue for overtime rehearsals after work every day, and she neglected Seven's condition. "If a cat doesn't eat or drink for a few days, it's very dangerous and should be taken to the hospital immediately, not wait for a few days."

When Xingu took Seven to the hospital again for a checkup, the doctor did a light film of him in the standing position, only to discover that the water in his stomach was flat, indicating that he was in the wrong position and had an obstruction in his intestines. The surgery was successful. However, Seven did not wake up after the surgery and needed to be hospitalized. In the middle of the night, Xingu suddenly received a call from the doctor saying that Seven was not going to make it, probably because he was too weak. The doctor said that Seven almost didn't make it through the surgery because he couldn't even survive the anesthesia. By the time she arrived at the hospital, Xingu could feel that Seven was in pain and twitching. She asked the doctor, "Can you make him feel better? Can you save him?

The doctor said that there was nothing that could be done but to give him a Valium so that he would suffer less.

Inhuman was under the illusion that he might be able to get better, so she repeatedly checked with the doctor, "Is there nothing you can do? Can you give him a little more time?" The answer remained the same.

For a moment, Seven was awake, leaning his head against Xingu, knowing that his master was by his side. This made Xingu incredibly sad, and she asked herself, "Have you made up your mind? If you want to make him suffer less, give him a Valium.

Inhuman watched as Seven took the Valium and then had a moment of peace after a more eager twitch. She said to the doctor, "Don't do it, okay?" It seemed to her that maybe if she held on for a few more minutes, Seven might get better.

The doctor said that the medicine was in and that the way he looked was a normal reaction to the medicine.

Seven went away very calmly.

Inhuman felt that she had sent it away with her own hands. "It was still very young at that time, just two or three years old, and I felt very sorry and regretful. Why didn't I take him to the hospital earlier, why didn't I find out he was in bad shape earlier?"

Seven were brought home in a box. Ian Ian smelled the smell, probably knew it was Seven inside, and barked at the box very sadly. Ian Ian hadn't seen Seven for many days. During the days when Seven was in the hospital, Ian Ian had been very happy, but that night he kept circling the box, especially unhappy.

The night was rainy and overcast, and Xingu and her friend who had fostered Seven were in tears, emotionally drained.

The next day, someone drove her to the place where the cat was cremated, which was halfway up a hill in the far suburbs. Inhuman chose a small white jar for Seven, where she said goodbye: "You were cremated in a beautiful sunny place, look at this little hill with trees and grass. With this jar, you can always follow me."

On the way back, Inrush's heart grew calmer and calmer as she felt that she had picked up Seven again and brought him home. The little white jar was kept in her jewelry cabinet and she would take it out every day to look at it again. She would also take the urn and tell Ian Ian that this was Seven.

After Seven passed away, Xingu went through a six-month-long period of self-blame and pain. She kept wondering if Seven would have survived if she hadn't given him a Valium. Later, she read a lot of books about life and death and realized that Chinese people do not have a sense of "relief" from life and death. For example, while the parents are suffering, the children are still being resuscitated and kept alive by machines, because they cannot accept death and the process of giving up with their own hands. This leads parents to carry and suffer for the sake of their children, too.

"We did not learn to say goodbye with dignity", Inhuman said, adding that if she reached the moment of death, she did not want to be resuscitated and was ready to donate her body to the medicine.

A few years after Seven's death, Inrush's father also passed away. It was as if she heard a voice in her heart telling her, "I can't collapse". When she saw her mother, they stared at each other without speaking. At that moment, Xingu went to hug her mother first, choosing to be strong and protect her.

The question of how to face life and death is a life lesson for all people. Inhuman is now able to look on the bright side of her father's death, thinking that he didn't have to go through too much torture during the process. After her father left, Xingu realized how her mother felt when her grandfather died, saying, "I'll be the one without a father. At every important moment in her life, Xingu thought about the fact that her father was gone.

When Xingu got married, she had a painting designed and embroidered on her veil, with her, her husband, the two cats she now has, and Inrush's father, holding Seven in his arms in heaven. Inhuman felt that it was enough to keep them with her in this way.

Recently Xingu learned about a technology that can forge hairs into diamonds at high temperatures. She was glad that she had left a handful of Seven's hairs and planned to make it into a diamond ring to keep her company forever. She also found out that someone could make a "memory bear" out of a deceased loved one's clothes. "That's the kind of feeling you get when you do everything you can to keep them."

Two years after Seven's death, Xingu happened to meet a cat that looked exactly like Seven. She felt that this was a gift from Seven, allowing her to "take care of him again." But she also found that the two cats were diametrically abilities, "they are not the same individuals, and no life can be duplicated."

In the process of taking care of the cats, Xingu became more and more knowledgeable about pets. Since 2015, she has been involved in the pet industry, slowly transitioning to the more specialized pet medical industry and founding her own pet health care development company. Senor feels there were the cats that allowed her to enter the pet industry, "They have given me so much more in return than what I put into them."

Now, Xingu has a cat that looks exactly like Seven and a civet cat, Ian Ian. During Chinese New Year, Xingu puts couplets on their little house, puts a red scarf on them for pictures, and gives them a cat scratching board with the LB logo painted on it.

She sometimes dreams of her father and Seven, on the other side of the river in the sunshine, telling her it's nice. Inhuman feels that they can see, that they are watching her as she lives her life in earnest.

While enjoying the companionship and healing brought by pets, owners inevitably have to face the pain of their beloved pets passing away.

How to say goodbye to one's favorite pet and how to accept another kind of life and death is a necessary lesson that people are always learning.