Confession time. I’ve had to say good-bye to two cats in the past twelve years.  I would say that both times were equally devastating, in spite of vastly different circumstances.

The first time was the Beastlet, a wee black kitty who succumbed to un-/improperly-diagnosed kidney failure.  She had been ill for years, but the various vets at the clinic couldn’t figure out what was wrong until it was too late.  Her humane euthanasia was a surprise.
The second time was the Monster, a massive fatboi who succumbed to complications resulting from osteoarthritis and intestinal scarring.  Again, he’d been sick for years, the difference being that he had been properly diagnosed (if again a little too late) and treated.  His humane euthanasia was an inevitable, if dreaded, fact.
With the Beastlet, I couldn’t bring myself to be in the room when the injection was administered.  The shock and surprise of the diagnosis of advanced kidney failure and prognosis of at best six more months of increasing pain was too much all at once.  I couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t be in the same room as this wee, loving creature who had given me so much joy and pain as she died.  It was too hard, too much all at once.  I fled like a coward and bawled like a baby for days.
With the Monster, I had over a year to prepare myself for the inevitable.  I had time to steel myself for the pain.  I thought I was ready to be in the room, to be with him as he was at last allowed a release from the pain.
I was not.
It was awful.
It has been four months and I’m still crying.

And this.  This is the real difference.
My final memory of the Beastlet is of her curled in my lap and purring.
My final memory of the Monster is of him lying motionless, lifeless on the floor of the veterinary clinic.
And I fucking hate that.
I hate that my memory has been tainted.

People say that it is a mercy to the animal to have their person with them as they draw their final breaths.  I’m not so sure about that, after experiencing it on each side.  The vet’s office is already a stressful place for a pet – it is confusing and noisy and doesn’t smell right.  Add to that the circumstances of their likely pain and suffering.  That animal is hardly in its right mind.  It has no idea what is happening, or why.
The Monster wanted nothing to do with us, wanted only to hide from all the big people around him.  I don’t believe he derived any measure of comfort from my presence.  He certainly didn’t demonstrate any interest in me, my presence, my attempts to comfort him.  He passed peacefully. That is true.  His pain was ended.  That is also true.  He was in the company of his people, instead of just strangers.  But there was no indication that he understood anything that was happening – only evidence of his nearly complete discomfort and uneasiness.
He’s gone now.  His pain is ended.
But I am stuck.  Forever.  With that tainted memory.
My last memory of him will not be his purring, his headbutts for attention, his unending demand for a lap upon which to sleep.
It will forever be the sight of him lying on the floor of the veterinary clinic.  No longer a beloved pet, but rather simply a motionless, lifeless object.

I have no way to express how much I hate that.