On the Heartache of Losing Two Pets in the Same Year
A few weeks ago I woke up in the middle of the night after dreaming about Zoey and Isabella. My 4-year-old daughter Harper had been sleeping peacefully beside me, so when I started sobbing, I had to hold my breath so I wouldn’t wake her up.
I stared at Harper as the glow of the Minnie Mouse nightlight reflected on her face. I knew that even if she woke up and saw I was an emotional mess and wasn’t a super mom who had her life together, she would love me unconditionally.
That’s the kind of love I always felt from Zoey and Isabella. That’s why I’m still grieving after losing them both last year.
Every single pet I ever had in my life, my mom gave away. That’s at least four dogs and two hamsters. Not having pets for more than a few months meant I never got to bond with them, or watch them get old, or watch them die.
Despite not knowing what being a true pet owner was really like, I still wanted a pet for my own. I decided on a kitten.
I got Zoey in 2001 when I was in graduate school in Virginia. She was actually the runner-up because my roommate at the time had brought home an orange tabby cat for me, but she had fallen in love with the kitten and claimed her as her own.
My roommate took me back to the litter of kittens and for some reason I was drawn to the black kitten doing her own thing. She reminded me a lot of myself if I was in a room full of strangers — aloof, a bit weird and happily independent — so we brought her back to the apartment and I fell in love.
If someone were to ask me the longest relationship I’ve ever been in, I would say, “17 years, with Zoey.”
I loved the small white patch of hair on her chest, and how her yellow eyes seemed to glow in the dark.
She never judged me when I didn’t shave my legs or ate kimchi and ramen for dinner.
She darted like lightning under beds and into empty Amazon boxes, and she rarely let anyone touch her until she built up complete trust. (It took my husband almost two years.)
She was me, but in cat form.
Zoey saw me at my absolute best and in the deepest trenches of my absolute worst. She was with me as I moved to another state, was diagnosed with depression, got my first job, had my first mental breakdown, cried through several breakups and met my husband.
My second-longest relationship ever would be my husband of 13 years. He beats out my third-longest relationship, Isabella, by only a month. He got her in 2006 as a puppy right after we started dating, and she was literally by my side — farting, panting, snoring and licking — since the day we met.
Isabella was the exact opposite of Zoey. She was a purebred fawn-colored pug who got into everyone’s face for attention and claimed couch cushions even if you were sitting on them.
She walked with ease and confidence.
She radiated joy.
She was what I wanted to be.
Both Zoey and Isabella were with me through significant milestones in my life. They saw me mend my relationship with my father, buy my first house, adopt a second dog named Fausto, get engaged and married, and give birth to my daughter, Harper.
In fact, my two favorite memories of them are right before I had Harper. Isabella would lay on my stomach throughout the whole pregnancy, as if making sure the baby was okay, and Zoey often slept in the baby crib, as if “warming it up” for her arrival.
I had always marveled at how Zoey never seemed to get sick in the 15 years that I had her. But then she suddenly got a tooth infection, and then another, and then she started randomly throwing up her food. Her health kept getting worse. The vet wasn’t sure if it was IBS or cancer, and because of her old age, surgery could be fatal. So, I waited to see what happened, and she seemed to get better.
In February 2018 my family moved into a new house. Zoey claimed the finished part of the basement to herself, and she never came upstairs. As usual, Isabella claimed all space as her own and went wherever I did.
About a month into the move, both pets started having health issues. Isabella couldn’t physically go up and down the deck stairs, so we had to pick her up whenever she needed to use the bathroom. We also noticed a small bump on her leg that we would later find out was a tumor. I would start to hear Zoey howling in the middle of the night. Then she suddenly stopped eating. Then she wouldn’t move.
The first few times I met our new vet, she told me I should prepare to say goodbye to Zoey and Isabella because she was sure they both had cancer.
I watched lung cancer take my father two years earlier. I literally saw him take his last breath, and that memory remained burned in my mind. I didn’t think I could handle having the same painful memories for Zoey and Isabella, but I knew I owed it to them both to be there because they had always been there for me.
On May 23, 2018 I said goodbye to Zoey.
Seven months later, on December 14, 2018, I did the same to Isabella.
I stroked their fur and held their paws and looked into their eyes whispering “I love you” as they drifted off to sleep.
Now I often see them when I sleep.
Sometimes I find stray Isabella hairs in the zipper of my jacket, and sometimes my daughter taps me on my shoulder and says, “I miss Zoey, but she’s dead.”
Every time I’m reminded of them, I think of the years of love and heartache we shared together.
