We had a wonderful, affectionate, snuggly cat who also had a congenital defect. She only made it to a year and seven months old (having adopted her at around 8 weeks old). We lost her almost two and a half years ago, and I still cry over her memory once every couple weeks, and think about her multiple times a day.
I don't have children, but if I ever do, I am worried that my experience with this wonderful little cat will turn me into an anxious, unhealthily-overprotective mess when it comes to any children I might have.
When you hit college age is often when your odds of experiencing the first death in your family spikes up. Grandparent, great grandparent, oldest aunt. It happened to a number of friends of friends and acquaintances. Some people were a complete mess and others were more resilient.
The pattern I noticed was the people who had lost a pet were more equipped to deal with the loss of a human. The worst hit people never even had pets. Maybe a coincidence, but I suspect not. I don’t think it hurts any less, but you know better what needs to be done to move through it instead of getting stuck.
My mother died during my second year of college. My father died when I was in my 30s. My mother's parents died before I was born, and my father's had both died by the time I was 10 or so.
We had cats when I was a kid, and two of them died while I was in my early/mid teens. They were "mom's cats", and at the time I didn't understand why it affected her so deeply. It made me sad, to be sure (both cats had been around my entire life up to that point), but I didn't get it. Not until I lost my own cat, anyway.
In a strange way, a way that I sometimes feel bad about, losing my cat hit me harder than losing my parents.
I don't have children, but if I ever do, I am worried that my experience with this wonderful little cat will turn me into an anxious, unhealthily-overprotective mess when it comes to any children I might have.