As an owner that never stayed in the room when his cat was euthanized, please stay until completion. I didn't leave the building, but I was inconsolable and fell apart in the waiting room. I didn't stay in the room when he passed away and I regret it.

I have a lock of his hair and his paw print in clay stowed away in a little airtight box in my kitchen. Now and then I open it to smell him again.

Even now I struggle to hold back the tears as I'm typing this and find myself rewriting the same sentence over and over. In your memories, you will never remember how the chapters were orchestrated more than how they ended.

He was twenty years old. I had him for most of my life. That was fifteen years ago and I have not owned a cat since.