Woman takes selfie with her recently deceased cat on her chest

This is tender photograph. Rose Gauthier took a selfie with her just deceased cat in her arms lying on her chest. She’s in tears and the comments flooded in.

Rose with Milo – Photo: Rose Gauthier

It is an eye-catching photograph. It stopped me in my tracks because I have never seen one like it before. I have seen hundreds of thousands of cat photographs while building PoC.

Anyway, as expected there is a ton of sympathy and rightly so. Rose links to a gofundme.com fund raiser for vet’s bills and cremation costs. This has raised just over a thousand US dollars out of a target of $3k.

The picture was posted on The Cat’s Whisker’s FB page on march 30. It is not hot-off-the-press cat news. However, it would be nice to found out how Rose is now.

Most cat loving cat owners will understand how she felt and still feels. The passing of a beloved cat companion is one of the most emotionally painful experiences for a genuine cat lover and owner.

Personally

Personally, I have never cried so much nor grieved so long as I did when my darling female cat, Missie, was run over by vehicle in 1994. It still hurts and only now have I reconciled it in my mind. It was my fault. The guilt is hard to bear. It is why I am a cat confinement advocate provided the enclosure is excellent and encompasses the outdoors.

I am sure that many cat owners have cried and grieved more over the death of their cat than the passing of a husband, sibling or mother and father. That’s not to imply that I am being callous and uncaring about people in general and relatives. It is just that companion cats (and dogs) have a special place in our hearts. Our love for them is often unconditional, pure and genuine.

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Comments

Woman takes selfie with her recently deceased cat on her chest — 10 Comments

Irish Cornaire on May 29, 2018 at 11:47 am said:
I’ve been where she is 7 times in the last decade and when it was time for my ‘Mysterymine’ to cross over to Rainbow Bridge I was broke and I created a gofundme to help with his euthanisia and his cremation,it was so hard asking for help but I pushed those thoughts away and hoped for the best and 1 facebooker actually paid for the whole thing,I was so humbled and so torn at the same time,losing a pet is just like losing family.
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M E King on May 27, 2018 at 2:01 am said:
So odd. I have pictures of Kitten at her cremation. I only took them because my husband was too bereaved to even go with me that day. They will never be shared. I only shared the photo from the day she was euthanized with my husband holding her because so many had followed our journey i needed to let them complete the journey with us. It seemed unfair to shut them out at the end.
Everyone deals with grief their own way.
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- Michael Broad on May 27, 2018 at 4:40 am said:
  I found the picture a bit odd too to be honest. I think it was taken to tug at the heartstrings of views to raise money. I am being horribly cynical and skeptical but….
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  - M E King on May 28, 2018 at 3:19 am said:
    I have shared things online to help others and to purge my own grief but sharing the pictures of my deceased little girl would be beyond me and in my honest opinion disrespectful to her. Especially if I were trying to raise money with that picture.
    We were also left with massive veterinary bills and it never occurred to me to start a fund raiser for someone else to pay for them. We paid them off ourselves. Realistically if I let my heart rule and dumped 5 bucks into every hard luck case I would go broke in a week.
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    - Michael Broad on May 28, 2018 at 4:41 am said:
      I am the same. The idea of online fund raisers for veterinary bills has grown in popularity. It is a new idea and I don’t agree with it. It is like begging. It just seems wrong to me. Or am I being too harsh? That said not everyone has the funds to look after their cats due to unusual circumstances.
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Kit on May 26, 2018 at 11:45 pm said:
Crying…..
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Jane Carter on May 26, 2018 at 4:26 pm said:
Oh bless her, for being so present so brave to take and share such a shockingly, isolated moment. It is shocking and captures that terrible finality, perfectly.
It’ll be early days yet for her maybe. Just two months is sometimes just when grieving gets going. Different for all I think.
Same here regarding the intensity of the loss when another massively loved, shared little life has gone. It never gets any easier, no matter the future or current suffering that is being ended. It is a living, feeling friend who has gone. A real and important life.
I hope she is doing ok.
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- Michael Broad on May 26, 2018 at 6:13 pm said:
  Being cynical as I am, I did not want to say it in the article but I wondered if she took the selfie for financial reasons. It certainly generated interest.
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  - Jane on December 15, 2018 at 4:07 pm said:
    Vet bills are ferociously high, I am not sure we can judge anyone harshly when they are stricken with grief. Yep, I did just type that, me the mighty cynic.
    So many people want to do the best for their cats and it is very easy to lose sight of escalating costs. Especially when it is a beloved friend who is very sick and dying.
    Poverty, austerity has had a huge impact on compassion, at the same time, the internet has given us the ability to raise funds, when previously, all seemed hopeless.
    The net is alive with scammers, but I don’t think this lady is one. The net has also allowed, nay, encouraged us to share previously desperately personal and sad moments.
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Albert Schepis on May 26, 2018 at 1:57 pm said:
Yes, I have never grieved as deeply for anything as I have for my cats when they died… It’s too much for words to express, which may be why it manifests that way now that I think about it. It’s so profound that it gave me pause to love others as much or to have as many as I did at one time. Love lost for a person’s come close though – but was different.
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