Beginning Again After Loss: The Complexity of Welcoming a New Cat

There’s no prescription for when to welcome a new pet family member into your home after a loss—a week, month, five months, a year, more. It is as individual a decision as it was to bring your former beloved home in the first place. Others can offer insight but no one can tell you what or when is right—only you will know. This is sound advice, given our own recent experience welcoming a new cat, Mica into our home and then making the painful decision to return her to the shelter not long after.

Pet LossKristina PepelkoMay 31, 2025Pets, Pet Loss, Pet Lost Grief, Grief, Cats, Pet Adoption, Cat Adoption, Pet Surrender, LossComment

In & Of Grief: Navigating Pet Loss

Some days I see Stella in the window, standing on top of the couch, rubbing her body against the glass, tail up yet relaxed. Other days, I see her on the bed, curled up and napping, her chest lightly rising, lightly falling. These images are the conjurings of grief. Memories of her peek up here and there, flickering in like an old projection, clipped yet running. It’s been four weeks—a whole month exactly—since she passed. Yet the grief remains.

Pet LossKristina PepelkoApril 24, 2025Pets, Grief, Pet Loss Grief, Cats Comments

In Memoriam: An End-of-Life Reflection

There’s this alternate reality where Stella and I have more time together—where she lives into her senior years of 14, 16, 18. These thoughts have offered comfort as I’ve struggled to hold onto memories of her regular movements, mannerisms, and better days. Diagnosed with hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver syndrome) only six weeks ago, a sudden onset after a period of not eating, we’ve been in the throes of intensive caregiving.