'Nobody understood our grief quite like each other': Young woman who lost both her childhood cat and her grandma within six months takes in Phoebe - her grandma's cat, and her late cat's sister - and together, they heal each other.

Ayala Sorotsky • Writer and Editor

Jul 21, 2026 10:15 AM EDT

Cats' hearts can break, too. And they can also heal our own heartbreak.

There's a certain loss I can't imagine going through, and that's the loss of losing my cat. She's not old, she's strictly an indoor cat, and she's generally healthy and happy - so I have nothing to worry about, really. But I know, deep in the back of my mind, that a point in time will come and I'll have to say goodbye. And since she's my first cat, I can't really imagine what it would be like to lose her. I mean, I can imagine it, but I never experienced something like this with a pet before. I can imagine it's a devastating loss, and I don't look forward to the day it comes knocking on my door.

But I did experience a great loss lately, of my grandfather. He was a very special man, an amazingly smart man, adored by everyone who met him. He was old and sick, so it was not surprising, but losing him was still one of the hardest things to accept. Now, trying to think of losing my cat within six months of losing my grandfather sounds like the most awful thing. But this is exactly what happened to @bettyandbadger - she lost both her childhood cat and her grandmother within six months. And while that's already a loss so great to think about - she was not the only one grieving.

Experiencing this double-loss is a heart-sinking situation I never wish for myself, or anyone I know. Yet this one brave woman didn't just deal with the loss - she had to care for her late grandma's cat, taking on the responsibility of raising this sweet senior cat, while processing her own grief. And all that while the cat is grieving as well. But this cat was her late cat's sister - so taking her in meant she, somehow, gets to have a piece of her late cat and a piece of her grandma back with her. I think that this is a beautiful thought, and I hope it helps them both process this life-shaking event. They deserve their happy ending.

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