sometime ago my cat Ando got very sick, he was diagnosed with FIP. FIP has no cure, and is always fatal. The two biggest emotions when you find out someone close to you is terminally ill are sadness, and also a feeling of being helpless.  There was nothing I could do to make Ando healthy again. The only thing I could do was to make the time he had left the best it could be, and to send him off the best way I knew how.

When I would tell people I was building as casket for my cat many of them thought the whole thing was a little morbid. For me it was the only thing I knew how to do. The act of doing something with my hands to some how show that I cared was important. The process of making the casket helped me to grieve, and also gave me closure. In the end I was sad, but I felt that I had done everything I could.

After seeing the casket I built my mom asked if I would think about building one for my grandpa. I haven’t made up my mind mostly because it is a lot harder to build something on that scale, and I am not really set up for it. If the timing works out I think it is something I would like to do.

I ran across this video after burying my cat, it does a good job of explaining the feelings and motivation behind doing this sort of thing.