This is the post that’s been floating around in my head since December. The one that I try to write but the words never felt right.
Because I never want someone to read this and think I’m judging the impossible decisions they made for a pet they loved with their whole heart.
I’m not.
Every diagnosis is different. Every family is different. Every goodbye is different.
This isn’t about when to say goodbye.
It’s about when to take the photographs.
Tony was a blue point Siamese we rescued from a Texas animal shelter in 2012.
When we adopted him, we had an eye condition that was a saga to diagnosis and fix. Little did we know that it would always be his eyes that kept causing him problems. Otherwise, he lived a full and happy life. When our other cat, Elmo, passed away, Tony proudly took over the role of Official Lap Cat and never looked back. He loved to play and cuddle up. He escaped one night and spent weeks living his best life before we found him casually sunning himself on a neighbor’s porch like he owned the place.
He was thirteen years old when his eye started bleeding.
After months of misdiagnoses, we finally had an answer- cancer. We took a Hail Mary and chose surgery. For a while, we thought we’d won.
Then it came back.
According to the hundreds of web searches I did, pets with his type of cancer decline quickly. Tony didn’t. He gave us another year.
A whole year of cuddles.
A whole year of naps in sunny windows.
A whole year where we convinced ourselves that maybe we’d still have more time.
And because I’m a photographer…
I kept taking pictures.
On his last day, we made fresh chicken just for him. He spent time in the garden soaking up the sunshine. He rode in the car without a carrier for the first time in his life and watched the world go by with the curiosity he’d always had.
Then he left this world wrapped in a warm blanket, surrounded by the people who loved him.
I photographed that day, too.
When I photographed Tony on his last day, I saw my cat.
When I look at those photographs now, I see his cancer first.
That’s the cruel thing about grief. Love lets us look past the illness while they’re here. The camera doesn’t.
And after they’re gone, we sometimes realize just how much had changed without us noticing.
The weight loss.
The tired eyes and ears.
The way illness quietly became part of their appearance while we were too busy loving them to see it.
I don’t regret making those photographs. I’ll treasure them forever because they tell the story of our last day together.
But they’re not the ones I want to see when I miss him.
I look for the portraits I took months and years earlier.
The ones where I see Tony.
Just Tony.
Not the cancer.
Over the years, I’ve photographed pets at every stage of their lives. Some families call me the week they receive a difficult diagnosis. Others wait because they’re hoping for more time. Neither decision is wrong.
Hope is one of the most beautiful expressions of love.
This post isn’t about telling anyone they waited too long. It’s about sharing something I learned the hardest way possible.
If your pet has received a terminal diagnosis and you’re thinking, “I’d really love to get great pictures of them before they go” Please don’t wait for the “right” time.
The right time isn’t necessarily their last day.
It’s while they still feel like themselves. While they still greet you at the door. While they still insist on sleeping in your spot.While they still have more good days than bad.
Because the photographs you’ll look at years from now probably won’t be the ones that document the disease.
They’ll be the ones that remind you who they were before illness became part of their story.
End-of-life pet photography isn’t really about death.
It’s about memory.
It’s about preserving the face that greeted you every morning.
The expression that made you laugh.
The eyes that knew how to get you to give them just one more treat.
The little quirks that made them them.
Disease is part of many pets’ stories.
It should never be the only chapter we remember.
If Tony taught me anything, it’s this:
Don’t wait until it’s time to say goodbye to create the photographs you’ll want to remember for the rest of your life.
Create them while your best friend still looks like the best friend you’ve always known.
The To