Yeah, it's hard, but I'd rather him not be suffering and, if there is a heaven, hanging out with his nephew he lived with (and had a lot of fun fighting with) and his sister and mother. I hardly ever saw him around these past few months anyways. Pretty much spent all the warm weather days on the porch passed out, and a lot of the times he'd be breathing so slowly and barely moving his body up and down that I'd have to get close to him to see if he were still alive. Maybe it'll hit me harder later on. I did make some jokes to my aunt about him almost being drinking age and just missing having a shot of "whiskery." Jokes and thinking/talking about him not being in pain anymore and maybe bossing his nephew around now is keeping any ounce of pain away. It was also the first pet loss I've had where I wasn't there dealing with it alone (I wasn't even there the day he died, but when I came back and kinda got hit with "hey, there's no screaming." it was a bit of a relief honestly although I did feel guilty because my mom was alone and I know how much worse it is alone when I've done it with three of my other pets)

I don't know how many people are as lax as I am about death though. I just have some perspectives on it from past experiences, but probably because everyone I've seen die was either completely ready to go from old age or was a zombie from drug use already. Maybe an aunt committing suicide when I was 5 had something to do with it too, and not really being told other than "hey, used to see her, now I don't." and no one really making a big deal out of it.