The loss of a child

Our cats are our children.  Back in August of 2008 one of our younger ones (Christopher) began to dramatically loose weight.  We brought him in to discover he had terminal kidney failure. :(  We ended up giving him fluid shots every other day for a while, he fussed about it but things seemed to get better for a while and he was happy again.  However one day some of his ribs broke somehow, probably from the lack of nutrients in his bones.  This put him back into a downward spiral of pain and general miserable life for him.  At this point we finally decided to have him put to sleep.  I was not expecting how sad and depressing this moment was going to be, it didn't help that he was so young at just having turned 4 years old in July.  We miss you Chris!