Diane, you said it beautifully.

I would add two things...

There have been several times when I feel I waited too long to let an
animal go, and I still remember those times with sadness. I never felt
that I let an animal go too early. When you feel it's time to let go,
it probably is.

In the past I used to let my ferrets sniff the body of the ferret who
had died; not sure it helped. With Vivaldi, I did something different.
I let all the ferrets share a meal of duck soup together with Vivaldi,
so they could say goodbye while he was still allive. I feel this worked
better.

Ronnie

[Posted in FML 6205]