That's the tragic consequence of being human. Either the people you care about leave first or you do, but in the end, everyone goes. We are blessed and cursed with the knowledge to understand this. We should try to maximize the time we spend with those that are important to us.

Well, i think it goes to a point. I'd imagine there's some goldilocks zone of time spent with the animal, care experienced from the animal, dependence on the animal, and manner/speed of death/ time spent watching the thing die.

I say animal to explicitly include humans. Finding my hamster dead in fifth grade did change me. But watching my mother slowly die a horrible, haunting death didn't make me a better person. I'm just saying that there's a spectrum that goes something like: easy to forget about, I'm able to not worry, sometimes i think about it when i dont want, often i think about it, often it bothers me, and do on. You can probably imagine the cycle of obsession and stress.

This really goes for all traumatic experiences. There's a point where they can make you a better person, but there's a cliff after which you have no guarantees that it won't just start obliterating you and your life. It's still a kind of perspective. But can you have too much perspective? Lots of times i feel like i do