I'm with you. We used to have lots of animals, but over the years had to say goodby to (counts...) 10 cats. Patsy, our oldest Labrador (the one in my profile pic) is almost 14 (it's her birthday in 2 weeks...) and we are going to have to take that step too in the coming days/weeks. She is mentally 110%, but her hind legs just don't want to cooperate anymore. (some days they do, some they don't).

Edie, her brother, is 12, but he's not as "strong", so that will be for the near future as well. Ugh.

I also lost 2 parrots I got for my birthday. We had them for 6 months, and mysteriously they both suddenly went quiet and fell dead after 2 days. (no Monty Python jokes please "It's an ex-parrot" "It's pining for the Fjords", I know them all... ) Turned out they had the kind of parrot AIDS and were born with that, nothing could be done about it. Still hurt like hell. We got new ones after that, but one escaped (my fault...) so now Oscar is the big boss of the house (he's 4 now).

They are family members, and when they go they each leave a huge hole. But, it's also a privilege to have shared your time with them.