It's honestly a continuous grieving process for me. I still feel the loss of each kitty deeply.
'sha [ age 10; condition was liver failure, semi-quick once diagnosed and she made the decision that she didn't want any more tubes by chewing all her IVs off ] I received a phone call the day after she passed from my mom who had just found two litters of kittens in the wood pile being raised by raccoons. They were only a month old so I'd have to wait another month to rescue one. I said I would if there was a girl and not a blue-grey- there was exactly one girl and she was a full tabby. So the decision was technically the following day but I had a month of alone time which could have ended up being more. The little tabby came to me very sick but we got her healthy. In the end, she was the only survivor of all the kittens.
Bitchcakes [ age 14 years, 9 months; condition was cancer] Her disease was hidden by her arthritis, her pain meds kept her going until she started having problems eating. She ended up in the ER hospital where testing eventually revealed she had cancer. She was given days to weeks. We had 6 weeks together after that diagnosis, careful hand feedings twice a day, heating pad, pain meds and episodes of Metalocalypse. Two weeks after she had passed, I ended up clicking a link I was sent and there was one itty-bitty baby girl in need of a home. A little tuxie.
Potato Bug [ age 1 year, 3 months; condition kitten leukemia ] The freshest loss, she went downhill way too fast for such a small kitten. She was being treated for what passed as anemia but when she refused to eat anything one day, we went to the ER. She never came home. This was a few days before I had to head to Atlanta. In the vendors mart, there was a picked over table of random plushies - a small tuxie had been pushed to the side. It stays on my bed in the pillows by my head - Bug used to climb under the covers and hug my neck to fall asleep. About 3 weeks later I was pity-partying on Bug's adoption site and there was a tiny not-a-tuxie kitten that looked like her world was ending too. They said she might be too shy to function. She's currently snoring in the cat tree's highest point after a full day of mischief and mayhem.
For me, a kitty is an ESA. A kitty needs me to be functional, non-feral, semi-adult creature so that's what I am. I spoil them, they keep me sane. I still grieve 'sha and that was ~16 years ago. I currently can't watch videos of tuxies playing in the snow and being tuxies or enjoy french fries because those were Bug things only 7 months ago. The Metalocalypse DVDs are gathering dust on the shelf because the last time they were watched, it was while carefully cuddling my little Bitchcake and feeding her puree. They are always in the background, they were family. Sakura isn't a replacement, she's merely the newest family member.