Father of three, had to put down family cat today

I’m shattered right now and stumbled across this place, so I’m typing my thoughts here.

We have had our family cat; S’mores since before we had our three children. They’ve all grown up with this cat and all love her unconditionally.

About two months ago she started vomiting a lot and I took her to the vet. She has always been a chunky girl and was usually around 15 lbs. but she had lost 4lbs. Long story short and many vet visits later she was diagnosed with cancer in her intestinal tract or something along those lines. She wasn’t eating anymore, and was declining quickly. I weighed her a few days ago and she weighed 8 lbs. she still wasn’t eating and was having trouble moving around, so we made the decision to have her move to the next life.

While I am having an extremely hard time with this I’m more concerned for my kids. My youngest is 4 and sort of understands but not really. My middle (7) understands but I think is too young to fully grasp it. My 9 year old however is fully aware and is taking this extremely hard.

I’m not sure what to do, we’ve had conversations about it and how he’s feeling. I wish I could take all the pain away.