2017/04/29

Grieving the death of a pet

I believe that the loss of a beloved companion animal is like no other loss because our relationships with animals are like no other. Our culture tells us that an animal companion is an engaging toy, and that our grief over its death is alarming and ill-paced. And our culture is just flat wrong. As a survivor of advanced cancer myself, I believe that the love and comfort of animals in great measure graced me with recovery. This being the case, I would not be one to take kindly to any cultural diminishment of our relationship with 'the other.' Bluntly put, 'Them's fightin' words' in my world. Animals are more to us than we know. Their partnership with us is a holy one that endures across a lifetime and possibly beyond.
 
(Susan Chernak McElroy, in “Grieving the Death of a Pet” by Betty J. Carmack)
 

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