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Enduring the Agony of Losing a Pet By Craig Miller
"Their characteristic traits represent things that we as human beings can only wish we could do," says Ellis, who is considered a "pet loss guru." "They're loyal to us, they trust us unabashedly. They don't judge. They can just sit there and be with us." Bang echoes that thought. "I do notice when I'm having a tough day, I feel her absence even more," she says, reflecting on the loss of Bastet. "She was always my comfort. She was just there to lay on me and love me." Another factor driving the intensity of feeling about our pets may be that grief is cumulative. "Grief is in a big box," says Margo Forbes, a psychotherapist in Novato, California. “Every time you have another loss, it brings up all the previous losses." For this and other reasons, loss of a longtime pet can be especially tough on older owners.
Nearly 20 years ago, when Sarah Bang (above) of Los Angeles came upon her cat, Bastet, it was a rescue. Bang, 50, says it was a "horrible abuse case," so not surprisingly, Bastet was a handful at first, sometimes requiring oven mitts to handle her. But last year, when Bang had to say goodbye to Bastet after 19 years of bonding, it was unclear who rescued whom.
"She taught me how to be human," Bang recalls.
She was always my comfort. She didn't ask questions. She was just there to lay on me and love me.
Nearly six months after Bastet (named for the Egyptian cat goddess) "crossed the rainbow bridge," Bang still mourns her feisty little Bengal. "The grief comes in waves," she says. “I'll hear the wind move the blinds and for a second I think it's her walking along the window." "Animals represent all that is good in this world," says Coleen Ellis, 57, executive director of the International Association for Animal Hospice and Palliative Care in Southlake, Texas.
"I think it's important for people to stop saying, I know they were just a cat, or just a dog, or just a bird," Bang says. "She taught me how to be a human being and she taught me how to be selfless when it came to making decisions for her, because she trusted me to do that."
Read more stories like this on NextAvenue.org.
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