April 17, 2023
“Animals teach us that grief is a natural, if at times a profoundly difficult result of feeling love and joy with another being.”
– Barbara J. King
One of Dolly’s most faithful and loyal companions in her last year of life was Eli. He sat beside her on the bed, he stood with her in her agony, he patiently listened to her complaints, and he was there when she breathed her last breath.
Eli was still young, only 4-months-old. He was an alley cat that Dolly’s granddaughter brought home when no one else wanted him. Many of the last photos that her family took while she suffered from terminal cancer and Alzheimer’s show them together. Dolly petting Eli, and Eli enduring the affection, whether he wanted to or not.
When Dolly died, Eli would return to the empty room, jump onto the bed and look around, confused. He did this every day for days. Sometimes the family couldn’t find him, and he seemed to retreat to a quiet place in order to be alone. The family eventually realized that he, too, was grieving in his own way, just as they were. He was listless, he ate less and he seemed to sulk around the house.
Barbara J. King, author of “How Animals Grieve,” says: “We humans grieve differently than other animals do: using language, enacting symbolic rituals like funerals, and with an acute awareness of our own and others’ mortality. Other animals don’t do those things. But many other animals do love. My book is as much about love as it is about grief, because it’s from love that the grief emerges.”
Eli lived 15 more years, and his cremains occupy a place of honor in their home. And Dolly’s granddaughter likes to say that when Eli died, the first person to greet him in Heaven was a grateful and joyful Dolly.
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When a family member dies, our pets grieve in their own way. Try to comfort them.