Did you know that animals can help you with your grief? Science has been exploring the roll animals can play in our lives from allergies to PTSD and the findings aren’t shocking. Animals help us on many levels! Therapy Dogs, and animals we are bonded to can and do influence our blood pressure, heart rate, hormones correlated with well-being including cortisol, oxytocin, b-endorphin, prolactin, phenylacetic acid and dopamine. The science is fascinating! More and more facilities around the nation are employing Therapy animals in hospitals, care facilities, and even funeral homes to help better the lives of people!
Pets Make Our Lives Better
Still…. knowing all this, I have to question my sanity in getting another cat….. It all started last spring when I was struggling to accept my father was dying of cancer and due to military life we were very far apart. We talked each day but the sorrow was very heavy. My life was full with raising 5 kids, and homeschooling, and trying to just keep moving forward and not crumble. At the time we lived in the country, we had chickens and ducks and 2 small dogs and a big black cat that was my daughters. For some reason I needed a kitten. I mean… I NEEDED A KITTEN. I looked for months locally for one that NEEDED me too for some reason. I wanted a farm cat too, as we planned to live there a while and we enjoyed that my daughters black cat would come outside with us to play in the garden and keep the chickens on their toes. Plus, in the country, cats help with mice! Huge old house could use that help from time to time! Alas, my area was somehow void of farm kittens. Or really any kittens even on the local rescue pages. I didn’t know at the time what I was actually doing, but my husband did, and he couldn’t bring himself to stop me. I was trying to fill a hole I knew was coming and of course nothing can actually do that. I just needed a kitten!
Finally a farmer posted that one of his outside farm cats had kittens and they needed homes. He didn’t explain and he didn’t have to. We went right over. There was one kitten. She was a quick and angry little thing. She scratched my husband bloody when she was finally caught. She wasn’t exactly what I had pictured for our new family member, she was a simple tabby. She was also fierce. She had to be. You see the farmer only posted about kittens because he found most of the kittens beheaded outside by something wild. This kitten survived. He could find no others. She had lived. Even with all her anger, I knew she had to come home. I couldn’t let the kids around her I thought. This is nuts I thought, she will never tame, she will never let me hold her. I need to cuddle something new! But I couldn’t leave her on that farm and the farmer for some reason had no intent on bringing her into the house. So she went home with us. I was nuts. My husband had to think I was nuts too, but he wasn’t going to leave her behind either.
It was like I blinked and suddenly we were home and she was an adorable kitten that just wanted to cuddle and play. Gone was her anger and fear. The kids loved her, I loved her, and she was a distraction I needed.
Shortly later my Dad died. We traveled to him and my Mom and spent his last week helping. I was in denial then, I thought I could some how keep him from dying if only I could get him to eat and drink more. Pancreatic Cancer is…. horrific. Meanwhile the kitten and pets where all home being taken care of by a friend. All told, I think we were gone for 2 weeks.
Home again….. it’s rather a blur now. Heck, a lot of this past year has been a blur. We moved from that farm house to the city, made plans to move to another state. Military made plans and changed them, and changed them again and again. To say it has been a stressful year is an understatement.
Poor Grief Kitten though… some how I dropped the ball. I didn’t get her spayed in time, and she went into heat on the night we were all going to stay with my sister as husband traveled for a few months for work. Grief Kitty was traveling with us too. For two months I managed to make sure she didn’t get out and get pregnant. The whole while thinking we would get home, get to our vet, and get her fixed. The grief fog got me…. We got home, husband finally got home, more stress, she got out a few days… came back…. and well…
Looks like around the anniversary of my Dads death, we will have kittens in the house! Then she is getting fixed. LOL
Only the local area is flooded now with kittens, so so many. Getting these coming kittens homes will be a challenge but I am looking forward to the challenge. I feel like maybe they should go to homes dealing with Grief too so they can be loved on, cried on, and cared for. Wish me luck!
If you know someone grieving I am not saying get them a pet, but maybe suggest they spend some quality time with an animal they already love, or the pet of a friend. There are therapists now who have animals help them in their therapy sessions. What ever you do, get your pet spayed or neutered on time. Heck, ask a friend to remind you or even set it up so you don’t drop the ball in the waves of grief that can take over your life.
If you are grieving, I wish you every comfort.
BORN MAY 30th 2017
