Mourning is difficult for most people and I would never negate that. However, mourning seems to creep down in the very marrow of my bones and ache in there for what seems to be an unusually long time. My husband knows this and, even in his mourning of our Gru, he wanted to help make the time I spent mourning as short as possible.
His suggestion was to get a new kitten right away. My suggestion to his suggestion isn’t polite enough for public viewing.
BUT, that Friday after losing Gru, in walks the hubby after work with a new kitten.
Meet Ollie.
The people we got him from were living in their car and said that they had had him for a few weeks and that he’d been abandoned by his mother. He’d been surviving on the people food that they were eating. I have no clue how he survived, to be honest.
When I took him into the vet the following week to estimate age, de-worm, get shots, the usual new kitty procedures, the vet approximated his age to be about 5-6 weeks old.
And while it still hurts to miss Gru-so so so much- I hurt far less now because I had to distract myself with training this new kitten and keeping track of him and teaching him to eat kitten food instead of climbing our legs like tree trunks to eat off our plates. It was refocusing the energy spent on mourning into something positive and beneficial. So, while I felt guilt at “replacing” Gru so quickly, I’m coming to understand that we didn’t really replace him, we just fast forwarded the healing process a bit. And that’s ok.
So, for anyone out there having just lost a pet and considering taking a while to get another, DON’T. It doesn’t do you or your family (or even other pets) any good to wait for a mourning period to pass. Your pet knew of your love and will be waiting for you in the next life we all go to after this one. Go, get that new pet, and love again. It’s ok.
Mermaid Out of Water 