This morning, I just scrolled through my Instagram and came upon a suggested reel. It was about the last drive of this girl and her pet as she had to re-home him for personal reasons.
Watching this was a HUGE MISTAKE.
We had to put our family dog down last August. Just a few days shy of her 14th birthday. The poor baby couldn't hang in there anymore. She really tried, but it was bordering on cruelty to her to keep her, and so with heavy heart and oceans of tears we held hands and watched on live call with my ex, as he held her paws at the vet's and we all said goodbye.
I don't know how sweet or how stupid it is to watch your pet been given the lethal injection. What I do know is that we'd have been more devastated and felt like we betrayed her if we hadn't.
It's been 6 months now but I couldn't get myself to watch the entire reel.
We lost our family cat to a road accident the previous year. I can't believe it's been more than a year of that either.
We're still raw from that episode and I cannot put into words that night and everything we did. It's not fair to my daughter yet, whose cat she was primarily, and maybe someday I'll write about it. Maybe not.
What is it about pets that wraps around our hearts?
We were a very very confirmed 'Dog People' family. So our lab Steffi was no doubt our little princess. All 45 kgs of her.
And yet when Buttons the cat came into our lives, she became our boss.
We would joke and say, " we're not cat people, just Buttons people".
So why do pets hold us so?
You know I used to internally, not smirk exactly, but at least not fully agree, when 'pet parents' talked about their pets as their children. The context being that human and pet children were equal.
And as a mum of both, I would mentally disagree, because of course human life and babies are higher in the chain of things.
But this morning as I watched or didn't watch the reel, it made me think that when you don't have any other children except your pets, how can one NOT be just as attached to them?
I have my own kids who I love like crazy, but the void that Steffi and Buttons have left in my heart is as strong and as physically hurtful as any other major loss I have suffered.
So how much more when someone raised the pets in stead of kids!
This is not a discussion about the merits and demerits of that lifestyle. It's just that the pain is real.
It has taken me a total of a year and a half to put this small post out. It's not even my usual long one. That's the reality of the pain.
And these furry babies have this power.
And about this I can safely say that it's better to have loved and lost, than not loved at all.
I write this blogpost with tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat.
I want to write more, but I physically cannot. My heart is heavy and my pet-mom arms are empty.
I really hope there is a reunion of us with our pets in heaven. I need to believe this.
To Steffi and Buttons. Mumma loves you so much.