I was talking to someone the other day about loss and the subject of children and pets came up. I could relate to losing a pet but not to losing a child. I remember when my sister was killed in a car accident how hard it was for my parents, especially my mother. I remember her saying, “You expect to lose your parents, not your children during your lifetime”. I’ve lost parents and I’ve lost pets and for me they were both difficult, however grieving my parents took much more time. I still think about my parents and my pets. Photos of my most recent dogs are on the screen saver on my computer. Sometimes I dream about them. My parents, brothers, sisters, etc. are buried in a cemetery in Omaha, Nebraska. My pets were cremated and are in containers in my home. I often wonder what to do with them. I don’t want to bury them because if we ever move from our current home, I won’t have them with me. I don’t want to scatter them for the same reason, they won’t be with me. But at times I think it’s silly that I have them in containers because I know that they are not physically in the container, their souls have passed on. I guess it’s just the last piece of physical evidence that I have to prove they were with me at one time. I’d love to hear from others who have this dilemma and what they have done.
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