When I experienced the loss of my grandfather at around 7 yrs it was my first experience of death and it brought to my attention separation and from that time the question of why do we lose the ones we love and eventually it led to the practice of trying to find that answer which gratefully the Path..for the last 13 or so years I’ve been a volunteer for a cat protection group for my local city ,I’ve had a very close connection with all non human life since I can first remember being a child and it has grown deeper especially since practicing the Path,I ended up with 13 cats as I found myself feeling so much empathy for those lost abandoned or feral creatures.
Iye a now have just 8 and every death of the other 5 has been so painful but each death pushed me further in my practice to go deeper into my fisprst question,why do we lose the ones we love.of course I know the body has a limited time and it is just that,the loss of form with form but losing Charlie A few weeks ago,he was around 22 and he appeared in my garden 13 years ago and from that day we were as one ,he always would jump on my knee or shoulder or chest when I lay down,he was a gentle giant ,I lay with him for an hour as life slowly ebbed away from him,listening to every breath as his life force withdrew,.
My sister had passed two days before with cancer ,I was upset but like human deaths in the family over the last few years they didn’t touch me in the same way as the deaths of my cats .i put this down to my thinking humans can reason and know well what is happening whereas I feel the bewilderment if our animal and wildlife brethren.Whenever I think and this comes to the question of Charlie I find tears and sadness happening and I know it’s because I miss connecting the love with his form and that in reality we are one but I can’t stop it right now and I’m asking for any help coping with this,I don’t want to stop remembering him and the love we shared when he was around . As I’ve been typing this the tears have been running ,