“Les is so sad.” Of course he is, I thought. He just lost his son. I nodded. From my expression, the point of his sadness was apparently lost. So, my friend asked had I heard about his cat. His cat? No, I had not. Apparently, the little fur ball got out of the yard and didn’t return home. He was discovered in the nearby playground. The neighbourhood cougar had found him. I gasped. Life is not fair.
We don’t compare the loss of our pet to the loss of our child. But there can be no denying of the bond an animal has with you. The unconditional love that supports us, especially in our time of sadness. The affection for this pet was immeasurable, and his passing not only rips a hole in the heart, but it also rips previous wounds wider, it deepens the agony of the loss of everything else. Especially his son.
This is grief overload. More grief, too soon, causes our current grief to magnify. There is no explanation as to why we can’t have a period to adjust to one eternal sadness without another coming in too soon. The injustice of life, heavy in their home. The inability to control, anything related to their reality. The sadness, the sheer sadness of their present moments.
Our family experienced grief overload last year. We ache for them. I thought of Tango. I couldn’t imagine losing him just after Zane. Tango was the unspoken strength, the quiet reassurance that I would survive. Just a pet is not what he was or what the cat was to our friends. Joy, hope and comfort are found with our furry family members and now it too, is gone.
Research states that an overload of grief scrambles our thinking and puts us into a fight or flight mode that we don’t recognize resulting in the inability to manage our losses. This is a time where we must be extra attentive to our self-care. The irony is that most times we are unaware that we are in overload. We may feel more anxious or angry. Physical symptoms include high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, blood-sugar imbalances and brain fog. It’s called “liminal space” from the Latin word for threshold. It is the place where grief overload exists, and the effects will be different for each person.
We know this. Grief is an individual journey. As family and friends, we can support each other when mourning by understanding that the waves of grief will hit each differently and not equally, or concurrently. Grace, patience and kindness are the essential ingredients to give the ones we love. Including ourselves. Most know this. Fewer practice this. I reminded my friend to make sure she was on the list of those in pain that she was caring for. She nodded. After all, it was her husband’s cat, but she loved it too.
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