Why we put ourselves through the grief of loving a pet

I heard my mom say time and again "well I won't be putting myself through that again anytime soon!" after the loss of a beloved family pet. Then in a few weeks she'd have found a new love to fill the painful void in her heart. That's when the stories of the previous love could be told without tears and without that hitch in the throat whenever his or her name came up. I dreamed a couple of months before we knew that Arial was so very ill, that she had died. She was telling me that I would need a new blogging buddy to keep me company in the late nights I tended to keep. I'm thinking that the arrival of Hound was prearranged somehow. I have always felt that animals keep us sane and grounded, that they show us what it is in our lives that is missing and somehow fill in the pieces. When Mac was on long deployments, I always had a pet nearby to tell my troubles to. Arial was special, so small and observant yet she was the Queen of the household of cats. No one crossed her. No one. When she entered the room it was like the parting of the Red Sea, everyone got out of her way. She even had a royal walk, head moving from side to side as she took in all she surveyed, knowing that everyone in the room belonged to her somehow. She never scratched, she never hissed she rarely meowed. I can't remember her ever being vocal, she controlled everyone with a look. Oddly, I can feel her here at the computer at my right hand where she always sat. She never bothered me, she simply sat with me. I would reach over and pet her as I tried to get a point to gel and she would lift her chin and close her eyes in ectstacy and allow me stroke the royal fur. Then when my brain had wrapped around the sentence in just the way I wanted it to, she would draw back unto herself and I would go on with my typing. I couldn't make myself come in here Sunday, I came in for a bit on Monday. Hound refuses to let us wallow in pity, and Pyewackit, the Clown Prince, has also taken it upon himself to drag us back to the happy side. And so they have succeeded in making us realize just why it is we draw our beloved pets to us...even though we know that grief will come, the loving of them makes it all worth the pain. Thank you my friends for all your sweet words, they have meant so much to both of us. You mean so much to me that words won't come. Yet.