Losing Her Hurt So Much.

First, let me say God Bless You for sharing your heart with an animal whose very existence depended on you.

“I don’t think I could ever love another pet–it just hurt too much when I lost her.”  I hear this often. People mistakenly think that, because their heart was wounded by the loss of a beloved pet once, that that’s the end for them. Love has moved out of their reach forever.  You know, I talked in an earlier post about the price of love.  The price of love is grief.  And this is true–our grief over losing our pets is deep because our bond with them was equally deep.  That’s as it should be.  And we are very mistakenly afraid of grief. It’s just a natural human process. It doesn’t last forever, it doesn’t kill you, and it shouldn’t be feared any more than happiness.  Each of these emotions have their season. Grief is the evidence of our love. Don’t be afraid to let your broken heart cry. Time will truly heal you, and time will truly let you love again.

Short Answer–YES! You CAN Love Another Pet!

Know this–your heart had love to give to an animal once, and it will absolutely have more than enough love to give again to another. One of the beauties of love is it’s endless–it’s boundless.  Love never runs out.  Even though your heart is grieving for one pet now does not mean your capacity to love another is lost. On the contrary–grief means your heart is busy healing so that it can get back to work and love again, because that’s what hearts do. Love is not selfish–it’s in its purest and truest form when it is loving another. You’ll feel more empty and unhappy if you DON’T let yourself love again. These are not just Hallmark phrases–these are truths that I personally have discovered firsthand, and you can trust them.

Allow The Grieving Process To Work Its Way Through So You Can Become Healed And Happy.

So please be open to the possibility.  Acknowledge that the heart has a very distinct purpose. Our hearts want to be doing what they do best–falling in love, not running fearfully away from another love because it might hurt again. Why would you deny your heart doing the one thing it’s created to do?  That would be like denying your eyes vision for fear of what you might see, or denying your lungs breath for fear of pollution.  It is not protection when we deny ourselves such basic needs; it’s denial, and denial prolongs grief, and you find yourself stuck in it and miserable and never healing … until you open your heart back up again. That’s just the way it is.

The Best Way To Heal.

To get back in the game and rescue another little soul that might not survive if you don’t say yes … well, there’s no greater way to help your heart heal.
So keep your heart and your eyes open.  Your next love is probably right there waiting … for you.  🙂  

 

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God Bless and Happy Pet Parenting!

With love and good wishes,
jeannie.   ?

About jeannie:  I’ve been pro-actively involved in pet rescue all of my life. I founded Milagro Senior Pet Refuge© (Phoenix) in 1998, and BareFootPets (TM) in 2008.  Animal welfare has always been and will always be my heart’s work. If my only legacy is that I save a handful of precious souls that would not survive otherwise, I’m good with that.