On my last blog I wrote about our cat Midnite. Thursday night, with me stroking his fur, he breathed his last breath and died exactly 2 months after his dog pal Oreo died. His death was extremely peaceful. Needless to say, we are grieving our loss. My father, in his compassion and sensitivity to how much Midnite meant to me, had built him a little box, stained it and lined it, for him to be buried in. Yesterday we had a little funeral and buried him in front of the flagpole in the front of our house. The kids participated with the arrangements and we planted new flowers in the garden around the flagpole. We are making stepping-stones today in both the animals’ memories to be place in the garden. It is so surprising to me how deeply their deaths have affected our whole family. Even in our sadness though we can think of the joy that they brought to our lives and smile. This is the first time my younger children have had to deal with death and they have had it in doubles. We have tried to make it as positive as it can be, trying to explain something that we all have a hard time understanding. Just because you know it is a fact and that it is going to happen to all living things, doesn’t make it any easier on those left behind. We also have been dealing with questions of whether or not animals go to heaven. I tried to find her a Biblical answer and was unable to do so concretely, so I told her what I believed. I believe that our beloved pets do go to heaven and that we will see them again. Whether this is true or not I don’t think really matters and I’ll have to wait until I see God to find out, but while we’re here on earth it serves as comfort for our loss to believe this because is not written specifically about in Scripture. I went on line and found a lot of websites pondering this question both for and against. I found these 2 pages that seemed to address the issue to my satisfaction to share with my daughter.
http://www.woodhavenlabs.com/animals-heaven2.html
http://www.woodhavenlabs.com/animals-heaven3.html
Midnite
September 1991-March 22, 2007
Oreo
September 1994-January 22, 2007
Sorry about your losses…I relate…we lost a beloved pet last month…it was hard on my hubby…she was a good dog, and my daughter took it especially hard also…the praise was that we learned what happened and were able to bury her.
We lost a cat a couple of years back, his name was Orea…we miss him a lot as well.
Praying for your family as they grieve.