"unburied"

I guess that would mean...

not to cover

conceal

hide.

All of this leads me to say ...

We lost our cat.

Please understand.

Picky-picky is/was JUST a cat.

(but he was "our" cat.

and we fed and "littered" him...he made us laugh...)

Well, a baby kitten that needed a family, so (without even any begging or pleading) he arrived at our house and we kept him ☺. You need to understand that my husband had been very much against the whole "cat" idea.  The first day we had Pick-pick (at times, also referred to as Picky-picky-Zacheous, will you pleeease come down! ) we lost him. In the basement. He was hiding on top of some boxes. Trembling.  Doll blankets, baby beds...the girls had a plan to keep him safe and snuggly.  That evening I couldn't find him again.  I searched the entire "sleeping" house.  I peeked outside where R was sitting talking to a neighbor...feet propped up, computer on lap...kitten on keyboard.  Evidently in a house of all girls a boy kitten hangs out with the dad.
We recently laughed about Picky being in his "teen" years.  Always wanting to go outside, explore, hang out with his neighbor cat buddies and come home late.  He would sit on the corner of the porch like he thought he was the watch dog of our house.
Then, one night, he just didn't come back. 
For two weeks we called out his name every night. Checked Orphans of the Storm...asked neighbors. Nothing. Gone.
We cried...
I told the girls. 
"Remember how this feels...when you are a teenager and I am at home waiting!"  
...and I told them,
"I will not care where you have been, what you have done,  just COME HOME and I will be waiting with open arms."
H said, "Mommy, I will never be prodigal like Picky..."
Oh, I pray not (my heart whispered)...but if you are, by the grace of God, I will love you still.
We couldn't stand to see his food bowl.  Or his litter box.
(we cleaned and put them away). Or the little nose marks on the windows.
Grief is a necessary and difficult work...even over this small sadness.

PLEASE understand, I am in NO WAY comparing this little loss to the pain and heartbreak of losing a child or any person you love. It IS NOT.
  

"heartache is love that has nowhere to go"

However, we have needed to grieve even this small sadness.
With the comfort of Job's well-meaning friend, a neighbor suggested that people are mean to animals (specially cats)...and that maybe someone shot it out of cruelty.  Or worse.  The thought made me ANGRY furious.  Yes, there certainly are mean hearts out there.
Someone suggested that maybe this pet had become an idol to us so God took it away.  Hmmm.  I thought about how many times little girls had written Picky's name in the thankful book.  Is the record of our thanksgiving evidence of what is idolatry in our hearts? ...and if God takes away "idols", why doesn't he take away drugs and alcohol and all the other bad stuff?  Loss does make us question, doesn't it?
Then I read this:

"Crying empties us

so there is more room in us

for God" R.W. Kellemen

from a 90 day devotional

that was "sitting" in the middle of my review pile

(that had been somewhat successfully ignored till now).



Grieving God's Way

The Path to Lasting Hope and Healing.

I don't know what you have been through.  Loss?  Death? 

Don't "bury" the pain and sadness.  Crying empties us to make room for God?  Yes, I think that is Biblical.  If it is not God that fills up the hollow space, it will be "something" else.  May all these tears make lots of room for God, then!

Author Margaret Brownley has a beautiful truth and hope giving way of walking the reader through the grief process.

I recommend this book as a helpful read even if you have not yet met grief.  It will grow compassion and insight in you for those in your life that have.  It has certainly blessed me (both) ways.

I received a copy of this book for the purpose of review.