Lightning Just Struck Twice, Lost another forever friend today :( advice needed. Options

[notoriouskitty]

Hi everyone....I can't believe that i am back on this forum so soon. I lost my cat romeo 4 months ago and have only just begun to heal.
This morning my husband tragically ran over our beautiful 11 year old boxer "Ben". How can this happen again??? Why does everything we have get taken from us
in such cruel ways? I'm wondering if anyone could give me some wise words to pass on to him, as his grief is so deep right now that i am afraid for his mental health.
Has anyone been through such a terrible thing before? I myself am numb...i must seem so damn cold to everyone but i just can't cry.....im not sure how i feel at the moment
Im still trying to deal with the loss of my Romeo, iv'e been trying to block it all out and now this????
I know my husband is going to have the image of Ben lying there and that's one the hardest things to overcome. My son who is 16 also saw what happend and responded with anger...he is
still angry....he too has only just come to terms with our cat not being here anymore. I guess i am just wanting advice on dealing with my husband's very raw grief. I myself can block things out for
now...i'm getting good at it, but it's dealing with someone else's grief i need help with.

Thanks
Gab.

[merlin96]

Dear Gab,

I am so very sorry to read of your loss. Losing a beloved companion animal is devastating under the "best" of circumstances and under the ones you describe, there are simply no words. My experience losing my Rottweiler, Merlin, several years ago (July 17, 2004 to be exact), while not exactly like your and your family's, bears enough resemblance that I thought it might help if I shared my story. My husband and I were out on our boat and had just pulled into harbor and were gathering our dogs to take them onto shore (we had three altogether with us). Merlin was a fantastic 9 y/o Rottie who was already sick with Megaesphagus and probably would not have lived much longer but was still fighting. He loved being on the boat - he would sit out on the deck for hours and sun himself and watch the surroundings, but we were safe. We never allowed him or any of our dogs out when were were moving and we had the entire perimeter of the boat protected with netting so no one could fall overboard. This particular morning, he was sitting with me in the ##pit and then he got up, smiled at me and went out to sit on the deck. A few miniutes later when we were ready to call the water taxi, Merlin was nowhere to be found - not on deck, not below, simply no where. There aren't many places to be on a boat so it was pretty obvious what had happened and I'll cut the story short to say that while we did find him, we didn't find him alive. We never figured out how he fell over, as there was no hole in the netting and no obvious spot where he could have gone over. My guilt was in the fact that I just let him go out on the deck and a few minutes later, I had a strange feeling - I don't know whether I heard something or felt something - but I didn't get up to investigate. That was probably the moment he fell over. If I had gotten up, I most likely could have saved him from drowning, which I still to this day can't bear to even imagine. So all of this is to say that accidents happen and we will be angry at ourselves for allowing them to but we must forgive ourselves as well. Your husband didn't deliberately run Ben over and would undo it in a moment if he could.

Please accept my most heartfelt condolences and know there are those of us out here that understand at least a little what your family is going through, although I know that is small consolation at this moment. I will keep you in my prayers.