Many different animals have come into my life. Some of the animals were horse, some were dogs, and some were cats. Some stayed for a long time. Others I only knew for a short time. Over the coming months, I will be writing their stories. As each story is posted, I will be posting the link on this page to their stories. Each one of the animals that I will be honoring on this site, has left his or her mark on my life. Animals are an amazing gift from God. I hope that each one of these stories will inspire you to love and care for the pets in your life. If you don’t have any pets, consider adopting one if it is possible. Also, you may enjoy reading a poem my daughter wrote about pets.
Comforting Bible Verses for Grieving Pet Owners: The content provides comfort for grieving pet owners, especially children, through Bible verses that emphasize God’s care for animals and their role in creation and future.
God sometimes uses animals. When I was about 6 years old, there was a yellow stray, cat that started hanging around our house. She was a beautiful yellow cat. The only problem was she was often pregnant.
One day around the end of May, I was sent to get the clothes out of the dryer. The washer and dryer were in the shed just behind the house. I went and got the clothes out dryer and put the clothes from the washer in the dryer. I then started back to the house with the dry clothes. Just as I stepped out the shed that yellow cat came running. She had saw what I failed to see. There about 6 feet directly in front of me was a rattle snake. This snake was just a shaking it’s rattle and it was ready to strike. Thankfully the snake was only about 1 foot long. That yellow cat went straight to the snake. She hissed and slapped at it. I quickly ran to the house and got my mom. My mom had a bad leg, so it took a few minutes to return to where the snake was. By the time we got there the snake was dead and the yellow cat was beginning to relax.
My mom sent me back in the house for some food for the cat. We used the food to get the cat to come to us. As best as we could, the cat was not exactly a tame house cat, we checked her for snake bites. Amazingly, we found none. After that we started buying cat food and setting it out daily. She was one cat that we differently wanted to stay around the house.
As time went on, that yellow cat became tamer. We started calling her Mama Yellow. She lived about 7 or 8 more years after this.
I was visiting my dad with my children, my mom, my dog, and our two 8-month-old kittens for Christmas. One of them is mostly white and the other one is mostly black. It was morning time. I was in the kitchen trying to get breakfast ready for everyone. When my dad started yelling from the bathroom, “Is this your cat in here with me?” The short answer was no. The long answer was no; our kittens are in the bedroom on the other end of the trailer.
So, my dad comes out and sends me in there to find out about this cat. This cat is small and yellow. He is obviously very hungry. Since he is about the same size as my two 8-month-old kittens, I assume this cat is a kitten. My dad wants to know if this cat is a boy of a girl. He is a boy, so my dad says that he can stay. However, my dad’s girlfriend, Mary, seems to hate the cat. She kicks the cat off of the back porch. My dad sees this and tells me to take the cat home with me. We do our best to hide the cat that we have started calling Yellow Sunrise from Mary. My dad does his best to help us hide the cat from Mary. The night before we start for home the cat disappears. We can’t find him anywhere. The morning that we are to leave for home, we look one more time for this cat. We call and he comes running up to my son. My dad hands me a cat carrier. On the way home I call the vet near my house and get an appointment for the next day.
We get home and the fun begins. This cat is sick, very sick. We feed him and he just has diarrhea. He makes a trail from the food bowl to the litter box of diarrhea. We put him in a smaller room with the litter box as close to him as possible.
At the vet’s office the next day I found out how sick the cat is. He has an eye infection in both eyes, and ear infection in both ears, and he is having stomach issues from lack of regular feeding. It turns out that he is about 5 years old not a kitten. He also needs to be neutered. The vet recommends getting the cat well before the operation. Because he is not neutered, every time he gets to feeling better, he sneaks out of the house. He is like a houdini on escaping.
The 1st of January my dad calls from the hospital. He has stage 4 lung cancer. On top of trying to get this cat well enough to be neutered, I am now going back and forth to Mississippi to care for my dad. Mary has left my dad.
By the end of January, I schedule the operation for Sunrise even though he is still sick. The vet calls me and suggests waiting. She says he only has a 50% chance of surviving the operation. I tell her that with the operation he has 50% and without it he has no chance. Do the operation. She finally agrees with the agreement that he will get extra antibiotics. He survives.
Sunrise is now a very loving cat. He follows me everywhere. He was a great comfort to me after my dad passed away. He still opens the door to let himself out every morning, but now he also let’s himself back into the house about 15 minutes later. If the door is secured, he knows on the window and meows very loudly to be let in.
In the early summer of 2018, Bridget was found tied up under a bridge in Mississippi. She was found by some people who gave her to my dad’s girlfriend, Mary. At that time, Mary lived with my dad. Bridget was a young dog of only about 3 months old. My dad did not want puppies, so he got her spayed. They gave her the name Bridget because she was found under a bridge.
My dad was a truck driver at this time. He was gone most of the time. So, Mary was in charge of taking care of Bridget and training her. Mary’s idea of training Bridget was strange even to my dad. She would keep Bridget shut up in a dog pen all day long. Then at night Bridget would be let out. My dad did not agree with this training method. So, every time he came home, he would let Bridget out and they would go walking over the 17 acres. Bridget loved to run and would follow him all over the place.
January 2019 started off bad. My dad called me from the emergency room. He was having problems breathing. They first thought that maybe he had pneumonia. He stayed in the hospital for about 1 week. Unfortunately, he did not have pneumonia; he had stage 4 lung cancer.
I am the one who brought my dad home from the hospital and stayed with him while he was in the hospital. Mary left town when he went into the hospital. The night that my dad came home from the hospital Mary and I got in an argument. My dad sided with me and Mary left. She took her small Pomeranian dog that lived inside but left Bridget. I lived in Louisiana, so, every three weeks I drove to Mississippi to help my dad. He scheduled all of his appointments for when I would be there.
By March my dad was worried about Bridget. She seemed to be losing weight. By April my dad was fading fast. When I came the 1st week of April, he told me to take Bridget home with me when I left because he could not take care of her.
I took Bridget home with me the first of April. I already had a dog and four cats. Bridget was a bundle of nerves. She followed me everywhere. I could barely take a step without stepping on her. On April 25th my dog, Roxie, died. Bridget was a small comfort. However, she was still the most nervous dog I have ever seen. She was under weight, and she frequently had diarrhea and vomiting. I took her to the vet. They diagnosed her with a bad stomach. It seems that she had been kicked in the stomach too many times. They gave her some medication that helped. Unfortunately, every time she gets too hot, she still vomits. This dog’s favorite past time is running. The vet suggested that I don’t let her run when it is hot. I live in South Louisiana. It is hot most of the time. Since there is a long hallway in my house, I started playing with her in it. She gets to run up and down that hall.
During this time, my dad got worse. He passed away May 16, 2019. Just before he passed away, he asked to see Bridget. We put her on the bed with him. He spoke softly to her. She laid beside him for a little while. She was in the room when he passed.
Today, Bridget is a happy dog. She still follows me around the house, but not as closely as before. She lives inside and sleeps on a doggy bed when not on our bed. She loves to jump up onto our beds.
One Summer’s Day when I was about 13 years old, my mom took me to a new spot on the Leaf River in Mississippi. It was a beautiful day, but hot. The water was only a short walk from where we parked the car. The path to the water was berry bush lined. The berries looked so big, plump, and juicy that we just had to taste them. They tasted great. So, we went back to the car and got some containers. We then ate and picked the berries. As we were picking and eating, a beautiful white dog came up. This dog was solid white, which was unusual with the dog being outside near a river on a dirt path. The dog seemed very friendly. So friendly that we thought it must have an owner nearby. So we looked for the dog’s owner, but no one claimed the dog.
When we were done picking berries, we went down to the river. The dog followed us. We waded in the river and had lots of fun. The dog even joined us. As we played in the water, we talked about taking the dog home with us. However, when it was time to go home the dog was no longer there. We looked everywhere even trying to call for the dog. It was amazing how this dog, who had stayed right with us all through picking the berries and playing in the water disappeared at the moment we were ready to go home. We had petted and played with the dog. I still can’t image where the dog went so quickly.
After arriving home, we showed the berried to my stepdad. He took a look at the berries and informed us that they were poisonous. He watched both of us closely for the rest of the day waiting for the poison to take effect. We just disposed of the berries that we had picked. We never did feel any ill effects from eating the berries. We did however wonder about the dog. The next day we went back to see if we could find the dog. There was no dog to be found.
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