I do agree, like I said before, that pets are part of the family, but I have to disagree with the last statement in your reply that it’s maybe even more nervewracking. No matter whether there’s nothing you can do but wait or not, I truly believe that a child missing or not coming home at night would be more nervewracking than a pet of any kind not coming home. My opinion.

Years later, I still have fond memories of them & remember feeling sad as they left my life.

But, I’ve also lost a 17yo niece and her 10mo baby in a car accident a few years ago. And, that ache is nothing at all like that of a lost pet. The life cut short so young seems so much more tragic than the ending of a pets life, either naturally of old age or prematurely due to an accident.

And, I’ve had pets go missing before & worried for them. But, never as much as I think I’d worry if the same thing happened to a child of mine (or even as much as I worry, still, remembering how the bad man was trying to get my daughter to go in his truck with him 2 years ago, when she was riding her bike out front).

For me, anyway, it’s much different. I don’t doubt that for some pet owners, though, the feeling is just the same. Perhaps it’s telling of a lack of something in me that pets, while important, lovable, valuable are somehow expected to come & go in our lives, to flow in & out, to just pass through. Kids seem, somehow, more permanent (again, this is *to me*).