When we’re forced to say goodbye to a fluffy family member, we’re forced to take time off to figure out how to move on without them. More often than not, we turn to friends and family for comfort, cry our little hearts out, and remember our fluffers every time we see a packet of Meow Mix.
Moreover, we try to move on. Whether we go through the different stages of grief one by one, get a hobby to have something to do with our free time, or get a new fluffer to fill out the void – there’s no wrong way of dealing with something as damaging as death. We know what to do when we’re sad.
But what about our four-legged friends? Before we discard them as reserved and detached, what do we know about the way our cats deal with death? Cats can’t communicate with words, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t express what they’re going through with strange sounds, movements, and behaviors.
Contrary to what we’ve been conditioned to think, cats can experience a range of emotions when they’re abandoned by a parent, a sibling, or a human.
Cats can get depressed, refuse to eat or sleep, and even cry when they’re faced with the harsh reality of life – behaviorists might not agree on that, but there are plenty of tales suggesting otherwise.
We’ve seen reports and reports of cats running away after the death of their owner, going to their owner’s grave, or even passing away by their owner’s side. We’re bringing you a story about a cat that continued to come by her dead owner’s grave day after day, for a year.
When Keli Keningau Prayitno, 28, from Central Java, Indonesia, heard a strange crying sound coming from the graveyard, he didn’t know what to think. We’re pretty sure that the poor passer-by was terrified, but he decided to enter the graveyard and check where the sound was coming from.
When he approached a small blue headstone, he noticed a mourning moggy gripping the ground and meowing her little heart out. She appeared to be heartbroken over the death of whoever’s grave she was sitting on top of, and Keli wasn’t sure whether she needed help.
He checked with the workers at the graveyard whether she came with somebody, but the workers shared that the poor thing had been coming to the same grave day after day for quite some time.
He was saddened by the fact that the moggy was going through something traumatic and he wanted to help her. Keli asked the workers whether they knew anything about the moggy’s family, but they weren’t sure whether she belonged to anyone considering the fact she’d been visiting the grave alone.
Keli decided to bring her home and adopt her. He felt as though he was supposed to do that because he was the one that heard her crying. He scooped her off the ground, comforted her for a little while, and walked back home.
He was sure he was doing the right thing, but he was surprised when he came home from work the following day and figured out that the moggy was nowhere to be found.
Keli went back to the grave and found her there, gripping the ground, cuddling the headstone, and crying. He knew that the moggy shared a connection with whoever was buried there and he decided to do some digging.
He found out that the mourning moggy belonged to a woman named Kundari who passed away a year before that.
She kept coming back to Kundari’s grave day after day for a year – she’d go back to her former home where Kundari’s children would feed her, groom her, and take care of her, but then she’d return to the grave. She didn’t want to abandon her owner.
She didn’t want to sleep anywhere else other than her owner’s grave. She didn’t want to do anything else other than walk to her former home to eat and walk back to her owner’s grave to spend the rest of the day. Keli thought that was the saddest thing he’d ever witnessed.
He added that he wasn’t the only one that noticed the crying cat. He talked to a myriad of people who visited the graveyard and brought food for the curious creature that hid behind the headstones.
He found out that her owner’s children wanted to adopt her, too, but the moggy was adamant about staying by her owner’s grave. She had her routine and she seemed content doing what she’s been doing for a year.
She didn’t mind taking the food from Keli or the people visiting the graveyard, but that didn’t stop her from going back to her former home and returning to her owner’s grave. She didn’t mind the attention she was getting, but she didn’t want to go home with anybody.
We might not understand what the moggy’s going through, but we know that she’s the proof cats aren’t as detached and reserved as we were conditioned to believe.
We’re praying that the poor moggy gets over her heartbreak, finds a forever home, and continues to come by her dead owner’s grave now and then. We hope she goes on to have a happy and healthy life despite of her heartbreak.