ABOUT A dozen people sit around a conference table. Numerous boxes of tissues are at arm's length. A few hold papers or photographs. Many of these people have never met, but it doesn't matter. They are linked in a sorrow that is communicated wordlessly as each one enters the room.
The Montgomery County Humane Society hosts a monthly support group at its shelter facility in Rockville for those who have suffered the loss of a pet. Cultural anthropologist Mary Knipmeyer, who facilitates the group as a volunteer, says not only cats and dogs but birds, horses, iguanas, rabbits and other species have all been eulogized in these quiet meetings.
On a recent evening, after Ms. Knipmeyer's introductory remarks for newcomers, each of the bereaved tells the story of his or her loss.
A couple describes how their beloved Dalmatian, out for his nightly walk, suddenly collapsed in seizures and died on the sidewalk before their yes.
A middle-aged woman tells of euthanizing her 20-year-old Siamese cat - of making the fateful decision, wrapping the sad little creature in its favorite towel, driving alone to the veterinarian.
A retired architect reads a poem he wrote about the stray dog he fostered, nursed and buried more than a year ago.
A businesswoman describes her pet euthanasia story, shyly holding up a photo of a proud Pomeranian. She looks searchingly at the group and wonders aloud, "Why is it so much easier to love our dogs than other people, sometimes?"
When the news media is filled with bloodshed and grief accompanying human death, as it is most times, some ask how such importance can be placed on the loss of a rabbit, a ferret, a bird.
"A parakeet?" an astonished coworker once said to me after my little pet bird died, as though size were the measure of lovableness. In the United States, particularly, the bond between humans and animals is still lampooned even though half of American households include at least one non-human resident. There are, for starters, 68 million owned dogs and 73 million owned cats.
The bond is mighty. Studies show that where these bonds are deep, people's lives are enriched, softened, sometimes even rescued, literally. Their absence can reflect a personality askew. Research strongly correlates children's (and others') abuse of animals with the propensity for violence against people. Accordingly, animal welfare groups are joining with campaigns against domestic violence and working with those who care for at-risk children and teen-agers.
Programs based on the human-animal bond are helping to rehabilitate prisoners, calm the mentally disturbed and disabled children and bring joy into nursing homes, hospitals and hospices.
In answer to the woman who owned the Pomeranian, it does seem as if animals are easier to love than people. After all, animals accept you - overweight, unemployed, inept, unhip - whatever your particular social transgression.
They love you unconditionally and allow you to love them - love, but not manipulate. You don't con an animal into trusting you. If you are deemed untrustworthy, you may be given another chance to prove yourself. But you can't lie your way back to being trusted.
Perhaps we have a confidence in a pet's love that we can never have with human beings, who carry baggage and culture with them into every relationship.
Like a best friend who never moves away, animal companions are with us, partners on our journey. They bring their idiosyncrasies into our lives and resist our control yet acquiesce in sharing the part of the world that is our portion. In the end, each of us really is alone. But in ways other people cannot, animals keep us company in that aloneness.
And then they are gone.
The rest of humanity takes little notice. Your brother doesn't fly in from Hawaii for the funeral. Your boss doesn't tell you to "take all the time you need" or "let me know what I can do."
You go home to a too-empty house and wonder: What part of us is it that these creatures take with them when they go?
Jill Raymond is a free-lance writer. She lives in Takoma Park.