The grieving process

Re “Losing a mate leaves hole in vole,” Oct. 16

This gruesome article -- about the mental and physical torture, and eventual killing, of innocent creatures in an attempt to explain grief -- disgusted me.

Grief doesn’t need a study to explain why it occurs. Ask anyone who has suffered the loss of a loved one why he or she is in pain.

Ask me. My dear father passed away two months ago, and no researcher needs to tell me why I mourn. It’s simple: I loved my father. I miss him.

Torturing and killing animals is not necessary to show me the logic of my feelings, and it certainly does nothing to alleviate my pain.

And why prevent such a completely normal and expected reaction? My suffering because of the loss of my father is one of the things that lets me know I’m alive. Eradicating it would cheapen the importance of my father in my life and in shaping who I am today.

Leave the animals alone and let me grieve. It is not wrong that I do.

Anna M. Mendiola

Anaheim