Object permanence

I feel like a dog that doesn't have object permanence... except my problem is that the object of my desire IS gone but I can't see him as gone. My body thinks he's still at work or hanging out with friends even though I read our Eulogy to him in front a room full of people while standing next to his body. I kissed his cold forehead before they closed the casket. 

I can get there. I do understand he is gone throughout the day and I cry and I grieve but my silly animal brain can't hold it for as long as I feel like I need to or should. It frustrates me but I suspect my body/brain is doing it as a self preservation technique. I hate it.

There is this vision I have from a mix of nature documentaries I've seen. There is this sequence where a mother of a bear cub has passed away. The cub stays close to its mother's body and bleats or cries for a period of time. I remember watching this sequence with some dismay as a child who has lost his or her parent. Or perhaps I'm seeing it from the perspective of a parent who can no longer take care of its own child. Both ways it stirs something in me because I am part of this parent/child dynamic and know the emotions of distress and that parental/caring instinct and the love for my parents. 

But at some point the cub stops crying. The cub get's up and looks around and just abruptly …leaves. I am incredulous at this behavior! The cub moves on! I don't know what causes this sudden change. I assume the cub remembers that it is hungry and needs to survive. The coldness of that moment goes through my mind daily. The coldness that we move on. We move on like the simple animals we are. We as humans try to convince ourselves we are more because of our special brains. I'm not arguing that we may not be something more but I do believe we are also animals as much as we like to pretend we are not. 

I do not like this thought but I think about things I do not like a lot these days.