Sitting in the tub, between bouts of wailing and sobbing, I got to thinking. Why do humans (and, I suspect, all social animals) grieve? What evolutionary purpose does it serve, and do non-social animals (cats being in that category, as they are not generally social in the wild) have any concept of grief?
If you’re a theist, for that matter, why did your higher being give you the emotion of grief for the loss of a loved one? I suppose if you believe in Genesis (Jew/Christian/Muslim) then we grieve as payback for the original sin.
Apparently, there is a whole branch of psychology called “evolutionary psychology” that struggles with this very question. In my tub-thinking activity, I supposed that it is a mechanism to build cohesion. Love keeps us together, grief for the loss of a loved-one leaves us with a gaping psychological wound that is best filled by the love of another.