died from a broken heart -?

[strawberrypai]

I had two ducklings, male and female. I raised them together for about two months and, unfortunately, lost the male one..
After he had passed, the female had become very depressed. She would pant and make faint peeps, as if she were crying- she would constantly be like this. She wouldn't sit down and would hang her head down- and when her head wasn't down, it was as if she was looking around for her mate, still crying. This only got worse- she began to stumble around and stopped eating.
I tried to be with her as much as I could- I held her in my lap and tried to comfort her and encourage her to eat, but she would still only cry and hang her head. She was always a healthy, energetic duck- and only became this way after losing her mate.
One day after her mate passing away, she lay in my lap still crying- and, all of a sudden, she started tossing around. When she stopped, I realized she had gone too.
Could she really have gone because she couldn't stand the loss of her mate?
I've heard stories online of ducks committing suicide [ie. drowning themselves] after the loss of their mate, but to simply die from a broken heart..?

I really loved my little duckies so much and it's really killed me to see them go in such a sad way..
I've felt horrible guilt over this and I'm still grieving over the loss.

Has anybody else had a similar experience to this? Was the cause of her death really what I think it was?

 

[tdd2]

that is so sad.

Sorry for you double loss.

 

[Amiga]

They can grieve deeply, seems to me. I almost lost Romy after her BFF died.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”


― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves