Margarita Suárez was known as a lover of animals in her area of Merida, Mexico — she fed the stray dogs and more than 20 stray cats that gathered at her door every morning.
When she passed away, her family received the shock of a lifetime when they saw some unusual visitors at Margarita’s wake:
Stray dogs, dozens of them, showed up at the funeral parlor to pay tribute to the woman who spent her life caring for them.
Patricia Urrutia, Margarita’s daughter, said that her family was shocked, but delighted by the unusual visitors.
Margarita was so fond of taking care of strays that she took a bag of food wherever she went.
She wanted to be able to feed hungry dogs she met on the road.
When her family realized that the furry guests were there to pay their respects, they let the dogs inside, where they promptly settled down near her coffin. The workers at the funeral parlor say that they had never seen anything like it before.
The dogs stayed for an entire day and night, then left, only to come back to follow the hearse to and from the funeral home. Just before she was cremated, a whole group of them gathered around where Margarita’s body laid in her coffin, as if saying their final goodbyes.
Patricia said, “I swear by God that it was beautiful, marvelous.”
“When I was in a moment of so much pain these dogs that [sic] came, they showed me that everything was going to be okay.”
Aside from the dogs, Patricia managed to take a video of a songbird that also came by to offer a tune and take a gander at her mother’s coffin, before flying off.
“Because of them we were happy,” Patricia said of this wonderful surprise, “They made a sad situation an incredible one.”