She Opened Her Heart to Pets (One in Particular)

It was "very traumatic" the day he died in September, Cheryl Czapp said.

Josephine Czapp called her son Robert about midday. Alas, he couldn't leave work for several more hours. When he did, Robert Czapp found his mother with the bird still cupped in her hands. He had to pry it away from her.

After Snookie's death, Josephine Czapp was inconsolable. Crippled with arthritis, she prayed nightly that she might die soon, Cheryl Czapp said. She was no longer the spry lady who, into her late 50s, would camp out with her grandsons in the wilderness or in the tree house behind her brick rambler in Manassas.

Cheryl Czapp alerted family and friends to her mother-in-law's death by an e-mail. Shunning a sappy tone, the subject line read: "It's time to defrost Snookie."

Celi Clark, a spokeswoman for the Wisconsin-based National Funeral Directors Association, said she knew of no state or federal regulations about animals being buried with owners.

Such arrangements, Clark said, are usually made at the discretion of the cemetery owner.

She said the issue "doesn't come up a lot," and that trinkets, letters and other non-organic possessions are more commonly buried with people. When someone wants to be interred with an animal, pet remains are usually cremated and placed in an urn inside the coffin, she said.

Josephine Czapp was buried April 12 at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, the church started by her parents with other Slovak farmer immigrants near Manassas.

Snookie, reposing in a tin box, was placed by her side. Cheryl Czapp wrote in an e-mail, "We put his small coffin under her rosaried hands for their mutual final resting place."