When your pet dies, there is a loss that is not to be compared exactly with the loss of a favored family member, even though we may seek a likeness. What we come to see in our pets is an innocence of which we adult humans are not endowed.
DON STEVENSON: For over 10 years I enjoyed the company of a cherished pet named “Sadie.” Just a few days ago she left us. Her weary, tired and diseased body yielded to the laws of nature. She was a large, gentle and loving bullmastiff companion who enjoyed chilling out with the family 24/7. She loved us unconditionally, especially my wife.
Most every morning for a decade we have had the joy of being greeted by the most committed pet-friend one could have. But now the tears are tumbling down, and our grief is very deep. Pet grief is not easily experienced or defined. Grief is that intense emotional response one has to the loss of something or someone.
Animal lovers have always enjoyed pets, and the pain of their departure is like no other. It is an odd kind of grief wherein one is not sure how to navigate its waters. When grief visits, it is like a heavy, dark, non-substantive presence in the innards of our being, and it remains as long as it remains. I am not sure grief ever leaves us. It just takes another seat in the balcony of our memory and heart. And a casual dismissing of a pet-friend’s passing is hard to come by. It always hurts.
When your pet dies, there is a loss that is not to be compared exactly with the loss of a favored family member, even though we may seek a likeness. Relatively, pets live only a short while, and they move on to another sphere. And when they do, they leave us holding one end of the leash we used to companion them. What we come to see in our pets is an innocence of which we adult humans are not endowed.
Perhaps this is why we respond to the death of a pet differently than we do when a loved one dies. I just know that the grief which surrounds the death of a beloved animal presence is hard to hold. And I resist any notion of trying to get over it, for such is an absurd reality and forgetting is not in my playbook. Grief is derived from love, and the latter is maintained. SOURCE…
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