What Not to Say to Someone Who Is Grieving The Loss of a Pet
As a society, we are not equipped to handle grief and loss, and many people don’t know what to say to someone who is grieving. This can be compounded when the loss is that of a pet. Even people who are genuinely sorry and want to express their sympathy are often don’t know what to say to comfort the grieving person.
It is difficult to know what to say, and as a result, people often, without meaning to, say the wrong things that, rather than providing comfort, only serve to upset the grieving person even more. Sometimes, the best thing to say is to simply acknowledge the loss – because the only thing worse than saying the wrong thing is to not say anything at all. As I’m dealing with my own grief about Amber, I’m once again reminded of how much some of the things people say hurt, even though they’re offered with the best intentions.
I know how you feel. Everybody experiences loss differently. While we may have lost pets ourselves, we can’t know how the grieving person feels, because each pet and each relationship is unique.
Saying something like “I, too, have lost a pet, and I remember how awful it feels – my heart goes out to you” instead acknowledges the griever’s feelings without being presumptuous.
It will get better or time heals all wounds. Grieving people know this on an intellectual level, but they sure don’t feel that way, especially not in the early stages of grief. Trite phrases like these only serve to minimize the loss and the very real pain the grieving person is feeling now.
Acknowledge the grieving person’s sadness and pain without diminishing their emotions by suggesting that they’re only temporary.
She’s in a better place now. It was probably for the best. It was God’s will. Any variation of this will not be helpful to someone who’s grieving. Even if their belief system supports this, they’re not going to find comfort in these words, and they may, in fact, serve to emphasize their pain.
Even if the grieving person believes that our animal friends never really die and that their spirits live on, any of the above phrases, directed at them in the middle of profound sadness, invalidate the very real pain of missing the lost pet’s physical presence.
Let me know if there’s anything I can do. This is a classic, and natural, response to grief – we feel helpless, and we want to help the grieving person. However, people who are grieving don’t think straight, and usually don’t know what they need help with, and reaching out or asking for help often requires more of an effort than they can handle.
Offer to do something concrete instead, such as bringing a prepared meal to the grieving person, or running errands for them. If you know the person very well and you think it would be acceptable, stop by to check on them. Otherwise, call them, but accept that they may not want to answer the phone. Leave a supportive message, and check back again a few days later.
It was only a pet. I find it hard to believe that some people are still saying this – it is callous and uncaring, even coming from someone who’s not an animal person. I’m fortunate that the majority of people in my life are animal people, so I’ve not heard this one personally, but I’m being told that it still happens more than you would think.
When are you going to get another one? Not quite as shocking as the one above, but equally inappropriate. Grieving pet parents know that getting a new pet can never replace the lost one, but getting a new pet after a loss is a very individual decision – everyone’s schedule is going to be different. (Read Life after Loss – Getting a New Pet for more on this topic.)
Don’t cry. Most people are uncomfortable in the presence of others who are crying. It is painful to see someone you care about cry, but by telling them not to cry, you are prolonging the grieving process for them.
Tears heal and are part of the natural grieving process. One of the best things you can do for someone who is grieving is to let them cry in your presence. Offer comfort, but don’t make them feel that it’s not okay to cry.
There is no “cure” or “solution” for grief – it’s an individual journey. Navigating through the grieving process is difficult not just for the person who is mourning a loss, but also for those around the person. The best thing any of us can do for someone who is grieving the loss of a pet is to set aside our own discomfort with death and loss and gently support them in their grief.
Free Download of Prologue and Chapter One
Buckley in her office at the animal hospital
For a limited time, I’m offering a free download of the Prologue and the entire Chapter One of Buckley’s Story – click below to download. I hope you enjoy!
Buckley’s Story Prologue and Chapter One
If you like what you read and want to know the rest of the story, you can purchase the book at Amazon or Barnes and Noble online.
Cats Read Buckley’s Story, Too!
Sadie, a beautiful tortie living with her human Lena Lemes in Chicago, is helping her human read Buckley’s Story. Says Lena: she was “keeping watch as I read your book. She can always sense my mood, and I was feeling very emotional as I began the chapter where Buckley becomes ill. Up Sadie popped, and she remained with me until I took a break. I told her all about Amber and Buckley, and she is reading along with me!”
If you have any photos of your kitties “reading” the book, e-mail them to me at BuckleysStory@cox.net and I’ll post them here on my blog.
Coping with Unexpected Loss
On May 13, I had to let Amber go after a brief, sudden illness. Less than a year and a half after I lost Buckley, I was faced with grieving yet again.
It’s not like I hadn’t experienced loss in my life before. Most of us who’ve reached the age I’m at have had to deal with loss. I lost my mother in 1994 after a brief illness. I lost my soul mate cat Feebee in 2000 after a valiant seven-month battle with lymphoma. I lost my office cat Virginia in 2002 after a brief decline following a fourteen-year-long life with FIV. I lost my father in 2004 to heart disease and cancer. And as those of you who’ve read Buckley’s Story know, I lost Buckley after she was diagnosed with restrictive cardiomyopathy and given a very poor prognosis that she outlived by a considerable amount of time. I had lots of experience with grief, and I survived all of these losses more or less gracefully. I learned that there is only one way to deal with grief, and that’s to go through it. There is no way around it. You can’t run from it. I learned about the stages of grief. I learned that you don’t go through them step by step, but rather, that you sometimes cycle through them over and over, until, at some point, mercifully, you may find that you’ve reached the final stage, acceptance. But even reaching acceptance doesn’t mean that you ever really get “over” a loss.
So you’d think that with all this personal experience in grieving, I would have been better prepared to handle losing Amber. The force of my grief caught me completely off guard. And I realized, in the middle of the shock, the tears, and the pain, that I had never lost a loved one as unexpectedly and suddenly as I lost her. Twelve short days, from the time that she was mildly ill to the time that I had to let her go. I never expected her to not get better when I agreed to hospitalize her. I always expected her to come home. I spoke with one of the doctors caring for her at 4:30am the morning of May 13. She had had a good night, and he thought that there might even be a chance that she could come home later that day. Six hours later, her doctor called to let me know that she’d taken a turn for the worse. There were other things they could medically do to try and save her, but her prognosis was poor. I made the agonizing decision to stop treatment, bring her home, and spend the afternoon with her before my vet came to the house that evening to help her with a peaceful transition.
I’m still in the middle of the early, intense stage of grieving. As with all my losses, there are commonalities. Despite the incredible outpouring of love and support from not only my ”real life” friends, but also my online friends, there are times when I feel alone in my grief, disconnected from the world around me and normal everyday activities. I’m physically exhausted most of the time – grief takes a toll not just emotionally, but physically. I try to take care of myself as best as I can, by trying to eat regular meals, getting some exercise, and staying connected with friends. But it’s hard. Going out into the world is challenging – how can life be going on when my world has changed irrevocably? In The Healing Art of Pet Parenthood, author Nadine M. Rosin, after losing her nineteen-year-old dog Buttons, writes: “…being out in public felt totally bizarre, as if the world had come to an end because of some horrible disaster, life as we’d known it on the planet was over, but I seemed to be the only person who knew about it.” I’ve rarely heard this particular emotion of feeling out of synch with the rest of the world expressed better. I’m limiting social engagements to activities with friends who understand my grief, and I’m fortunate that most of the people in my life are animal people, and they do understand. I simply don’t have it in me to make polite chit-chat with those who don’t.
I know I’ll make it through this, just like I did through all my other losses. But I am realizing that this one may leave me forever changed in ways that the others didn’t. And perhaps it has to do with the suddenness of the loss. I’ve always had time to prepare for loss. While anticipatory grieving is difficult, I believe that it does help in the end – you have time to get used to the idea of eventually having to go on without your loved one. But Amber was a healthy, happy cat who had rarely been sick in her life. There was nothing that could have prepared me for this. Perhaps, as I come out on the other side of this, I’ll have some words of wisdom on how to cope with sudden, unexpected loss. For now, all I can offer is that it’s much harder, much more painful, and much more complicated than my other losses. With the others, I rarely second-guessed myself. I didn’t rail at the universe for having my loved one taken from me so quickly and so senselessly. I didn’t blame myself for decisions I made during Amber’s last two weeks. I just grieved. With this one, I’m discovering new territory as I go through it. When I get to a point where it makes some sense, I’ll share it with you.
What I can say is this (and I’ll do my best to take my own advice): grief is a process. Be gentle with yourself as you go through it. Allow those who undertand to support you, and stay away from those who don’t. It’s too painful to deal with people who say things like “it’s only a cat,” “you should get on with your life,” “when are you going to get another one?” and other careless things like that, or worse, those who don’t say anything at all. Yes, it may be their own discomfort with death that makes them remain silent, but it’s incredibly painful for the person going through the loss to not receive some sort of acknowledgment.
Grief can be a transformational experience. It rips your heart wide open, and you’ll never be the same. It’s up to each individual whether they’ll choose to let grief destroy them, or whether they’ll do the challenging and difficult work that will ultimately allow it to be transformed into personal growth and expansion. To honor Amber, her love, and all she has brought into my life, I don’t see how I have any other choice except to let something good come from this devastating loss.
Delta Society’s Interactions Magazine
Amber and I are on the cover of the spring issue of the Delta Society’s Interactions magazine, a magazine celebrating the human-animal health connection and our animal companions.
Andrea Leigh Ptak’s article titled More Than Pets – How Animals Enrich Our Lives, features a segment contributed by me, under the heading Coping with Loss. I had completely forgotten that Andrea had requested a contribution from me for this article, and I certainly had no idea that Amber and I would end up on the cover. It seems rather timely, all things considered.
Here’s the segment:
Our pets can help us get through difficult life changes in ways that our two-legged friends never can.
Ingrid King considers her cat Feebee a life saver. “Feebee was a grey tabby cat who came into my life when my former husband and I moved to Northern Virginia. When my marriage ended after he had been a part of our family for ten years, it was never a question that he would stay with me. And it’s a good thing he did. Because the divorce was only the beginning of a very dark period in my life: four months after my former husband left, my mother passed away after a short illness. Between trying to adjust to life as a newly single woman, and mourning the untimely passing of my mother, I felt completely overwhelmed. Just getting through each day seemed impossible at times. But Feebee was by my side for all of it, and somehow, I managed. He let my tears soak his soft grey fur. His quiet, loving presence eased my sadness. He was a great listener, and his rumbling purr provided comfort. He cheered me up with his utter cuteness.
Despite his loving presence, the pain and sadness sometimes became unbearable, and there were times when I considered just ending it all. But whenever these dark thoughts entered my mind, I would also think of Feebee. Knowing that someone still loved and needed me made it impossible to give up on life. Who would take care of him if I wasn’t around? And each and every time, love pulled me back from the edge – this special love between a cat and his person. Feebee gave me many gifts throughout the almost sixteen years he spent with me, but none greater than the gift of life. ”
The Delta Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to to help lead the world in advancing human health and well-being through positive interactions with animals. They help people throughout the world become healthier and happier by incorporating therapy, service and companion animals into their lives. For more information, visit www.deltasociety.org.
