Grieving the Death of a Pet Part 2: Coping

This is part two in my four part series on grief and pet loss.  Click the link to read Part 1.

I had the chance to sit down with Becky Murray, a Licensed Professional Counselor at Veterinary Specialty Center in Buffalo Grove. We discussed the death of pets and the many ways that humans grief their furry friends. Murray agrees that grief is a “Bizarre  way of being” in part because it is so different from our normal way of being. We are used to schedules, routines, and a linear way of thinking. We complete tasks and move on to the next one. Grief is not like that. With grief the thoughts, memories and feelings are not linear. They can pop into our heads at any moment. Grief is also not something you finish, and move on from; not like the events that make up our daily lives. You can’t allot a set amount of time to grieve and then say “ok I’m done, on to the next thing!” Grief is not something you can check off your “to-do” list. As anyone who has lost a loved one—human or pet—can tell you, life is not the same after the loss.

Grief and loss change people. They change life; which is not to say that life doesn’t go on. It just isn’t quite the same. There are the immediate changes—not having your furry friend greeting you when you come home from work, the empty cat bed by heater, the food bowl you don’t have to fill.  And there are the larger changes; adjusting mentally and emotionally to losing your friend; the knowledge that you will not see them again (at least not in this life, in the form you are used to.)  These are huge changes. It will take time.

I made a memorial shelf for my cats who have passed.

In the days after my cats died I felt like life was never going to get better.  I didn’t know how I could go on living after such a loss.  According to Murray, that is normal.  When we are grieving it feels like we are doing everything so poorly, she says. “After the loss of a pet your goal should simply be to function a little better each day” says Murray. You can’t compare yourself to who you were before the loss of your pet. Instead, compare yourself to who you were the day after the loss.

What is important, she says, is that you function a little bit better over time. After we euthanized Muffin I spent the next 24 hours crying hysterically. I held her bed in a death grip; I slept with her bed and some of her toys, and I cried hysterically. I did not leave my house for two days. But on the second day I went longer between crying. I didn’t cry hysterically. I was slowly finding peace settling back in my soul. Even after the tears stopped flowing, there was a sting in my heart every time I realized Muffin wasn’t sleeping on her favorite chair or next to the pillows on my mom’s bed. I knew she wasn’t but you get into habits of expectation and it takes time to break those habits.  When my Sam died in 2009 I was at work. My parents called me to tell me he had passed and for weeks afterwards I panicked and tensed up every time my cell phone rang. I was terrified that something had happened to someone else.

I told Murray my stories of grieving my cats and mentioned that each time it was different. The pain was different, the thoughts and emotions were slightly different. She said that was normal. “Every loss is different” she says. This applies not just to each loss we experience—the loss of Sam left me numb and shocked for days, while Muffin’s death left me an emotional wreck—but also the how each person experiences their loss. While I cried hysterically over my cats’ deaths, other people may not cry in public. Some people want tangible memories of their cats while some don’t want anything physical to remember their cat by. Some people adopt another cat right away, some will never adopt another cat again.  Murray says however you grieve “as long as it’s not hurting you, not other others it’s ok.” Each person grieves differently but most of these people are experiencing what Murray calls normal grief.  Perhaps you expected to be crying hysterically, but find you can’t cry. Perhaps you don’t feel a crippling grief the way I did. That’s ok.   Murray says the way we grieve is “not a measure of our love” for our pets. We all grieve differently. Don’t judge yourself if  you grieve differently from your partner, your siblings, your friends.

Beyond normal grief, there is complicated grief.  Complicated grief is when you find you are not getting better; you are not getting through the grief. If you find yourself dealing with complicated grief, or you know someone who is, please reach out for support. A licensed therapist can help work through the grief. However you may find that something as simple as reaching out to a support group can help with the grief.

Resources:

PetLossHelp.org

PetLossCanada.com

ASPCA/Pet Loss

Association for Pet Loss & Bereavement 

Veterinary Specialty Center- Counseling Services – You can find books and support hotlines here.

 

Phone Numbers: CVMA Pet Loss Helpline and Support Group: (630) 325-1600

Grieving the Death of a Pet Part 1: Grief is Weird

Grief. Grief is weird.  It has been almost 5 months since I lost Muffin to cancer; I thought was past the worst of the grief.  I was not “over” the loss of Muffin, I hadn’t forgotten her, but the sting of the loss wasn’t so great. I wasn’t breaking down in tears whenever I thought of her. In fact, Muffin wasn’t in my thoughts much at all.  I was thinking instead of Crash, Sneakers, Mama and Little Black. I was thinking of work, bills, life. Then I changed out the litter boxes. Muffin had this thing about clean litter boxes. Whenever I brought up a freshly washed litter box with new litter in it, she would appear from nowhere to use the box. Within minutes of me putting the clean box down Muffin would appear and “christen” it. I thought of this memory a few weeks back when I was changing out the boxes. It was a good memory and I smiled a bit before the floodgates opened and I got smacked with the emotions all over again. I was so sad. From that moment on I was suddenly being reminded of all the goofy things that Muffin and Sam did.  I would be doing something completely unrelated and suddenly be crying over my lost cats. I could be in the kitchen cooking and remember how Sam had to sit on the cutting board (we won’t think about how sanitary that was…). Or  I would be drifting to sleep and remember my last moments with Muffin, the agony I was feeling at that moment. So I repeat, grief is weird.

Working in the world of veterinary hospitals and animal rescue groups, I am confronted with grief on a regular basis. I have seen so many people lose a beloved pet. I have seen so many different responses to that loss. Some, like me, cry hysterically as they ease their beloved pet’s exit from this life. Others are much more practical about their loss. They understand that having pets means loss. That is the sad reality, our furry friends don’t live as long as we do, so we are going to lose them.  Some people cry, others don’t. Some need to be with their pet to the very last moment, while others don’t want to be in the room for the euthanasia procedure. Some people want ashes back, others do not. And ya’ know what? That’s just fine. Everyone grieves differently.

I love the idea of the Rainbow Bridge, and my cats waiting to be with me again.

I’ve had coworkers who told me they couldn’t look at pictures of their cat for years after she died. I had one coworker who threw a party in memory of his cat, because he was so loved by so many. Some people want to hold on to the ashes of their beloved pet, keep them on a shelf with a picture and a collar. Others want the ashes to spread in a meaningful spot, perhaps a childhood home or perhaps they even want to bury their cat’s remains somewhere. The first cat I lost as an adult was a cat who was in hospice care with me. He was one of my favorite cats from the shelter I worked at and the two of us had a great bond. When he died I got his ashes back and spread them in a little pond near my house. It was a perfect spot for him because he was obsessed with water, especially running water.  We all respond differently to the loss of a pet.

The important part of grief is not how you grieve, but that you do it. Grief is a painful experience, and it shakes the ground on which you live.  I was grieving for Muffin before she even died. The anticipatory grief was hard, but the grief after the loss was harder. When I was looking for resources to help me through my grief nothing seemed to fit my needs. So, I am going to write about pet grief. I will write what I needed to read at the time. Hopefully it will help someone with the loss of his/her pet; if not, it has helped me grieve, which is a good start.

 

Articles on Grief & Death:

Euthanasia: A Vet’s Perspective

The Anniversary Reaction: Grieving Your Pet