How to Find Comfort When a Beloved Pet Dies

[question everything]

In 2012, I said goodbye to my cat Snowflake. Her death didn’t come as a surprise: She had been sick for some time and was getting progressively thinner and frailer over the summer and fall. Still, it was impossible to fully prepare for the depth of sorrow I experienced. Mourning her absence was breathtaking in a literal sense; it took the wind out of me. We had inherited each other at the end of a long relationship—my boyfriend of more than a decade had moved out, and Snowflake had stayed. It wasn’t until Snowflake and I were living together, just the two of us, that we forged a deep friendship.

In the days and weeks that followed the final trip to the vet, I couldn’t focus and barely ate. Coming home after a long day of work was especially heartbreaking—each time a fresh reminder that her reassuring presence would never greet me again. As I swung open the door, loneliness would set in. I knew I was going to miss her, but I was blindsided by the intensity of my grief. Feeling unmoored and disoriented, I searched for writing about pet loss that would help put my experience in perspective. I needed help, and who better to consult than the world’s finest writers?

I soon learned that my sense of desolation was specific and personal but hardly unique. Returning home at the end of the day was equally brutal for Raymond Chandler and his wife after their black Persian cat, Taki, died: “Even now we dread to come into the silent empty house after being out at night,” he confessed. Emily Dickinson was so wrecked by the passing of her Newfoundland dog, she asked for help: “Carlo died,” she announced in a letter to her friend Thomas Wentworth Higginson in January 1866. “Will you instruct me now?”

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Sometimes I imagine organizing a gala for pet love and loss that spans geography and time, bringing together voices from the past and present in one spacious room. A massive celebration! I can picture Billie Holiday and Fiona Apple bonding over their cherished dogs, Mister and Janet; P.G. Wodehouse and Georgia O’Keeffe trading memories of his angelic Pekingese Squeaky and her protective chow chow Bo, who often joined her on painting excursions; and Winston Churchill telling everyone about Rufus, his miniature poodle and “closest confidant.” It wouldn’t be socially awkward, not for a minute: they would have heartbreak in common and plenty of stories to tell.

https://archive.is/bWyri

This essay is adapted from Sara Bader’s new book, “The Book of Pet Love & Loss: Words of Comfort and Wisdom from Remarkable People,” published last week by Simon & Schuster.