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A while ago I received the following e-mail message from a visitor to my Grief Healing website:
I'm sure you are a lovely person. You’re a hospice volunteer who’s gone through grief yourself and I am sorry for your losses. But I am grieving, too. I lost both of my parents 3 years ago and they died just 9 days apart. They were sick and elderly (89 and 85) and had been in the hospital for about a month when they passed away. I can tell you that it was horrible; more horrible than you can ever imagine. I watched them suffer and then lost them both. Since then, I've also lost two aunts and my favorite uncle. With my aunt's death in August, I really had a setback in the grieving process and I finally decided that I better get some professional help from a psychiatrist. I did and he put me on antidepressants. Now, on to the reason I’m writing. And I don't mean to attack you, I really don't mean it like that. I just want you to know that I don't think that your grief sites should include grief over lost pets.
Excellent article Marty. A loss is a loss is a loss and one persons loss is just as important as your own.
ReplyDeleteI think if everyone was a little kinder, a little more patient and a little more compassionate the world would be a better place.
Your words always make so much sense and provied comfort to those of us travelling on this journey of grief.
Thank you!
love Diana x
Diana, thank you! I so appreciate your comment, and I couldn't agree with you more about making this world a better place. You are doing that with your blog, too ♥
ReplyDeleteMarty,
ReplyDeleteI think you and I are pretty much on the same page with this except for addressing pet loss in the same place. I'd much rather see a separate pet loss site just like you do a separate group for pet loss.
Susan
Marty,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments to the person who objected to having pet loss addressed in your site. That is the very reason people who lose their pet feel isolated and ashamed. I counsel people who have lost their pets and it is very real for them. Anyone who dismisses pet loss is not knowledgeable about this very real kind of grief. Thanks for your site. All the different topics on grief are wonderful and much appreciated!
Dear Marty
ReplyDeleteThank you for addressing pet loss as being as important as human loved one loss.
When I lost my tabby cat a year and a half ago, it was the most traumatic, painful experience of my life. I know a lot of people would not rate it on the same level as losing a parent or a child, but to me, he WAS my child.
An elderly woman who has lost her family or husband and then loses a dog sees that dog AS her family. This is a real pain too, and people need to stop taking the stance that it's "just a pet".
It's not "just a mom", "just a dad" or "just a child". It's also not "just a pet". Pets give you love and care indiscriminately when you feel you can't turn to another human being due to ridicule or intolerance. It's this reason that people don't understand pet loss as being a true, real and hurtful loss as well.
Thank you for your answer to the letter about pet loss. First - my heart goes out to the person sending the letter for the losses and the deep grief the person is going through. As for pet loss on a grief healing site: I personally find it quite normal that pet loss should also be dealt with on a site dealing with grief healing. We are all different - our lives, who we love and bond with and how deeply we do so. We also grieve differently, and in order to create a more compassionate world, we need to not judge but allow others to grieve in their own way - whether they grieve the loss of a human or an animal companion. No grief is lesser than another. Let's reach out and help each other in challenging times, whatever the challenge might be.
ReplyDeleteEirinn and Marianne, I am grateful for your very kind comments. Needless to say, I agree with both of you ♥
ReplyDeleteI would like to add my input in this matter. My son was 8 1/2 when we laid down our family pet. She was there when he was born. He was devastated/heartbroken/grieving for 2 years before he started to finally accept and move into a healing state of mind.
ReplyDeleteFast forward to 13 years old. The new family pet became his everything. Bruiser was a brute but to my son he was his heart, confidant, and protector. He would sit in the backyard and talk to him about things he needed to get out. We laid Bruiser down due to a tumor in his belly. To this day my son has momentos, locks of his hair, and will still tear up thinking about him.
Is this the same as how badly he will grieve when his Grandma, my mom, dies? No. That will be ten times worse. But to come to a site such as this and see his grief as justified and okay helps him to move forward with support and help and a feeling of being okay. I appreciate seeing animals on here for that reason.
Thank you.
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