Two people whom I know recently had to euthanized their beloved pet due to illness. I “know” each of these people only causally. One is a neighbor and the other is someone I “know” online only from the Solo forum. We’re not close, but we’re close enough that we occasionally share things that go beyond casual greetings and chatting about the weather.
When I learned about their pets, it really hit me harder than I would have expected. I felt sad for my friends and sad for their loss. It made my heart ache as I thought about them watching their pet’s health decline until they decided the pet was suffering too much to go on.
And I am so sorry for their pain.
I feel the same pain in my chest and heart when I hear that someone’s loved one was diagnosed with cancer (especially lung cancer).
I guess it is because “grief empathy” is part of my core being now. It probably makes me a kinder, gentler human being.
Sometimes it makes tears well up in my eyes for a pet or a person who I barely knew – because I am re-feeling the sadness I felt when losing my wife or when losing Snickers.
After my stepdaughter died, I remember having a conversation with a distant cousin who visited us. He had lost a child to brain cancer a few years earlier. He said, “You’re now part of the club you never wanted to join.”
Yeah. It was like that when we lost my stepdaughter.
It was like that when I lost my wife.
It was like that when I lost Snickers.
It is like that, maybe for you too.
My heart aches for you.
What I know now is that the sadness will diminish in time. For me, it never leaves entirely. But it does get better.
Sometimes, now, when I think of my loved ones who are gone, my mind is filled with pleasant, sweet memories of the good times we shared.
That’s pretty good. For me, it has to be.