Saying Goodbye can be difficult!
When I finally had to put my old old rescue Labrador Retriever, Trigger, to sleep, I thought that I’d prepared myself for feeling his loss, greatly and sadly.
But it was nothing like I’d thought it would be.
For the first few weeks, I was actually, emotionally, numb. I didn’t feel bad or good or anything about it, I was just not able to feel my feelings, at all. One day, I came home and saw his old tennis ball, found under a couch, it had been there for months and months, his dried saliva coating it grossly. I looked at it, and uncontrollably, my eyes welled up with tears, and I just could not stop sobbing. Finally, three months after he had passed over, I could now, feel that he was gone, and I finally “allowed myself” to sob and sob until my eyes ached.
My story is probably not that different than most. If you’ve lost a four-legged dear to you, and you’ve not let yourself grieve, you still hold that sadness deep within. Someday it will emerge, perhaps not the way you wanted it to…
A major goal for this website is to provide an opportunity for those who are experiencing the loss of their beloved four-legged (or two-legged) friend, companion, helper, guide-dog, best-buddy, to share and express to others their own failures and successes in managing and handling these emotions of loss of a loved one. I think if our minds are open, we can learn so much from each other.
These blogs provide us an opportunity to create a community of like-minded folks who are all trying to deal with the same unfathomable sense of irretrievable loss around a favorite four-legged friend. I invite all to participate and share difficulties they may have undergone in dealing with their pets’ loss, and to share what processes and procedures seemed to help them overcome their sadness and grief the most.
