Frank is missing! Thinking about grief through the experience of pet loss
Frank is missing!
These bold letters screamed out at me from every third telephone pole in my neighbourhood. Frank the cat is lost! He is missing! Help find Frank! My heart broke for the worried family every time I left my house.
I physically cringed each time I saw one of these signs. I cringed partly because I know how losing a pet can be devastating. It is heart-wringing to wonder about Frank: Is he …lost? …stolen? …hurt? …dead?
Frank, come home!
I have a friend who always takes photos of signs like this one, so that if she happens upon an animal resembling the one on the telephone pole, she can alert the distraught family. She knows well the grief of losing a pet.
Frank’s missing is doubly cringe-worthy for me because Frank is also my husband’s name. Every time I saw this handsome kitty staring out from a telephone pole, I lost my breath. Frank, missing? There but for the grace of God go I…
But fortunately, Frank is just a cat. He’s not a husband. Or a child, or a parent. He’s just a cat. Right?
No. Absolutely. Not. Right.
Pet death has a fraught place in the many personal hierarchies of grief (stay tuned for more on this in a future blog!). For some, pets are ‘just animals.’ There are no compassionate care benefits for workers with an ill pet, nor statutory bereavement time off after a pet has died. While increasingly there are a sympathy cards available for pet death, how many of us reliably send them? While cremating dead pets is becoming more common, funerals are not. All these social messages convey that pets aren’t really that important.
And yet, for many people, pets are not just ‘like’ family; they ARE family. As family members, they get their own bed, food dish, special treats, spa days, and kennel hotels. Dogs even get daycares, and hired help to walk them. Vets have started specializing in palliative care and in-house euthanasia to bring comfort, solace, and gentler endings for families. I’ve heard of pet cemeteries. Nova Scotia even has a pet ‘wind phone.’ Our grief event last September included a hike for bereaved pet owners.
Cartoon about pet grief by our cartoonist-in-residence, Susan Macleod
And, grief is grief. At Grief Matters, we deeply believe that the worst, the most intense, the most ‘real’ grief you can experience is the grief you are currently experiencing. No matter what the reason for that grief. Comparing griefs (the loss of a cat, a person, an identity) will get you nowhere. Each and every grief has to be grieved. A wise internet meme – riffing off Theodore Roosevelt – recently told me that Comparison is the thief of grief. Yup, that’s pretty wise. We should not thieve our own – or anybody’s – grief. We all have a need to grieve whatever it is that we grieve. We all should have that right, too.
I recently listened to the podcast episode, Death in the Afternoon: Uncovering Pet Death's Greatest Mystery, in which art (and cat!) historian, Paul Koudounaris, recounted the story – indeed mystery – of The Rainbow Bridge. For non-pet owners, The Rainbow Bridge is a heart-felt rendering of the moment deceased pets are reunited with their deceased humans. Koudounaris has many insightful things to say about pet death and grief, and the sleuthing he did to uncover the true author of The Rainbow Bridge (Edna Clyne-Rekhy) makes for great listening.
The signs for Frank have come down. I hope it’s been a happy ending for this family. I’m counting my own chickens as human Frank still sits in the next room. For now.
