Community Corner: Dealing With Anticipatory Grief for Pets and More
Editor’s Note: This week we are honored to sit down with Jessica Kwerel, whose focus as a licensed therapist with over 15 years of experience is pet loss. While we know this can be a hard topic, we thought this conversation was a beautiful reminder of the special bond we share and how thinking about death may even help us appreciate life. We hope that this interview can help anyone who is currently experiencing grief or who knows someone who is grieving or even pre-grieving the loss of a beloved furry friend.
Tell us a bit about why you think the bond so many of us are lucky enough to form with our beloved dogs is so special.
Jessica hikes with dogs Tilly, Buford, and Sam.
There are so many reasons! I think the main ones are that our dogs provide us with the kind of pure, consistent, magical, unconditional love that no other human can provide us. Dogs function as our secure base (a term used in attachment theory), are the witnesses of our lives, and anchor us emotionally. We feel stabilized, tethered, and grounded with our dogs. It’s one of the only relationships where we are really “allowed” to be fully enmeshed because they are completely dependent on us, and that feels so gratifying! Dogs also allow our most private and intimate self to exist, without any judgment or question. We share so much consistent physical and emotional proximity with them because they are with us in our homes and accompany us through life, outside of our homes. They often sleep in our bed with us (mine do at least!) and are often right next to us. The book The Purest Bond does a great job of describing this special bond.
I’ll be honest. I’ve been pre-grieving Otis since he was 2 years old. I regularly hold him and sob thinking about the day that he is no longer here. I’ve had so many people talk about pre-grieving as something that robs us of the current moment, but I seem to find that remembering that we don’t get to love these creatures forever helps me appreciate my time with them even more. (Is this bad?! LOL.) How do you tend to talk about pre-grieving? Can thinking about death help us appreciate life?
It’s not bad at all and it’s completely normal! I did the same thing with my beloved Buford long before he was ever sick. I remember once bursting into tears on 395 out of the blue thinking about saying goodbye to him. There is a Latin phrase that the Stoics used; “Memento Mori” which means “remember you will die” as a reason to not take your life for granted. So humans have experienced these feelings for a very very long time. The work is to allow for the awareness of death without becoming consumed by it. A way to do this is to name the feelings, feel the feelings, and come back to the present moment.
What’s something that you have learned from your patients who are grieving the loss of a dog?
I continue to learn more and more about our ability to love fully, receive love fully, and how brave and resilient humans are. I’ve worked with hundreds of people and I am so humbled and honored to hear the most incredible and unique love stories.
What’s something that you have learned from your dogs?
Where do I start? I have learned so much about patience, staying present, gentleness and tenderness with myself, and self-compassion. My dogs have helped me clarify my values, taught me to trust my instincts, and not compare my path in life to someone else’s. They’ve taught me how to slow down, lighten up, be brave, how to give and and receive love, deal with uncertainty, and not give up. They’ve taught me about death and dying. I’ve also learned from my dogs that my most favorite people are dog people 🙂
What are some ways that people can support someone who has lost a beloved companion?
The most important thing you can do for someone is to validate their loss as a very real and significant loss. For most people I know, pets are our family, our children, our best friends, our partners, our worlds. Allow people to feel their feelings. Grief is not a problem to be solved. We are to be steady witnesses to their sorrow and pain. I talk more about this in a Washington Post article where I was interviewed on this topic. Though it comes from a very well meaning place, don’t task grievers with any overly broad decision making that involves any cognitive or emotional work with questions like “what can I do to help?” Take action yourself to do something specific, like dropping off food or asking if you can do any of their errands. Check in, but without the expectation of a response. I love sending a heartfelt text or audio message, with the closing “no need to respond.” It’s also important to be there for them after the dust settles, and much of the initial outpouring of support has faded. Continue to say the name of their companion, and talk about their companion. I tell my clients to stay tethered to the other “holders” of their companion, the other people who had a relationship with their dog or knew their dog. Find your holders so they can hold you and keep you anchored.
I know death is a part of life, but it’s not something people tend to think about as much. And the more I think about it, the more I see how rare it is to experience a full life – birth (or close to it) to death – with another being. For many of us (but not all), that’s what the journey with our dogs will be. A part of me has always felt like my dogs are going to teach me about aging and letting go whether I want them to or not (for the record, I very much want them to cut the shit and stay alive forever). Do you have any words of wisdom about going on this journey with dogs?
This is such a great point! I see this journey as a privilege and a gift. We walk alongside our dogs, as they are our teachers about life, and how to live and die. The more we can accept that many different feelings can all be true, the less rigid we can become about our expectations of their death. I also like to journal as a way to document my life with my dogs, and as a way to slow down the pace on how quickly life is passing by. Writing helps to slow it all down just a little bit, and take a minute or a page to reflect, to capture this moment, while I have my dogs with me. Confronting the end of your dog’s life is an emotional experience, not an intellectual experience. The more comfortable we are with our own feelings, the better able we are to ask for what we need when that time comes. Saying goodbye to my beloved Buford was both the most painful and most sacred and beautiful experience I’ve ever had.
What led you to open a practice dedicated to helping pet parents grieve the loss of their beloved companions?
I first started my practice in 2019 as a small side project when my husband said goodbye to his soul dog, Tilly, and saw how much he suffered because of her loss, without any available specialized support. As a licensed therapist, I knew how important this loss was to him and the significance of this loss. I realized that this was such an underserved, specific area of loss that I cared deeply about. By the time I said goodbye to my Buford in 2020, I knew this was my calling, to support those who have lost their beloved companion animal, and made this my career. As I say, if it’s life changing love, then it’s life changing loss. And I will continue the important work of validating and normalizing pet loss in all spaces, especially in mental health spaces.
I was lucky enough to know your sweet soul dog, Buford, and witness your bond firsthand. If you’re comfortable, can you tell us something you loved about Buford and how you've been doing since he died?
Thank you so much for asking! I loved that Buford was not a dog. He was like an angel being, in the body of a dog. He was so incredibly gentle, tender, devoted, silly, and loving. He was an old soul, even when I first adopted him when he was around 2 years old. He was so so so loving. He just wasn’t a dog, I don’t know how to describe it. But what I loved the most, was his HUGE smile. I’ve never seen a dog really smile like he did.
Who can come to see you for support (does their dog have to have already passed away?)?
Anyone who has a special bond with animals or their own animals can come see me, whether they are preparing to say goodbye or have already said goodbye. I have also provided mental health support for veterinarians, zookeepers, animal welfare professionals, and animal rescue workers.
