«Bub’s among the stars now...»

«It hurts like so, to let somebody go» – so go the lyrics of a song by Coldplay and Selena Gomez that’s currently on the radio. Yes, having to let someone go hurts. Even more so when that someone dies. And, as my family and I recently experienced first-hand, this holds true whether it’s a beloved person or a beloved pet.

Last summer, we had to say goodbye to Clyde. He was hit by a car and left for dead on the side of the road. Why him – our tabby cat who wasn’t even seven years old yet? He was a cuddler par excellence, opting to find someone’s lap to lie on around the clock. But the most difficult part was the fact that he was our daughter’s little Bub. She didn’t know a world without him. The two were inseparable from the moment Clyde lay down next to her before she wasn’t even a week old.

One day he was there, and the next he just wasn’t. Something like that is difficult for a two-and-a-half-year-old toddler to grasp; it’s already hard for us adults. In any case, we explained to our daughter that her Bub is now up in the sky among the stars – and that he can’t come back from there, but will remain in her heart forever. She does actually appear to understand that most of the time. Every now and again, she’ll ask about her Bub and say that she misses him. These are the moments that break our hearts as parents, when we have to explain to her again with tears in our eyes that Clyde isn’t coming back. Sometimes, she’ll cry ... and our hearts break into more pieces still.

A breakdown in the crematorium

Just to be clear, my heart broke the moment the municipality called us and told us that their employees had found our Clyde dead at the side of the road and had collected him. This was followed by a question: «Would you like to pick him up? We can also dispose of him at the carcass collection site.» DISPOSE OF HIM. Of our beloved Bub, who was a part of our lives for almost seven years and gave us so much during that time! Are you kidding me? To cut a long story short, Bub’s ashes rest in our garden under a small tree. We buried him and held a small ceremony to say goodbye.

The goodbye was a tearful one. It did us good. I had already experienced my biggest emotional meltdown by then. It happened in the pet crematorium. After the formalities were completed, I was asked if I wanted to take a few minutes to say goodbye to Clyde. This caring gesture, coupled with the angry grief in my chest that I had previously fought to keep my composure, finally burst to the surface. I sat on the floor next to our cat bawling my eyes out for minutes on end. It was liberating. It was the show of empathy from the crematorium employee that made all the difference. She was able to empathise with the fact that this wasn’t «just an animal being disposed of», but a member of the family leaving. I was – and still am – so grateful to her for that.

Not everyone responds so empathetically. It would also be presumptuous to expect that. Still, lines like «c’mon, get a grip, it was only an animal» are hard to swallow. I don’t expect anyone to be able to personally relate to the love I feel for my pet, but I do wish for some acceptance of my feelings at such a time. Otherwise, saying nothing is better than saying something cold.

Grief has many faces

Our experience of the death of a beloved pet, grief and how to deal with it is a purely personal story. It’s neither a guide nor can it be generalised in any way. There’s no such thing as one single kind of grief, and grief is never right or wrong. Everyone deals with it differently, and that’s a good thing. What’s important is that you deal with it. Grief can’t be pushed aside and ignored in the long run. Like all feelings, it has to come out. Better sooner than later. Are you finding that difficult? Seek help, whether it’s on a personal or professional level.

For me, the most important thing has always proved to be accepting the death. That may sound banal, but I’ve found it to be the biggest and most decisive step in looking forward again, without fail. I think death and the circumstances leading up to it is something I’ll never really understand. And I don’t feel I have to.

But what I do know is that Bub will be forever in our hearts, even if he’s flying high now.