Memorial Day celebrates the loved ones we’ve lost, and I hope it’s not too much of a stretch to include our furry family members. Most pets won’t outlive their owners, making the short time we share with them even more precious.

Memorial Day for Pets

Fortunate cats enjoy long, healthy lifespans into their midteens and sometimes more. Accidents may tear them away from us while they’re young. Some drift off in the gentle sleep of old age and never awake.

Others linger, in questioning pain, begging for relief with silent eyes.

Making Loving Choices

Cats show us love in many ways. Is it selfish to want to prolong his life, and the love you share? When is the right time to say goodbye? Cost of care, concerns over his comfort, and guilt about making these choices can make last weeks or months together even more difficult.

There is no wrong answer.

Take a moment to look at your pet, stroke her soft fur, and smile through any sadness because you know she trusts you to make these decisions for her. She isn’t worried. Your cat won’t “blame” you, no matter what choice you make. And it doesn’t matter what other folks think.

Give yourself permission to say yes, this is hard. It hurts. It’s supposed to be hard. It wouldn’t be so difficult if you didn’t care so much. Any choice you make that’s based on love and concern for your pet’s welfare cannot be wrong. Listen to your heart, and she’ll tell you when she’s ready to say goodbye. This wonderful gift may be the ultimate way how owners show love to their special animal companions.

Helping Children Deal with Pet Loss

The death of a beloved cat or dog can be the first experience children have with losing someone they love. It’s important to honor and respect the relationship children have with their pet, and acknowledge the spiritual side of that bond between a person and an animal. Wallace Sife, PhD, a psychologist and president of the Association for Pet Loss and Bereavement, advises parents to explain that all things must die, that even though cats and dogs live shorter lives, we become better people because of the wonderful love that we’ve shared.

Grieving is a normal, human process, and major loss of any kind will produce bereavement. It is also a normal behavior for our cats and dogs, and how pets grieve varies between individuals.

But Dr. Sife says that pet bereavement has unique qualities because many owners look on their pets as dependent children. Dogs and cats represent milestones in our life. Perhaps the pet was a childhood playmate, accompanied you to college, was there for your wedding, or your divorce, maybe helped you through a serious illness or the loss of a spouse.

Stages of Grief

There is no right way to experience grief. Each person’s experience will be different, and the process can be short or long. The stages of grief are not necessarily sequential—you may feel depression, then denial and anger or these emotions in any other order, and guilt often stalks you afterwards. Have faith that you made the best possible decision at that time.

Delayed grief may also knock on your door. In these cases, you feel odd, empty, or even guilty for lack of distress. Emotional meltdown comes days, weeks, even months later, perhaps prompted by finding a long-hidden pet toy under the bed. All of these aspects of grief are normal. 

Memorializing Your Cat

Memorializing your pet can help you get through the grieving process. Perhaps you can create a memorial gravesite beneath a favorite tree the pet loved. The pet’s ashes can be kept in container of your choice in your home, garden, or even scattered in a memorial ceremony. Some veterinarians will make a paw impression for you, or you may wish to keep a lock of fur, a favorite toy mouse, or the dog’s collar.

Memorials can be expensive purchases, such as a grave marker, or something as simple as creating a scrapbook full of memories. Write a letter or poem to your cat. Donate money in your dog’s honor to a worthy animal organization. Commission a portrait from an animal artist. Creative remembrances individual to your cat or dog will mean the most.

A formalized type of memorial can be particularly helpful to children. “We have to show children that bereavement is a loving process of remembrance,” says Dr. Sife.

New Cats, A Loving Tribute

After the death of a special pet, some people want another cat or dog right away while others may never be ready for another pet. Each person has a different timeframe. Please remember that any future pets will NOT replace your lost beloved, but instead will be a legacy to her memory. After all, other cats and dogs need you, and such unselfish love should not be wasted--a new fur-kid can be the best memorial of all. My Seren(dipity) cat and Magic-pup remind me of this every day.

Death is a natural process. It will come despite our best efforts to delay the inevitable. But it does not have to be scary, or painful, or bad. “We are the best memorials that we can create for our pets,” says Dr. Sife. “If we can make our lives better because of them, that is a wonderful tribute.”