Good grief.
If you’re as old as I am, you know “good grief” was a common epithet for the cartoon boy named Charlie Brown. Especially when Lucy pulled one of her tricks.
I mean, honestly, Lucy was an awful bully.
Today, good grief might take on many meanings, and EB Bartels digs into the idea of “good grief” in her new book, Good Grief: On Loving Pets, Here and Hereafter.
EB is a nonfiction writer, a former Newtonville Books bookseller and a GrubStreet instructor with an Master in Fine Arts from Columbia University. Her essays and interviews have appeared in Slate, Salon, Literary Hub and many other publications.
In Good Grief, she explores the world of loving and losing animals, the singular nature of the human-companion animal bond and how best to grieve for them once they’ve left our physical world.
Darlene Woodward, of Pant the Town Photography in Georgetown, Massachusetts, interviews EB about Good Grief.
What to listen for
5:48 EB’s own story of love and loss
10:04 Her journey into the sociology of pet loss
17:57 Why the weight of pet loss grief is so heavy
22:06 Why EB included in her book the perspective of veterinarians
29:28 How to keep an open mind with pet memorials
Where to find EB
EB Bartels
Good Grief: On Loving Pets, Here and Hereafter on Amazon
Instagram
Other resources mentioned in this episode
Don’t forget
Angela Schneider
Welcome to One Last Network and The Art of Good Grief.
Good grief.
If you’re as old as I am, you know “good grief” was a common epithet for the cartoon boy named Charlie Brown. Especially when Lucy pulled one of her tricks.
I mean, honestly, Lucy was an awful bully.
Today, good grief might take on many meanings, and EB Bartels digs into the idea of “good grief” in her new book, Good Grief: On Loving Pets, Here and Hereafter.
EB is a nonfiction writer, a former Newtonville Books bookseller and a GrubStreet instructor with an Master in Fine Arts from Columbia University. Her essays and interviews have appeared in Slate, Salon, Literary Hub and many other publications.
In Good Grief, she explores the world of loving and losing animals, the singular nature of the human-companion animal bond and how best to grieve for them once they’ve left our physical world.
Darlene Woodward, of Pant the Town Photography in Georgetown, Massachusetts, interviews EB about Good Grief.
Have a listen.
Darlene Woodward
Hello, I am so excited today that I’m here with EB Bartels. We are going to dive into her book that was published last year called Good Grief: On Loving Pets Here and Hereafter. So EB, thank you so much for being with us today. And welcome.
EB Bartels
Thank you so much for having me. I’m happy to be here.
Darlene
Awesome. How’s your day going?
EB
It’s going pretty well. My dog Seymour and I just went for a little walk around the neighborhood I was trying to tire him out before I get on the phone or on Zoom. And now he’s snoozing right by my feet.
Darlene
I love that. I love that because then we’re all animal people. So we do get it if there’s some announcements or dogs barking or dog scratching, but right before Zoom where we’re just trying to get it all organized.
EB
Yeah, apologies in advance if the UPS truck drives by because Seymour’s not a fan of UPS or FedEx or Amazon Prime.
Darlene
I love it. We can all relate to that. That is awesome. Awesome. So yeah, I’m excited. I just finished reading your book. I absolutely loved it. So let’s actually before we even dive into that, I know you said you had many pets at the moment and what do you, who is in your life right now for animals?
EB
Sure. Yeah. Let’s start with the living pets. So I like I said I have a dog. His name is Seymour. He is a mostly chihuahua-pit bull mix with some schnauzer and rat terrier and a few other types of terriers. So he’s like 30 pounds and he’s mostly like a pit bull, but has sort of that like, you know, angry chihuahua energy sometimes and his prey drive is nuts. He always goes after squirrels, rabbits. He has killed three rabbits this season. So he is, he is intense. But he’s a sweetheart.
Then we also have two tortoises, Terrence, and Twila. Terrence is about 10 years old. And Twyla is about five, both red-footed tortoises and I’ve had terrines actually almost 10 years. And I just, I’ve always loved reptiles. I had a tortoise when I was in middle school, which I write about in the book. And I wanted another one once I was an adult. So this woman was giving Terrence away on Craigslist, so I rescued him and then we got him Twyla, his wife, as we call her, just this past fall.
And then we have actually a small flock of fancy pigeons because my husband always has grown up loving pigeons. He has a soft spot for what he calls trash birds, so seagulls, pigeons, crows … birds that sort of get dismissed as like dirty or city birds. And the pigeons we rescued from different animal orgs around Massachusetts, and they’re all ones that were bred to be like show fancy pigeons. So like a king pigeon, it’s like white, very big. Or our pigeon Bert is a Valencian Figurita pigeon, which has this fancy little ruffle and so they live in a flock, in a coop outside, sort of like chickens would. And then my husband also has a fish tank with a dozen African cichlids. But that’s really his territory. I don’t touch.
Darlene
Like he does the fish and I’ll take care of that.
EB
Yeah, I do the tortoises. He does the fish. We split the pigeons with the dog. That’s kind of our divide. So
Darlene
You got a busy household. That’s a lot of fun.
EB
We do … lots of creatures.
Darlene
So let’s dive into your book, your first book, published just last year called Good Grief: On Loving Pets Here and Hereafter and just give us … well start with just a basic about the book.
EB
Yeah, so the book. I mean, its origin story is just … I’ve been someone who’s had a lot of pets all throughout my life. And as people with pets know, we’ve yet to figure out how to make pets live forever. So if you’re someone who’s had a lot of pets, that usually means you’re also someone who’s had a lot of pets die. And the book came about because when I was in my MFA program for grad school, I was working on a thesis about something else, it was like a family memoir. And when I needed a break from writing that material, I found I was drawn to writing these short personal essays about pets I’d had. And those inevitably ended with how those pets died and the things I did to memorialize them.
And I brought a few of those essays into my workshop, and my friends just really responded to them. And all of a sudden, they wanted to share their own pet loss stories and the different rituals they had, and traditions their families made, you know, to honor their pets. And one of my friends who’s very smart, she worked as a journalist for a long time, she said, you know, it’d be cool if maybe you sprinkled in some fun facts like about what people in other cultures do, or throughout history, you know, to mourn pets, because she pointed out that there’s not really one standardized thing to do when your pet dies.
You know, there’s not for people either, but usually, you have a little more guidance. So like, you know, if you’re raised Catholic, or if you’re raised Jewish or Muslim, like you have different death rituals, usually with those religions, or if you’re, you know, part of a certain culture grew up in a certain country, often, you know, you have death rituals for people in place that you can follow. But with pets, it’s really a free for all.
So I started to do some research on this. And I just fell into this, like, black hole, and very quickly was like, I could write a whole book about this. This is more than just a few fun facts in an essay. So I actually after I graduated from my MFA program, I shelved the thesis material and switched, instead of focusing on that the pets instead, and it’s been so inspiring and wonderful to learn about all the different things people do all around the world and also all throughout history, to remember and memorialize their pets. You know, I think, often when I would mention what I was writing about to people, people would be very quick to say like, oh, of course, like now people are having these big elaborate funerals for their pets, because like, more people are having pets, instead of having kids or people have more disposable income that can go towards having pets, which like, you know, during the Great Depression, they couldn’t.
And, you know, I’m always quick to point out, you know, actually, pretty much as long as people have had pets, people have had, you know, mourning and grieving rituals, to memorialize those pets. And like I, in my research, you know, read about these dogs, cemeteries that are thousands and thousands of years old, that are often part of like Indigenous communities above the Arctic Circle who relied on dogs, you know, for survival. So they had very close relationships with their dogs. You know, in ancient Egypt, people would mummify their pets and have those bodies in the tomb with them so they could be together in the afterlife. You know, their animal mummies in Peru, there have been dog cemeteries found in the Middle East, it’s really all over the world.
So yeah, I love learning about that. And honestly, I could have, I could have written this book probably like, 20 times with different facts in different countries. And, you know, it was so awesome to learn about all this stuff.
Darlene
Oh, I bet that’s amazing. So there’s gonna be a book two and a book three, right? You still have a lot to cover.
EB
I hope so. I know, I’m already joking with my editor. I’m like, can I do like a revised, you know, an anniversary edition with more facts. And I feel like the book has been published to people keep sending me things and like cool articles about more stuff that I’m like, I wish I had known about that when I was writing the book. But it’s just it’s, there’s so much out there. And it’s really amazing.
Darlene
Now how did you find people to talk to for the book because this … I mean, this took place over quite a few years, we reached out to people, and how did you find these people to talk to?
EB
That’s a great question, because I think I went about it a little bit differently than maybe some people do when they’re researching a work of nonfiction, or journalism. So it actually, it really, it took me 10 years almost from the I wrote the very first pet essays started thinking about researching some stuff in fall 2012. And then the book came out in summer 2022, so almost a full decade. And when I was looking for people to talk to, you know, when I was reading materials that were written by experts and researchers, often I would just try to contact them directly like I, when I was reading about the animal mummies in Egypt. There’s this incredible archaeologist named Dr. Salima Ikram, and she’s quoted in like every book about animal mummies, and so I like on a whim I was like, maybe she’ll respond to my email and she’s super nice and is a professor at a university in Cairo and wrote back to me and I like woke up in the middle of the night to have a Zoom call with her like at a time that was convenient for her and she was great.
So some people I reached out to that one I thought that was usually like, professionals or experts. But throughout the book, I also quote a lot of people who are just regular people who’ve had pets like different pet owners and their stories. And I felt when you’re talking about something like pet grief, you know, it’s a sad and hard topic. And then it’s also a disenfranchised type of grief, you know, one that people don’t talk about as openly or regularly as they do, maybe, I don’t know, the loss of a parent or grandparent is more sort of socially acceptable to talk about. So I really strongly didn’t want to approach anybody and make them feel like they had to talk to me or feel obligated or pressured. So I did a lot of sort of putting stuff out there and letting people reach out to me if they were interested. So I actually use social media a lot where I would post on Facebook or on Twitter. And I would say like, Hey, has anybody gotten a tattoo to memorialize a pet who’s passed away? If you have and you want to share, I’d love to talk to you. So then, there we go.
Darlene
Yeah, everyone wanted to show my tattoo.
EB
You know, so then people would respond and reach out and say, like, oh, yeah, like, I have six for all my cats or whatever it is, like, I’d love to talk to you. Or sometimes people would say, like, oh, you know, my sister just got one. Let me talk to her and see if she’d be interested. So I tried to let it, you know, people could come to me, because I feel like with such a difficult, you know, hard thing to talk about, I didn’t want to force anyone to have to share stories that they weren’t comfortable or wanting to revisit.
Darlene
And I feel like a lot of times people aren’t necessarily gonna offer talking about their pets, rather than if it’s open, they’re more than happy to, it’s almost that, oh, I don’t know if I’m going to be judged or that sort of thing. Because like you said, the whole disenfranchised grief and everything. And people aren’t necessarily wanting to share openly, but once they know it’s okay to share, it makes it a lot easier, and they’re more willing to open up.
EB
Oh, definitely. And I found, you know, as soon as I mentioned what I was writing about. And also, as soon as I made it clear that I was writing this book from the perspective of a fellow pet owner who has lost and loved and lost pets, not just like, a journalist who’s trying to like, poke fun at a subculture or something like that. People were so quick to open up to me, because they saw like, oh, she gets it, like, she’s been there. And it’s just like, floodgates, and honestly, sometimes a book event, it’s overwhelming, like, people want to share all these stories.
And so many people who I interviewed for the book, like a killed me, but they would say after we talked, you know, often they would cry, and I would apologize for making them cry. And they would say, actually, like, it felt really good to talk about this with someone. And so many people said, I’ve never spoken about this with anyone before. And that was just devastating to me to hear because it’s like you’re telling me about this 15-yearlong relationship you had with his being you shared your home with who you spent like every single night with, you know, and you never talked to anyone about this loss you felt because you were worried that people would make fun of you because it was a cat and not a person.
And, you know, I’m not equating you know, unnecessarily a person’s death and a pet’s death. But like people have all kinds of relationships with all kinds of beings. And you know, like, I’ve interviewed a lot of people who are older, who live alone, who are estranged from their, you know, birth families often, or their human families just live really far away. And so like, their dog was their main daily family member who they saw every single day. So my hope with publishing this book is that it sort of gives people an opening to share stories and to realize they’re not alone. There are tons of people there lots of communities who understand and get it and are willing to, you know, share and listen. And, you know, I hope people just don’t feel so alone with that, but I totally get, you know, not wanting to share because you’re afraid of the reaction.
And I always think of these two different stories I heard. One after the book came out, someone mentioned to me that she had asked her boss once to take the next day off to go home to be with her parents to help, to be with them when they euthanized her childhood cat and her boss was like, well, I guess it’s okay, but it’s actually really inappropriate you asked for time off to euthanize a cat. And like she was pissed, obviously.
Darlene
Yeah, I think it was come a long way but still we have a long way to go.
EB
Yeah. And like, you know, of course after that happened, she was like, I wish I had just like lied and said I was sick, you know, in the morning or whatever. But then, when I was you know, working on the book, a friend mine told me the story about like, she lives in the Boston area now, but she’s from, I think, North Dakota. And she was right out of college totally broke, living in Boston, had her first job and found out her parents needed to put down their cat, her childhood cat. She really wanted to fly home to be there for it, but just like could not afford it. And she happened to mention this like in passing to her boss, because like, I don’t know how it came up. And he just transferred all his airline miles to her so she could fly home to be there. Like didn’t even, she didn’t ask him to do that. And she told me she was like, I don’t even think he was like, particularly like a big pet person. He just really got that this was important to her and did that. And I just thought that was really cool. So it’s, it’s scary, because you just like, it’s “choose your own adventure,” you have no idea how people are gonna react.
Darlene
And you don’t want to be judged. And that is, that’s absolutely amazing that her boss did that. That is Oh, my goodness, wow, wow. I love how you included throughout the book stories of pets that you had growing up. And you even and this is the one story that got me because I was a dog walker for years myself, and you talked about how you were watching one of your best friend’s pets and that it passed away while you were … in your care. And that different type of grief as not being your own pet, because but now you had your best friend who you were so worried about that relationship after and you were so brave. I wanted to say when you had to tell your friend that because I don’t know if I could have done that. But yeah, share a little bit about that. That’s one story that had such an impact on me.
EB
Yeah, well, I think in general, one reason why pet death can be can hit people so hard is because of his weight of responsibility. You know, like, your pets never grow up and go off to college and move out. When you adopt a dog like, you know, when we adopted Seymour, we were saying like, we will take care of you until you die, which is a really intense thing, you know what I mean? And, you know, when you’re a kid too, I think — and rightfully so — parents really emphasize like, pets are a lot of work, it’s a big responsibility, you keep asking for a guinea pig, but are you going to be the one who changes the woodchips every week, and you know, make sure that there’s fresh food and water and all that stuff, or like you have to get up and take a puppy out in the middle of the night to pee. And so I mean, that all makes sense but I think therefore when a pet dies, you’re really hit with this. More so than like when a person dies, often you feel like sort of like, well, it was their time or they had their own agency, which obviously like their situations with maybe if you’ve been carrying someone who’s … if you’ve been caring for someone who’s very sick, or in hospice, or especially with like a child, you know, I’ve heard some really sad stories from parents losing children who feel that kind of responsibility and guilt.
But with a pet you know, I think it you can’t help but feel a little bit like it was my responsibility to keep this creature healthy and happy and alive. And even if it’s like the dog is 18 years old and clearly like at the end of their life, and that is what happens. It’s inevitable. I think you still get hit with this guilt. And then I think when you are taking care of someone else’s pet because your dog-sitting or in my case in the book hamster-sitting, you know, it’s even heightened because you’re like, well, it’s one thing if I mess up care of my own pet and I’m just really bummed because my pet died. But you know, to think that I’m taking this little creature that my friend loves so much and trying to make sure he’s okay while she’s at Disney World with her family.
And like this hamster as I write about in the book was like my friend Mary put it he was at his life expectancy when she dropped him off. Like he was super old already. So she like wasn’t even fazed. But it’s really stressful. And like, I think that’s something I try to get at in the book, too, is sort of like there’s this humorous element where it’s like we put ourselves in these high-stress worrisome situations, and often they end badly because you know, animals just don’t live as long as we want them.
Darlene
Right, the circle of life.
EB
Exactly. Yeah. So anyway, I just … people often tell me how guilty they feel like, oh, I should have noticed my cat was slowing down or I should have tried that other surgery and it’s like, everyone feels such guilt. And it’s just often there’s nothing you could do. It was … it’s just the circle of life.
A vet also pointed out to me — and this made me feel a lot better — that obviously animals have evolved to hide illness because in the wild, that makes them, you know, vulnerable to predators. And so, you know, it’s not your fault. Like cats especially are notorious for hiding illness until basically like it’s fatal. And my friend Karen Fine, who’s a vet and wrote a really great book called The Other Family Doctor, she calls it, “He Was Fine Last Tuesday” cat where it’s like, the cat seemed fine. And then you bring them in, and they’re like, at death’s door, but they just can hide it really well.
Darlene
They’re so good. They’re so good at animals just being their best for us. Which makes it so hard. Well, since you brought up veterinarians, and you did a lot, you did quite a few interviews with veterinarians. And one thing that I know you do mention is that nearly every veterinarian that you spoke with did mention a high suicide rate. That the majority even mentioned that I found very interesting.
EB
I mean, I was shocked to learn that. I think I had always, I don’t know, I remember learning in like high school, or something like dentists or something have the highest suicide rate of any profession. And I was really shocked when I when all these vets kept bringing it up when I interviewed them. And then there was this study that the CDC did actually that, you know, it’s a health hazard basically for the occupation.
And there are a few factors that contribute to it. One, it’s a super high stress profession, right, like with a really high burnout rate. And, you know, similar to doctors and nurses, you’re providing care for a being that people really love and care about. But unlike with human, you know, doctors, the pay is a lot lower, but going to vet school often is as expensive as going to medical school, so you still have incredible debt, you’re working long hours. Especially since COVID, veterinary clinics are just like, strapped with having like more pets than they can handle because so many people got pets during COVID, that they just like there’re waiting lists to get your dog into a vet office.
And then also, and this is very normal, you know, when a person loses a pet, and they’re upset, often they, you know, take their feelings out on someone else, and vets get caught in the crossfire all the time, you know, and they get accused of things like, you know, you said this surgery would get rid of my dog’s cancer, and it didn’t and the vet, you know, is trying to say, well, I said, there was a chance it could help, I didn’t promise that it was going to, you know, fix everything or, you know, no vet is promising they can make your pet live forever.
But people, you know, people are rightfully upset. And, you know, that is really draining and hard on veterinarians. And I think often, there’s just too much asked of them. Like one vet pointed out to me, she said, you know, human doctors are not expected to be both pediatricians and gerontologists. And like that, that line really stuck with me, because, you know, like a vet start seeing a puppy, and they’ll see that dog over the course of 10 years and the needs for that dog changes. And they also get attached to these pets, and they get sad when you know, their lives are at their end.
So anyway, I felt like it was super important to write about this in the book, because I just, you know, I understand when people get angry and take out there anger on medical professionals, like people do that with, you know, human doctors all the time as well. But, you know, I wanted to try to remind readers that, you know, our vets are our allies and taking care of our pets, you know, they also love our animals, and they have, you know, pets of their own, they have gone through pet grief, you know, themselves and it’s really important to, you know, honor them and respect them and, you know, say thank you like, especially when they’ve helped, you know, ease your pet into the next plane, you know, it’s, that’s it means a lot to vets when you tell them, you know, you appreciated what they did.
Darlene
Exactly. And thank you for talking about that in the book, because I think it needed to be addressed. And it’s good for people to read that and think, oh, yeah, you know what, they’re human. They’re doing the best they can, and they’re in the profession because they care about our pets. I want to talk about the title, Good Grief. So where did that come from as the title or did you go through other ideas?
EB
What’s funny is that I said, you know, the book took about 10 years to write and I would say for the first six years, seven years in my head, yeah, it was about seven years until I sold the book. I just was calling it Dead Pets. Like that was the name of the book, Dead Pets. And I had this image …
Darlene
We’re like getting right to the point.
EB
Yeah, Dead Pets. And like I had this image that it would be a black cover with a white hamster skeleton on it. And it was just very dark and very funny and dark. And when I finally did sell the book to … I originally sold it to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and then they were bought out by HarperCollins, during the pandemic, so HarperCollins eventually published it. My editor at HMH, she said, you know, love the idea for the book, I think a lot of people are going to read it, resonate with it, we cannot call it Dead Pets. And I said, Why not I and she was like, It’s too dark.
And I said, but like, my friends think it’s funny. And she was like, you have a lot of very dark friends I think. So we talked a lot about how like we wanted, you know, this book to be something for a lot of different people. So like, you could pick up this book, and you know, you maybe currently have living pets, but you’ve lost pets years ago and this is something you can relate to. Or maybe you just had a pet die last week, or you have an elderly pet and you’re starting to think about, you know, what you’re gonna want to do when that pet goes. And we wanted this to be a book that, you know, you could buy and give to your friend maybe who’s lost a pet as well.
And so for all those reasons, I understood that dead pets was maybe a little too like crass, or you know, tongue in cheek. So we did this big brainstorming session. And ultimately, I came up with Good Grief, which I loved for three reasons. One, it is a nod to a very famous human-canine friendship, Charlie Brown and Snoopy. And then I also loved like kind of the exasperated tone a little bit like “Good grief,” because like I said, you know, it’s like, no one’s forcing you to have pets and go through this sad, traumatic experience of pets dying. So it’s sort of like good grief, why we keep doing this to ourselves. And the last reason is, like, you know, the reason why I think we keep doing it over and over is because the grieving is worth it. It’s a good type of grieving and having pets is so good and wonderful that that grief is worthwhile. And there’s this A.D. Smith essay where she writes about, you know, it only hurts as much as it’s worth when you’re grieving. And I think often, you know, a pet dying hits so hard, because it’s so wonderful to have them in your life. So, to me, Good Grief, sort of capture that feeling as well.
Darlene
It is definitely for everyone listening. It is a joyful book. Because at first I wasn’t sure. I’m a tear, you know, crier with a lot of things. And it was heartfelt warmth. There was the joy. Yeah, there was the sadness, but it Yeah, it was. I love it. I love it. So great job with that. And I have to ask when doing the … all these interviews and meeting all these people and learning about all these different rituals on what people do with their dead pets, did anything make you feel uncomfortable with the rituals? Because I got a little a little bit uncomfortable in some that I’ve read, because I’ve never really thought about some of them.
EB
Yeah, so I mean, my feeling when I finished the book, which it still is now is there is no right or wrong way to grieve. It’s as long as you’re not hurting yourself, or hurting other people, do whatever you need to do, in my opinion. And don’t let anyone tell you it’s too weird. And so I tried really hard, though, when I went into interviews to keep an open mind, especially for tools I didn’t know a lot about or things that I was maybe like, oh, I’m never gonna want to do that. So like, honestly, like when I went into researching cloning, I was like, this is so expensive. Why would people do this? There’s so many dogs and shelters, can’t you go and just adopt another dog versus paying all this money to have your dog replicated, and it’s not even actually your dog. I, like, felt this, like, judgment happening. And I tried really hard to be like, okay, but you don’t really know or understand why people want to do this. And that’s what you’re trying to find out, you know, even if it’s not for you.
And I interviewed a woman who works at a cloning company, and then I also interviewed one of their company’s clients, this gentleman named John. And I have to say it was mind blowing to me because I came out of those interviews, almost like, wait, maybe I do want to clone my dog one day because suddenly it made a lot of sense. You know what they were saying and even if you know, it’s not necessarily for me and something I want to pursue, you know, the … Cody, the woman who works at Biogen, which is the company I profile, you know, she pointed out people often, you know, have an unusual mixed breed dog like Seymour, for example, and they want to replicate that. But maybe they got the dog neutered or spayed before they realized they wanted to breed the dog. So that’s one way to do that.
And when I interviewed John, and he talked about cloning his dog Princess, he said, you know, he loved the idea of her DNA living on like, he fully knows that her … he has two clones of Princess, you know, he knows they are not that same dog. Like they have a lot of similar quirks and mannerisms. And honestly, like, he texts me photos. And sometimes I have trouble telling like, which is the original dog and which ones are the clones. But he like, he knows they’re different dogs, and he just loves the idea that her DNA is still like, alive in some form. And you know, he made this point, he’s like, a lot of my buddies spend 50 grand on fancy sports cars and stuff, you know, when they’re retired. And he’s like, I wanted to spend $50,000 on cloning my dog and drive a crappy old car.
And it’s like, you know, if that makes you feel better, and that’s what, you know, you have the money to do that. And like, you know, he acknowledged that not everyone can afford to do that, even if people want to, you know, I don’t know, I say go for it. So yeah, but it was really interesting. And, you know, it was, it was cool to hear all the different ways that people approach it.
And I have to say, like, I went into both like the taxidermy interviews and the cloning interview, sort of assuming that people who do that are like, I don’t know, people who have trouble letting go of the fact that their pet is dead, and they’re trying to reanimate their pet, either through cloning or through preserving and taxidermy. And I honestly feel like those, the people I spoke to who have pursued those rituals, often are more in touch with death, in some ways, like the woman I spoke to who had her Boston Terrier preserved in taxidermy, like she used to look at him every day. And she’s like, Oh, I know, that’s not Ace anymore. Like his personality, and, you know, is often the world but, you know, she sees it as a sculpture, like a 3D photograph and thinks he, you know, it’s, it’s cool to have him there in this different form. And I just thought it was really interesting. So yeah, there’s no denying that your pet is dead if you have him taxidermied. So I was really impressed by that, that outlook.
Darlene
I can’t imagine walking into someone’s home that I know and knew their dog or cat. And there it is. And it’s something I never thought of doing myself, you know what I mean? Going through those rituals of okay, what am I going to do when my dog dies? Taxidermy does not cross my mind. Neither does cloning. But I learned so much. And again, I try to stay, I have an open mind with everything. And yeah, whatever works for your grief is the right thing for you.
EB
Totally. And I have to say, like with taxidermy, like, you know, I have these tortoises, and they have these beautiful shells. And I was like, I could see preserving just Terrence’s shell though. Like, he’s probably gonna outlive me. So, you know, joke’s on me that I’ll never get to do that. But, you know, it was really cool to see these different things that people have done. And I think, you know, people get to be a lot more creative and do a lot more unusual things when their pets die.
Because, I mean, often, like unfortunately, in some ways, like pets are still considered property, right? Like they belong to us, legally, like you can’t leave money to your dog, you can set up a trust that funds money for your dog’s care, but like, you can’t actually give your dog money. And so similarly, though, like when your pet dies, like, you own their body, and kind of taxidermy or clone or do things with it, that you can’t like, with your grandmother, you know.
So I think it’s interesting to see the unusual things that people do. And my goal for this book was I wanted it to read in some ways, like an encyclopedia of options. So you know, you can, you know, you can say like, okay, my dog is dying, I’m trying to think about what I want to do, I just assumed I would cremate because that’s what the vet suggested. But actually, there’s so many things you can do if that’s not right for you. So I wanted this to be like, read it, think about all the options and you have figured out what fits for you and your family.
Darlene
It’s so true. Because like I said, a lot of these things, many of these things are not things I had thought of to do. And I was like, oh, what a great book and that leads me to that who is the book for but you kind of mentioned it in the beginning could be anyone in that anticipatory grief phase somebody who you know is about to say goodbye, that whole thing. So that would be your reader. Probably.
EB
Yeah, so definitely like anybody who has recently lost a pet or pet is at towards the end of their life. But honestly, my friend from high school, Greg, he has, he is like next to my mom has probably bought the most copies of my book, and he just keeps giving them to his friends whenever they get a new pet.
Darlene
He’s thinking about it today.
EB
Like, I know your puppy is six months old, but it’s never too soon to be prepared and just have this in the back of your mind and like, enjoy the time you have with your pet. But like, and, you know, he makes a good point, because in some ways, like, it’s so hard, like, I remember when we euthanized my dog, Gus, and it’s me and my parents, and we’re standing there and we’re crying at the vet’s office, and our vet was like, okay, so like, Well, what do you want to do now? Do you want to cremate him? Like, do you wanna take his body home? And we’d never talked about it before that moment, we were just kind of standing there. And we were like, ah, I guess cremate? I don’t know. And then like, you know, his body’s kind of rushed off. And that’s that, and we were like, oh, like, maybe we should have had a conversation or at least like thought about it before it actually happened.
And it’s really hard than to when you’re actively like, grieving to then have to make choices about like, okay, I want to bury my dog in a pet cemetery. What’s the closest pet cemetery? How do I get a plot? Are they even accepting burials? You know, and it’s much better in my opinion, like, if your dog is like five or six, and you know, eventually, like, that’s what you want to do, like, go get a plot in a pet cemetery and have it ready. Like, I mean, people do that, right? Like, my grandparents bought cemetery plots, like 20 years ago, and they’ve just, you know, like, so I think it makes a lot of sense. Like, I think maybe Greg, it’s, like, especially morbid to be like, here’s a new puppy. Here’s a book about pets dying.
Darlene
And they know him well. They’re like, okay, yeah, this would be a great gift.
EB
But like, I think it makes a lot of sense to definitely start to think about these things, and have these conversations, you know, while your pet is alive and healthy, and you’re not grieving, and I think what’s hard, too, with pets is often like with a family pet, the animal, you know, belongs to a lot of people. And often people when they’re grieving need different things. So you know, like, I interviewed couples where like, the wife wanted to be in the room with the dog when the euthanasia was happening, and the husband was like, I can’t do it, I have to be outside like, I can’t. And then, you know, then the husband wants to sit with the dog after the dog has passed. But then the wife is like, I need the body out of the house. I like I’m done, you know, and it’s, and you know, it’s hard because like, maybe you have one person in the family who wants to taxidermy and two people who want to cremate. And it’s like you’re trying to figure out what’s something that can work for everybody? And that’s, that’s hard. So I think, you know, the sooner you can have conversations like that, the better in my opinion.
Darlene
Well, thank you so much, EB, for chatting to you. Do you have anything else that you want to share, any last-minute words of wisdom or something that you learned that you feel is most important and impactful?
EB
I mean, I think the things that are most important I already mentioned, which is you know, when you’re grieving a pet, you may feel very isolated and alone and like you’re this weirdo who’s so upset about losing an animal, but you are not there are so many people who have gone through it or going through it. Like my friend, Katie’s dog just died this weekend. And we were texting, you know, like, there’s always somebody, you know, who you can talk to. And then you know, like I said, there’s no right or wrong way to grieve. And also no length of time too you know, grieving is not a linear thing. And that applies to all types of grief, not just pets, right.
So like, you know, I talked to people who said, you know, my cat died in the summer and the summer was really sad and hard, I started to feel better in the fall, and then all of a sudden, we’ve put up our Christmas tree, and I lost it because the cat would always climb up and hide and like the Christmas tree branches, and then it’s like, all of a sudden it hits you again that it’s like oh, he’s not here to do that this year. And that’s like it’s in that’s so normal, right? That happens with people too, right? You’re like, this is the first Christmas without my mom, this is the first you know, Mother’s Day without my mom like all these different things. And so, you know, just being kind to yourself giving yourself space. And the other thing too is I’m actually really a big proponent of posting on social media when you’ve lost a pet because I joke that like pet internet is like the last nice place on the internet. People are generally pretty supportive. I mean, there are sometimes like fights and pet groups I’ve been part of about like this different theories on training and …
Darlene
Oh yeah, that’s yeah. But when it comes to grief, it’s great.
EB
I think it’s so nice because you can post you know attribute on Instagram or Facebook or whatever. And people like you and I who got it can comment and we can engage and you know people who don’t have pets or just think you’re overreacting they can kind of just scroll by and let it go and like my friend Annie Hartnett, who — she’s a great novelist, you should read her books that a lot of pets in them — and her dog Harvey when he was dying, she was posting like every day on Facebook updates about his health and like when he eventually died, she said she got, like, 40 sympathy cards from people because people have been following on Facebook and knew she was going through this really hard time.
So you know, I think putting it out there allows people to help you when you’re upset. And I think it’s so hard too with pets because often, actually my friend Katie was just saying that she was like, you know, when you’re grieving a pet, it’s so hard because usually you turn to your pet for comfort when you’re upset. And then when your pet’s gone. It’s like, well, who do I go to? So I think just remembering you’re not alone. There are a lot of people out there.
And I guess the last thing too is I hope that if people are hesitant to read my book, they’ll know that I tried to put a lot of humor and levity and joy into it. And I hope it comes across really as a love letter to having pets and not just the hard, sad part that comes at the end because obviously, it’s worth it. Otherwise we wouldn’t all keep having pets over and over and over again.
Darlene
Over and over and going through that grief over and over again. Oh, awesome. I love that. Thank you so much, EB, and again, her book is Good Grief: Loving Pets Here and Hereafter. Definitely an amazing read and it did bring some peace to me and a lot of joy in it. I love your stories. I love … it’s very well written. And thank you for doing the book.
EB
Thank you so much. And also I forgot to say I have an Instagram account for the book. It’s goodgriefpetsbook on Instagram and people submit photos and memorials and obituaries for their pets and it’s a really nice way for people to share their losses. So if you want to be part of that little good grief Instagram community, you’re welcome to check it out.
Darlene
That’s awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much, EB. This was awesome. This was o much fun. Have a good day.
EB
You too.
Darlene
Thanks.
Angela
I got my grandmother stuffed after she died in 2005. She’s sitting over there in the corner.
Oh my gosh, you guys, I kid, I kid.
My Gram is one of the big reasons I am who I am today. And she would have laughed her Gaelic toin off at that idea.
There’s another side to good grief that EB may not have realized when she was hashing out the name of her book.
And that’s that we can have a good experience during grief.
Grief is mostly associated with loss and pain. The idea of “good grief” implies that there might be positive aspects or experiences associated with this intense and often distressing emotion. But grief, despite its inherent pain and overwhelming difficulty, can be a catalyst for growth, resilience and a deeper understanding of life and ourselves.
While we experience the sadness, the anger, the denial, the bargaining and the eventual acceptance grief is a deeply personal experience, and its impact can be profound, affecting not only our emotional state but also our physical and social well-being.
It can be transformative, forcing us to confront our emotions, face the reality of loss and re-evaluate how we live and we prioritize our day-to-day life.
We might reassess our values, our relationships, our life goals. And we might find new meaning and purpose as we learn more about ourselves, our friends and family, and the world around us.
If we let it, grief can be an incredible teacher … and for that reason alone, it’s why I’m sitting here talking to you today.
Grief is the price we pay for love, as EB pointed out in her interview with Darlene. The depth of our grief is often a testament to the depth of our love for and connection to our pets.
Our grief gives us the opportunity to honor our pets’ lives and cherish the memories we created together, something I hope eventually brings you joy if you belong to this club of Loved and Lost.
Feel no shame or embarrassment in creating shrines and legacies to your beloved companion animal.
Tell people how much you loved your dog, your cat, your horse.
If they don’t want to listen, find someone else to talk to. You know I’ll always listen, and I’m just at the other end of an email to angela@onelastnetwork.com or our Instagram account, @onelastnetwork.
Next week, we learn about the boundaries we may want to set when we’re in grief over the loss of our best fur friends. Relationship expert Sheryl Green joins me to chat about how to keep ourselves safe from even the people who may love us.
Until then …
