Permission to Grieve
If you’ve ever felt guilty for still crying, or wondered if you should be farther along by now, please know there’s nothing wrong with you. Grief doesn’t follow a schedule.
Not long ago, a friend reached out and said, “I feel like I should be doing better by now… but I’m still crying every day.”
I get that. I’ve been there too. When you lose a pet — a soul that shared your everyday world — people will offer all kinds of well-meaning advice.
“Take a walk.”
“Practice self-care.”
“Try gratitude journaling. It helps.”
And while there’s a benefit in each of those suggestions, there’s also a time when none of them fit. A time when what you actually need is permission to not be okay.
Sometimes, healing means just sitting in your grief — no fixes, no forced positivity, no timeline.
The Myth of Moving On
Growing up, most of us were taught that tears make us weak. We learned to hide them, to cheer up fast, to look for the silver lining before we even knew the storm had begun.
But crying over your pet does not make you fragile. It makes you human.
Grief is love with nowhere to go. It’s the most natural, honest human response to losing something precious.
And when we don’t give it space — when we keep pushing it down — it doesn’t vanish. It leaks out in other ways: anxiety, exhaustion, maybe even that numb feeling where you can’t connect to much of anything.
Sitting with the Sadness
If you’ve been avoiding the heartbreak, maybe it’s time to pause — just for a moment — and let it surface.
Grieving might mean lying in bed longer than usual. Letting the tears come. Talking to their photo. Whispering your pet’s name and remembering what it felt like when they were right there next to you.
It doesn’t have to be graceful. It doesn’t have to be “productive.”
Sometimes, your only job is to let your grief breathe.
Because here’s the truth: pausing the gratitude and sitting in the discomfort doesn’t erase your healing. It begins it.
Healing Isn’t About Forgetting
You don’t have to go hunting for the lesson or look for a bright side before you’re ready. That can wait.
For now, just feel what’s real. Cry. Remember. Shout if you must. Curl up in a quiet corner and let the ache move through you.
Giving in to grief isn’t giving up — it’s an act of love. It’s how you honor the incredible, life-changing bond you shared.
So if you’re in that place right now, please know this: it’s okay to grieve exactly as you need to. You have full permission.
The bond you shared with your pet mattered — and it still does.
It's been well over a year since our golden retriever Kya passed over to the other side.
We've said farewell to a dozen pets during our 34 years of marriage, six dogs and six cats. Each loss difficult in some way or other, but Kya has been much harder to cope with. Devastating.
Every day since brings at least one moment of grief whether it's simply a lump in the throat or a few sobs.
It upsets me when people, however well intended, will say "When do you think you'll get another one?", as if that would end my grief. Those people are usually not pet owners or, if they are, treat their own pets like livestock rather than adopted family members.
It's comforting to know there are many others who feel the loss of a beloved pet takes time to heal and that there is no set amount of time for that to occur.
Thanks for this article, I am glad I discovered your Substack.
I was led here by @Shalini Israni when she shared your article. I relate to this so well and love that you write this. Lost my furbaby 3 years ago, he was my first and only one (so far) and it was really difficult. Actually, somedays it's still difficult.
Before I started writing on Substack, I grieved... a lot... I tried to be strong and clean up my tears before my husband come home. Then one day, something tells me I should start sharing my life journey and I started writing at Substack, and that help so much.
I still miss my baby and cry from time to time, especially so when I write about him and sometimes while going through the photos to put it in the articles. But now I choose to see that he has also become my North Star, shining the path for me to walk on. Sounds cheesy, but somehow this is how he became part of me again...