Posted on: 6th January 2025

All griefs can be hard to share, however, I think some griefs are harder to share than others. Just before Christmas we lost our glorious little dog Coco, aged 14 ½. He slipped down the stairs and hurt his spine, we had to put him to sleep. The whole family was able to be with him. People had told me losing a pet is like losing a member of the family, and that is exactly what it is like. But we can’t tell everyone, some look at us bemused, ‘he was just a pet…’ That makes it a grief that is harder to share.

Research shows our relationships with animals can be just as important as relationships with other human beings. It also shows that in a fractured and
lonely society pets provide many of our needs for companionship and are very good for our physical and mental health. I think grief is like trauma it needs to be believed and not judged. It is not for us to decide what is traumatic or a loss for someone else.

Many people have told me after they lose a loved one that some people don’t mention it for fear of upsetting them or assume after a few months they are over it. It is more important to approach a grieving person and not avoid them. My sense is that like trauma, we aren’t healed of grief, we don’t go back to being the same person, we must remake ourselves.

Other griefs that people have mentioned to me are the loss of a place, somewhere they were happy, or had to move away from without wanting to. That loss can last the rest of our life. I was born in Kenya, and I still dream about it: the wide-open space, the animals, the contrast between the highlands and the coast; swimming in the Indian ocean, walking on white sand beaches looking at the crabs. Such places become imprinted on you, I can still feel the crackle of salt and sand on my skin.

When it comes to the animals who become part of our family, I am comforted by the words in Mark 1:13, where it says of Jesus, ‘He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.’ Some commentators believe this is a sign of the restoration of an Edenic relationship with animals. When I was sixteen and starting my ‘A’ levels one of them was an English Literature course. I wasn’t a Christian, but somebody gave me a King James Bible just to read it as literature. I remember being very moved by Isaiah 11:6, ‘The wolf will live with the lamb,’ and ‘a little child will lead them.’

So, when someone tells you they are grieving, just believe them. Don’t put a time limit on approaching them about their loss and listening to them. Will we
see our pets in heaven? I believe so. If not, I will be knocking on heaven’s door for them.

By Revd Dr Shaun Lambert