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For Life Kit, I spoke with my friend Alexander Hardy – a writer and co-founder of a creative wellness agency – about how to cope with pet loss. Hardy, who is also grieving his family dog, Papi, explores how to express, process, and share the grief of losing a beloved pet.
On celebrating your pet's life
What are the lessons that your pet taught you? I'm sure they taught you a lot of things about taking care of yourself, taking care of someone else, being responsible for something. There are probably a lot of lessons that come out of that.
So, yes, acknowledge the grief, work through it, but also know that the ending and the sickness and how you lost them — that's not the sum of your relationship. There are just so many good years with them. Don't discount and forget those too.
On sharing your grief with others
I applaud people for grieving out loud. You don't have to close yourself up in a house and be grieving by yourself. We're not supposed to go through it alone. You know, there are so many cultures that dance their way through grief and celebrate their way through grief. I think it's amazing to have big emotions. I just think that we should grieve – our pets, our former life, or whatever that thing is, as big and as long as you need to.
If you need to get a tattoo, do that. If you need to get a stuffed animal or get a golden cat bowl, or create a shrine, whatever you need to do, be as weird about it as you need to be. Do that.
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