[Mental Health Care] To you after pet loss—you don't need to feel "guilty" as your sorrow fades

After losing my beloved cat, I started receiving many DMs from people struggling with pet loss or seeking advice on their cat's illness. 

Among them, one message particularly struck me: "It hasn't even been a month since my cat passed away, but my grief has subsided. This feels wrong, like I'm a bad owner." Because I had experienced similar feelings, my fingers moved to type on my phone before I could even think, "You're not bad, it's natural."

This time, I've written about "how to view grief" for those living with pet loss while holding such feelings. It's not a bad thing if your sorrow fades.

"Fading grief doesn't mean fading love."

It's natural to cry when you lose someone you love. So, we tend to equate "grieving" with "love." But I believe that love remains firmly in your heart even when you stop crying.

Indeed, even if your grief fades, your love for your departed cat should remain unchanged. It's just that the way you express that love has shifted from "crying" or "grieving" to other actions.

Psychologically, it is said that humans go through four stages to recover from loss. Briefly, it involves a process of "feeling numb and unable to accept death → beginning to accept the loss, but being overwhelmed by grief → despairing and becoming depressed due to inability to accept the loss → accepting the loss and reconstructing a new self."

For more details, researching "the four stages of grief" or "grief work" will be helpful.

The time spent in each period varies from person to person, and there are times when emotions fluctuate like a seesaw, but as humans, it's very natural for grief to fade over time. It doesn't mean you are "heartless" at all.

As grief fades, you might feel like blaming yourself, thinking, "Was my beloved pet really that important to me?" But even in that self-deprecation, there is love. If you didn't love your departed pet, such a thought wouldn't even cross your mind.

And your departed cat would never blame you for being able to smile again. After all, your beloved cat, who purred and showed you pure innocence, would never want you to cry forever.

Your precious cat surely felt "happy when my beloved human servant smiles" both in life and after death. So, while there's no need to force a smile, you don't have to blame yourself, thinking, "I'm a bad owner if I can't cry."

The intensity of any emotion will eventually fade.

Still, when you dislike yourself for feeling your sadness fade, remember this: humans are beings incapable of sustaining any emotion at a high intensity indefinitely.

For example, even when something wonderful happens, we can't maintain that feeling of happiness at the same intensity for months. From the day we feel "happy," that happiness gradually fades. Emotions have that kind of mystery.

Grief is the same. No matter how deeply you despair, it's impossible to carry that sorrow at the same intensity forever. It might be a mental defense mechanism, but I feel like the human heart is equipped with a system where various emotions gradually fade without us realizing it, and then new emotions are absorbed.

From this perspective, doesn't the guilt of not being able to carry the grief of losing a loved one indefinitely ease a little?

Thinking "Well, that's just how it is as a human being..." might seem like giving up, but I hope you protect your heart by adopting such a perspective.

Only after shedding many tears can you consider "a new way to love your cat."

It's not a bad thing for grief to fade. It can also be an opportunity to think about "a new way to love your deceased cat" other than crying.

In fact, immediately after losing my cat, I could only show my love by "crying." Holding her urn and staring at photos from her life, shedding tears as I thought of her, was how I conveyed, "I loved you so much," and "I wish we could have spent more time together."

But as the days of crying gradually lessened, my feelings shifted towards finding "a way to continue living with my beloved cat who is no longer here." While living with a deceased cat is physically impossible, it is psychologically possible.

With that thought, I immediately ordered an urn ring after my cat's death and started wearing it, spending every day with her.

At first, tears would well up when I saw the ring. There were times I cried because of the coldness of the ring, so unlike my cat's warmth. But as I somehow spent each day, my sadness gradually faded, and the desire to "show my cat many more sights" grew stronger.

Through the ring, I show her night views and landscapes we could never have seen together when she was alive. Now, when I attend basketball games, my hobby, I feel like she's with me, and I can say, "I am living with my beloved cat."

In this way, after grief fades, you might encounter "a way to love your cat that wasn't possible during their life." So, please consider it a sign that "your heart has entered a new stage" and find "a way of living with your departed cat" that feels right for you.

Owners who told their cats "always together" often struggle with how to live after their passing. But if the owner never forgets, cats and humans can continue to live together even beyond death. I hope that what I felt after pet loss can be even a small part of alleviating your emotional pain.

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