There are moments in parenting that no one prepares you for. The small victories, like first steps and lost teeth – those we document meticulously. But the harder moments? The ones that break your heart while you try to hold your child’s heart together? Those catch us off guard every single time.
One of those moments for me was when our family cat, Thunder, passed away. He wasn’t just a pet; he was my daughter “son” for four years. He was the first pet she ever asked for, and the first pet she was responsible for taking care of on her own. Somehow, I had foolishly never prepared myself – or her – for the day he wouldn’t be there anymore.
The morning he passed away, my first thought wasn’t about my own grief. It was about how I would tell my daughter that her furry best friend wouldn’t be greeting her after school anymore.
I remember standing in the parking lot when the vet called to let us know the bad news, realizing that this conversation would be a tough experience for her learning to navigate how to deal with loss. How do you prepare a child for that? How do you explain that sometimes love means saying goodbye?
The days that followed were a crash course in childhood grief – something I never expected to become an expert in. My daughter’s reactions surprised me. Some days she seemed fine, playing with friends and laughing like nothing had changed. Other days, I would look over and see tears silently rolling down her cheeks. “I’m thinking about ‘You Know’ again,” she would say.
What broke my heart the most were her questions:
- “Do you think he knew how much I loved him?”
- “Is it okay that I played with friends today? I don’t want him to think I forgot him.”
- “Sometimes I think I hear him purring. Am I going crazy, Mom?”
- “Will it always hurt this much?”
I scoured the internet for resources, bought recommended book about pet loss for children, but nothing seemed quite right. The books didn’t give her an outlet to express herself on her own time. They talked about grief but didn’t give children a way to work through it. They explained feelings but didn’t validate them. Most importantly, they didn’t capture what I was seeing in my daughter– the roller coaster of emotions, the guilt about feeling happy, the need to remember and honor her pet while also learning to move forward.
That’s when I created what would eventually become When My Pet Went Away: An Interactive Journal Through Pet Loss.
The book includes activities like the “Feelings Paper Chain.” Every day, your child can choose a colored strip of paper that matches his/her emotions: red for anger, blue for sadness, yellow for happy memories, purple for confusion. At first, there will be lots of blue links. But as the chain grows longer, other colors will start appearing more frequently. It provides your child with a visual representation of how grief changes over time, how it’s okay to feel different things on different days.
The “Calm-Down Corner Exercise” encourages your child to create a special corner in their room or another safe space. It may include things soft pillows and their favorite photos of their pet. It can become a her safe space to feel whatever your child needs to feel while they’re going through the emotions.
You will be amazed at how much children understand about love and loss when you give them the right tools to express themselves. Children don’t need us to fix their grief – they need us to validate it, to create safe spaces for it, and to help them carry it.
I’m very much not an expert on childhood trauma or grief, but I am a mom who watched her child’s heart break and learned, through trial and error, how to help her put it back together again.
When My Pet Went Away isn’t just a book – it’s a companion for children as they navigate their first experiences with loss. It includes:
- Interactive activities that help children express and understand their feelings
- Space for drawing, writing, and creating memories
- Simple explanations of complex emotions
- Practical coping exercises
- Validation of all feelings – even the confusing ones
- Permission to heal at their own pace
- Ways to remember and honor their pet
The book is designed to grow with your child’s grief. Some pages might resonate immediately, while others might become meaningful weeks or months later. That’s okay – grief isn’t linear, especially for children.
I’m sharing this book for free because I remember those first raw days of watching my daughter struggle, of feeling helpless as a parent, of wishing I had some kind of roadmap to help guide us both through this unfamiliar territory. If this book can help even one child feel less alone in their grief, or give one parent the tools to support their grieving child, then it’s worth every moment spent creating it.
Over time, it is my hope your child will learn to talk about your pet with more smiles than tears. That your child will learn that keeping your pet in their heart doesn’t mean they have to be sad all the time. That grief is really just love with nowhere to go, so we have to create new places for it to live.
As your child goes through the journal, I hope they learn it’s okay to say “I’m sad that my pet is gone, but I’m happy that he was mine for a while.” And isn’t that the most beautiful way to think about loss?
To every parent whose child is experiencing the loss of a pet, please know that you’re not alone. Your child’s grief is valid, their questions are important, and their healing journey is unique to them. I hope this book can be a small light in what might feel like a dark time.
You can download When My Pet Went Away for free here. Please share it with any families who might need it. Because sometimes, the most important thing we can do as parents is help our children understand that it’s okay to feel deeply, grieve honestly, and love completely – even when it hurts.
A Note About Sharing
This book is completely free and always will be. Feel free to share it with anyone who might need it. All I ask is that you share it in its complete form and don’t sell or modify it. Every grieving child deserves access to tools that can help them heal.
About the Author:
I’m Tina, a mom of one who learned about helping children through grief the hard way. I’m not a psychologist or grief counselor – just a parent who wanted to help her daughter (and other children) navigate the complex emotions of losing a beloved pet.
Remember: There’s no timeline for grief, no “right way” to feel, and no shame in needing help along the way. We’re all just doing our best to help our children grow through their experiences – even the painful ones.