I was 17 when I had to make the difficult decision to euthanize my horse, Tim. I remember feeling the weight that I was ending the life of my best friend.

What made it even harder was that I was completely alone in it.

My parents didn’t have the capacity to discuss or support me emotionally, and they said the decision was only mine to make. All of us were floundering in fear, helplessness, and overwhelm, without understanding the gravity of showing up. I didn't have words for all that was happening inside me then, and it's now how my adult self understands my 17-year-old self felt abandoned in one of the hardest moments of her life. 

I desperately wished someone had been able to hold space for me, so I could hold space for Tim.

Instead, I shut down. My body grieved what I couldn’t express. I stayed in bed for two weeks. I barely spoke. When I went to school, I felt numb and disconnected, like a ghost moving through the day. I had nosebleeds for four days straight. Looking back now, I understand my body was carrying grief that had nowhere to go.

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Avoiding the emotions of anticipatory grief that you don’t want to feel is often exactly what prevents you from feeling the ones you do want: love, joy, and connection with your animal.

When we’re walking alongside a beloved animal during illness, aging, or the end of life, it’s natural to want to protect ourselves from the hard emotions, as we often believe we are protecting our beloved animal from our pain. Grief, sadness, fear, and worry can feel overwhelming. Sometimes, without even realizing it, we try to push them down, avoid them, or distract ourselves from them. It’s a very human response. And our animals feel this struggle within us.

Here’s the tender truth: trying to selectively turn off emotional pain doesn’t work. When you numb or suppress difficult emotions, you’re not just turning off sadness, anger, or anxiety; you’re dampening your entire emotional range.

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Grief has a strange way of dividing us into two worlds. There’s the version of us that moves through the world, who gets up, shows up, smiles when expected, answers messages, and maybe even laughs. And then there’s the version of us behind closed doors, wrapped in the ache of impending loss or the absence, curled up in the quiet, and trying to breathe through the weight of either anticipatory grief or missing someone who is no longer here.

When we grieve the loss of a beloved pet, this duality can feel even more isolating. Our grief may not be seen in the same way. It’s often misunderstood and not talked about. And so we wear a mask.

The outside mask says, “I’m okay.”
The inside voice says, “I’m not.”

Some people believe that if we’re functioning, working, smiling, and holding a conversation, our grief must be gone. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

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We don't get over grief and heal in the way society tells us. Instead, it becomes a part of us, and we discover how to navigate and create a new way to be, as our loss has changed us.

The adage "time heals all wounds" is not quite true. Grief isn't something we "get over," nor do we “heal from” it; we learn to be with it and grow from and through it. We learn to carry it. We are different because of it. With time, it becomes an integrated part of us. We are forever changed.

Grief lives in the body, not just the heart, mind or your emotions. It's not something to think your way through. Grief must be felt, witnessed, and tenderly held in a way that allows your nervous system to find its way to move with and through it. Grief isn't meant to be carried alone, and yet many people hide or mask it to get by in the outside world, only to unmask when they're back in the safety of their own home. And in essence, many often feel like they live a dual life, one of grief and one of pretending “I am fine”. Grief is a complex, orchestrated array of emotions, each contributing its own note. And when we find others who understand and walk alongside us, it helps us walk this journey.

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If you've ever been on the edge of saying goodbye to your beloved animal and suddenly witnessed a surprising burst of energy, you're not alone.

One day they’re withdrawn, tired, not eating… and the next? They seem like their old self again, alert, joyful, even playful. It can feel like a miracle. It can feel like hope. And it can also be confusing, even heartbreaking, if you're already preparing for their transition.

As an Animal Communicator who has walked this road with many clients and with my own animals I want you to know:
This is something real. And you're not imagining it.

A Final Gift of Love

It takes an incredible amount of energy for the body to begin releasing the spirit. For many animals, this release doesn’t happen all at once. It unfolds gently, in small increments—like a tide slowly pulling back.

This rise and fall in energy, those “ups and downs,” are part of that sacred rhythm.

And sometimes, there is one final burst of energy or clarity near the end. A rally. A moment where your pet might surprise you by eating again, playing, or wanting to go for a walk.

This is known as a pre-death energy surge in hospice and end-of-life care. It’s well-documented, but when you’re in it, it can feel like a twist in the story you thought you were already writing the ending to.

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For some, there isn't any time between diagnosis and compassionate euthanasia. The diagnosis is the end. Those moments come as a heart shock, a surreal wave of disbelief and urgency as you try to grasp what's happening. Your head swims with questions, and you're trying to make sense of the news. Your nervous system naturally kicks into overdrive, doing its best to keep you moving through something that feels impossible to process.

If you've experienced this type of loss, I am genuinely sorry for your loss and experience. This loss is where everything happened too fast, where you barely had time to say goodbye—please know you are not alone. This kind of grief is complicated to process, as the reality of what happened often takes time to settle in fully; each moment brings a new layer of a deeper awareness of your pet's loss and, with it, a fresh wave of grief as the loss of your pet lands more deeply and integrates into reality.

There is no perfect way to move through this kind of loss. There is only the deep, tender attempt to show up in love while holding the weight of heartbreak and shock. Please know that at the time, you did the best you could with what you knew, in the time you had, given your circumstances, and all of this under an urgency you never suspected and immense pressure.

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There is no roadmap for the end-of-life journey with your beloved animal, no absolute signpost that tells you when the "right" time will be. The road isn’t a straight one. And even though it’s now a one-way road, you can still stop and make memories. You can still feel a connection. You can still be deeply present.

But let’s be honest: this is one of the hardest places you’ll ever stand in as a pet parent.

You may be feeling unsteady right now, holding so much love, layered with fear, worry, grief, doubt, and the aching question: How do I know when it’s time?

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I still remember the moments I first began to notice Boshporus slowing down. How he hesitated before jumping onto the bed and in the car, how our long walks started became shorter, his naps longer, his sleeps deeper and snores louder and his once boundless daily energy now ebbing with the days. At first, I brushed it off—a bad day here and there, maybe a little stiffness. But deep down, I knew he was shifting and changing with age. And with that realization, an ache settled into my heart, a grief landing inside for what was changing before my eyes.

Loss comes to us in many forms, but with our pets, it often begins long before their final goodbye. It starts in the small, almost imperceptible ways—when their bodies grow tired, when they take more time to get up, when their enthusiasm for favourite activities begins to wane. This loss isn’t just about their eventual passing; it’s about witnessing the life you shared starting to transform into something different. The reality of your time together lessening. The grief it brings is anticipatory, and it is real.

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