Small Bodies

You will not get bereavement leave. Somebody at work will say “are you getting another one?” before the water bowl is off the floor. You will be quietly informed, in a hundred small ways, that this is a lesser grief and you are being a bit much about it.

That is wrong, and it is wrong in a specific way worth naming. You did not lose an acquaintance. You lost the creature that was physically present for more hours of your actual life than most of the humans you know — who was there for the bad year, who was in the room when nobody else was. Of course you are wrecked. It would be strange if you weren’t.

So: you are allowed to be this sad about a cat. That is the whole first paragraph of everything we publish in this section, and then we get on with the useful part.

The useful part

Pet death has a particular cruelty in that it usually happens fast, at home or at an emergency vet at 11pm, and you are asked to make permanent decisions about a body while you are actively sobbing. Then the invoice arrives and you discover that “cremation” meant three different things at three different prices and nobody told you which one you agreed to.

If you take one thing from this section before we have written any of it: ask your vet, out loud, whether the cremation is communal or private. Communal means multiple animals together and you are not getting individual ashes back, whatever the little box implies. Ask before you sign. It is not a rude question.

Published

• Your dog just died at home. What to do in the next four hours

In the works

Next up, in order:

• Communal vs private pet cremation — the difference is enormous and nobody explains it
• What pet cremation actually costs, by animal size, and what the vet marks it up to
• How much ash to expect, and why the amount shocks everybody
• Telling a six-year-old. Actual words, not the rainbow bridge
• The other animal in the house is also grieving and behaving strangely

If today is your day for this — there are people whose entire job is right now, including lines run by veterinary schools specifically for this, and they will not think you are being a bit much. They are all here.