Milo & Button

We just adopted a dog. A 9 year old, overweight cockapoo named Milo.

He probably doesn't have many years left in him, but he seemed like the perfect fit to our family. Our daughter, an only-child, is absolutely smitten. Which means, she will also be absolutely heart-broken when Milo dies. 

The death of a pet is the first death that many children face. For me, the death of my cat Button was something I didn't have to face until I was well into my teens, but it taught me a few great lessons about death. Some of them were:

1) it's ok if you don't cry and it doesn't mean that you didn't love your pet.

Life translation - grief likely isn't going to hit us how we expect. I would argue that in terms of professional relationships, this is even more true.

2) sometimes a death is not about the death itself. (sidebar: my dad actually accidentally ran Button over with the family vehicle. At the time, I rearranged my cat's death to be more about my poor father - the trauma of running over the family pet mustn't have been easy on him! - than about me grieving my cat's death)

Life translation - it is ok- 'normal even' - to think about other people and their trauma or pain, when grieving a death in your own life. It doesn't have to diminish how you look at you own grief, but it may. And both are completely fine. 

3) laughter is fine. (sidebar: one day not long after Button's death, my friend was singing in class and our teacher jokingly asked someone to 'kill that dying cat'. I let out some sort of dramatic noise and then my peers and I started laughing... it was cathartic and quite hilarious to see my poor high school math teacher try to make amends for the comment!)

Life translation - death is a normal human occurrence. Laughter is a natural human reaction. Just because the two may interact at some point, doesn't make either one "wrong".