How I Grieve Death

Here, I’m sharing insight based on my experience—emphasis on my experience. I say this to acknowledge that I’m not the sole voice who has something to say about fuckin’ anything, and I also know that my experience and privilege impacts what I take away from it. There’s probably a million different valid ways to do one thing, and a million different valid reasons why some things work for some people and some things work for others. With that, I encourage you to read on with an open heart and to take what you like and leave the rest.

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I lost my fur bb Gand on November 3, 2020. He left my arms at around 12:40am and died within, I’d say, an hour or two after that. Because of COVID restrictions, we weren’t allowed inside the emergency vet’s building. It did not go the way I had planned.

*Gand, November 2, 2020. This is the last photo ever taken of him. The irony is not lost on me that the purpose of this picture was to send well wishes to some pals for their virtual baby shower.*
Image description: Gand, a grey Maine Coon cat, lying on a grey plush mat. There’s a yellow piece of paper in the shape of a big heart leaning against him. Handwritten, the paper says, “Congrats! Wishing you lotsa love and (fingers crossed) rest! XOXO, Sleaze + Gand”.

I mention planning because Gand’s death was far from unexpected. A year and a half before his death, he had an emergency situation that dictated exactly what would end his life. With a newly diagnosed heart condition, I was prepped with the knowledge of every different way this disease could possibly take him out—because it would, and it was going to happen within a year or two.

After his diagnosis, Gand had a pretty strong year and some change before shit really started to hit the fan. Sure, he had tons of meds that he got morning and night, and he lost a fuck ton of weight—between his thyroid and heart conditions, he was down to six pounds from his near twenty pounds at his peak. Gand was a pretty enormous fluff ball Maine Coon mix, so it really was jarring to see him get so small.

Regardless of the meds and the weight, he really did live his best life until the end. He loved to eat, especially if it was a treat—or even better, if it was your food. He loved to go outside and would always join me for grass nibblins during my daily grounding and meditation. He loved to hug and cuddle no matter what, when, or why, even if it was just to sway in front of the mirror for a minute to remind ourselves just how fuckin’ cute we are. His favorite places to be scratched were under his lil white chin and behind his ears. And he talked so fucking much. I miss so many things about him, but I really, really miss talking to him. And hugging him when I cry.

I cry a lot since his death, and that’s the toughest. Not because of the crying itself, but because Gand was absolutely the “person” I went to when I cried at home. You see, no matter my own emotional progress, it can still be very hard for me to ask for help in sad, vulnerable times. With Gand around, I didn’t have to go far to find someone to lean on, very literally, with his big body able to support my sobbing face for many years. He’d lay there while I rested my head on his belly and cried, eventually soothed by the sound of his heart beat. Or I’d just hug him and pet him and cry, cry, cry. He never leapt away in these times, at least not until I was done crying, for sure.

This is far from my first time navigating death and grief, but it’s the first time I’m doing it without my #1 source of comfort. What I do have, though, is a brain and a heart and a spirit that’s functioning better than it ever has before. So with that, I did my best to get through it—and am still trying. It’s been three months and I still cry regularly. Fuck, I’ve cried all through writing this! And that’s okay. Crying is okay. And grief is not linear, just like every other realm of healing. I realize now that grief doesn’t really ever end, it just ebbs and flows throughout time.

*Gand, November 11, 2012. This was just a few months after he zoomied into my life.*
*Image description: Gand lying on grey carpet with his head perched straight up, looking directly into the camera with yellow-green eyes. There’s a mouse toy at his left paw.*

Anyway, there are a few things that I’ve done for myself immediately after his death, in the week(s) following, and then long term (so far) that have helped a lot. I wanted to share those things with you, and I hope that if you came here amidst your own grief, that even one of these suggestions helps you find some semblance of peace. And if it doesn’t, that’s okay because maybe this form of your pain is just for today. I love you anyway. 🖤

Here’s the quick list of ideas, with in-depth explanations following.

Immediate Care

Plan as best as you can, knowing that it probably won’t go as planned.
Let yourself cry every single time the feeling arises.
Text your inner circle. JUST your inner circle.
Memorialize who you lost right away.

The First Week

Clear your expectations (and schedule, if you can).
Buy or pick yourself some flowers.
Have a celebration for your lost loved one.

Extended Grief

Be open to changing gears on sporadic “bad” days.
Compile pictures and videos of your loved one.
Talk to your lost loved one often.

Immediate Care

1. If you’re in the position to do so, plan as best as you can—while knowing that it actually probably won’t go as planned.

Even though Gand’s death did not go as planned at fucking all, I found it helpful to have already looked into my options around having an old sick pet at the end of their life. Having looked into this ahead of time meant that I wasn’t looking at things like the crematory brochure for the first time only seconds after passing off his living body to the person who would carry him to his death. In fact, when I saw the brochure, I actually recognized the crematory company’s name. It wasn’t scary, it was familiar and didn’t add any drama or influence to my grief.

I had also previously glanced at cremation and urn prices and options ahead of time. I didn’t look at every single urn, but I did look at the difference between the cheapest and most expensive prices. For me, money can be a big trigger, and I didn’t want any sticker shock to offend me during a time of immense, raw grief. This ended up being super helpful because I was able to just be totally present to the experience of my lost pet, instead of feeling lost and overwhelmed by the logistics of it.

*Gand’s urn, currently living on my dusty ass bookshelf, adorned with his favorite bow tie.*
Image description: A purple brass urn with green iridescence. There are gold paw prints horizontally across the middle and it reads “Gand” just beneath. A purple bow tie rests around the top of the urn.

2. Let yourself cry every single time the feeling arises.

Of course I’ve continued to cry for many, many days, but I knew that the 24 hours following Gand’s death would be the toughest. I mean, that’s when shit’s the rawest, it’s fresh as fuck. I knew I wanted to deal with death better this time, and that meant grieving it while it was happening, in the now—not later when I’d have to excavate it after repressing and fossilizing it into trauma for too many years. I suddenly had this new perspective that it’s just rude to let my cat or any loved one’s memory live on as trauma instead of celebration. So, I told myself that even though I didn’t want to (crying is hard and a big deal for me), I had to do it freely, whenever the feeling came over me, for at least a full day. And it worked. When writing this draft on day 2 after Gand’s death, my eyes def burned from a couple days worth of tears, but it was already getting a little easier—both the pain and even just my ability to cry. Now, at day 90, my Gand grief still flows freely, and the practice has actually helped me start accessing and expressing sad feels in other situations too. #healing! Who’da thunk it.

PS: I also found that unplugging for the first day was especially helpful because it kept me super present to my grief.

3. Text your inner circle. JUST your inner circle.

Before you unplug, let your inner circle know what’s up. After all, our support systems can’t be there to support us in our times of need if they’re not aware of it. I found it important to do this rather soon. Not immediately upon coming home from the vet, but the morning after. I knew to keep it light and polite since I was so consumed by emotion (and lack of sleep), but I also knew I have a tendency to let things go on too long, to the point of just being like, eh fuck it, I’ll just handle it on my own. So it was important for me to send the message on that first day. It can be a very simple message, just letting them know the death occurred and what your immediate needs might be. If you wanna copy mine, it looked something like this:

Sad to report that Gand died. ☹️ I’m not ready to talk about it yet, but I’m sure I could use some extra support in the coming weeks. 🖤

To those who warranted, I let them know I loved them, and to others who needed to know, I let them know I might be unavailable for a few days. This message may look different for things like work and corporate settings, but as for your actual emotional support system, like your friends and family, “vulnerability + boundaries + needs” seemed to work for me.

I also found it necessary not to reach out to too many people or post to social media right away. In fact, I waited about three weeks to share Gand’s death online. I just knew that the most important part of this healing was to remain present, and that meant limiting distractions. Plus, quality over quantity, right? Those who matter most to us will be able to provide us with the support we really need.

PS: Depending on how interconnected your inner circle is, it could be helpful to create a group text for when you need help, whether it’s for errands or a shoulder to lean on. It kinda helps lessen the load for everyone involved—you don’t have to text a million people asking for favors, waiting for answers, then asking around more. It also lets the group know that your need has been met, so they don’t gotta worry about who’s taking care of you. (For groups that don’t involve a bunch of mutual friends, maybe a Google Group could work. It may not be as instant since it’ll go through email, but some people keep email alerts on their phone so maybe it will! Or just know to use this medium for things that can be planned ahead.)

4. Memorialize who you lost right away.

*This is what my Gand altar space looked like on the day he died. It’s evolved a few times since then to include other offerings, a frame, and elemental properties.*
Image description: A photo of Gand in a green bow tie sits on my altar. There’s a red rose and grey hamburger print collar in front of the photo, then a tea light candle burning in front of that, and an Oracle card after that. The card reads, “Isolt. Undying Love. The love you have shared is eternal, regardless of the situation.” There are cat treats at each corner of the card, as well as surrounding the candle, collar, and rose.

I have an altar that I work with on a daily basis, so my Gand found a place there very, very quickly. Like, as soon as I came home from the vet at 1 o’clock in the morning. Having a place to visit him continues to be super helpful, and I even pulled an Oracle card confirming it as a necessary tool of grief on Day 2. It’s okay if you’re not super witchy and don’t have an altar or even want one. Maybe you don’t have a lot of privacy for an elaborate showing off of your favorite dead people. I get it, it’s cool. But if you could find one single place to just put their picture or an item of theirs, and go to that place everyday or whenever you’re sad and missing them, that’d be dope. On my altar, I include offerings and elemental properties too, like items and symbols of air, water, fire, and earth, to promote balance.

If space is an issue, maybe just use a picture or a small item that you can carry with you for easy access whenever and wherever you need it. You could also create a digital space, like a dedicated folder of images and videos of your loved one. Later on I’ll talk more about this—it was actually too hard for me to do too soon, but maybe that’s not the case for you.

Music is another way that I memorialize Gand regularly. In fact, it’s begun to feel like the beginning of a conversation. Start a playlist of songs that remind you of them and that resonate with you during this time. Whenever you want to go to that “place” to visit them, just close your eyes and listen to the music. If you’re someone who plays instruments, I’ve found it especially healing to learn the songs that speak loudest to me.

The First Week

1. Clear your expectations (and schedule, if you can).

One of my favorite recovery phrases is, “Stop should-ing all over yourself!” I think most of us could benefit from this practice all of the time, but during grief I found it’s fucking essential. Get rid of all your “shoulds” for a while in order to give yourself the time and space to grieve in whatever way you need to. And this doesn’t just speak to how you schedule your time. Pretty much any expectation you have for yourself, get rid of it. However you feel like you’re “supposed” to do things, if you’re having a hard time doing it that particular way, either tell it to fuck off or, if it’s important self-care stuff, figure out the best way to get it done with support. Like, if it’s the way you eat or the way you dress or the way you wipe your ass—you’re taking great care of yourself as long as you eat something (appetite can be tough during grief), you dress in a way that makes you feel good (there’s no comfort versus cute here: I said wear what makes you feel good, whatever that means to you), and you wipe your ass in whatever way as long as you keep your shit clean (hygiene is self-care too!). The only “should” I made an exception for was grocery day, because I needed to get out of the house and I know feeding ourselves is a super important part of self-care. But if grocery day rolls around for you and you’re still not feeling quite up for it yet, just hit up your group support text!

If you can’t take time off from work during this time, make sure that your first day(s) off are totally dedicated to processing your grief. Help yourself by prepping for it if you can. Buy groceries or make meal plans ahead of time. Ask your support system to help you fulfill the logistics of life. Do whatever you can to make sure that the time you do have off is as focused on yourself, your grief, and your healing process as much as possible.

2. Buy or pick yourself some flowers.

*I didn’t get any pics of the flowers I bought myself, but here’s one of the orchids my pal sent me.*
*Image description: A fuchsia orchid sitting at the corner of my altar.*

This might just be a personal Taurean thing of me, but I fucking love flowers and it’s one of my favorite expressions of self-love. I just think so often we expect that we can only receive this sort of thing from others, like it’s only valid if it comes from somewhere else. Maybe your thing’s not flowers, and that’s cool, but I still want you to think about that one thing that you do for you that makes you feel good. It doesn’t even have to involve purchasing anything (in fact, I discourage big spending during grief). Your self-love/self-care thing could be painting your own nails or taking a super long, super bubbly bath. Whatever that self-nourishing, self-love thing is for you—do it ASAP, or once you’ve got the energy for it.

I do have to say one cool thing about the flowers though. I didn’t even have this intention when I first bought myself the flowers, but my witchy ass has especially enjoyed keeping them and drying them for my own magical use. It just gives them that added element of intention and energy that I think can strengthen any magic. I received flowers from my partner and best friend that I also dried and kept for this use.

3. Have a celebration for your lost loved one.

Depending on when you’re reading this, it may sound irresponsible to influence party times during ‘rona times. I promise you, we did not have an actual party when Gand died, but we did have our own lil celebration amongst my partner and I where we spent the whole day in intention around Gand. We made art that honored him and shared our fave memories and, of course, made a bomb ass dinner that would make him meowy proud. Looking back after a couple months now, I’m really grateful to have one fun lil memory that shines some light on one of the darkest weeks of my life.

This is the painting I did for Gand’s celebration. It actually took me a couple months to finish it. But the message of gentle strength from this tarot card really resonated with me in my early grief.
Image description: A watercolor painting in a glittery gold frame. Next to it is the Strength card from tarot, which depicts a person in a white long sleeve dress and a crown of flowers. There’s an infinity symbol over their head, and their hands are gently placed on a lion’s face and mouth. The orange lion looks happy, with their tongue sticking out. The watercolor painting is a personalized rendition of the Strength card, except the human looks like me with blue hair, fat, tattoos, and black clothes. The lion is grey with a white mane, like Gand.

Now that I’m writing about it, I think this dinner shit specifically is pretty symbolic. How often does some gnarly shit go down and we’re offered food as support? In my Jew-ish background, tradition after someone dies is to sit Shiva. You mourn for a whole ass week and you’re not supposed to do shit other than cry and eat and receive more food to be eaten. And then there’s the intention around nourishing our living ass bodies during a time when we’re surrounded by death. That’s some shit that I think is worth thinking about when we’re navigating death and grief. At the end of the day, we still gotta keep on keepin’ on.

Extended Grief

1. Be open to changing gears on sporadic “bad” days.

I’ll say it a million times and then a million times more: healing is not linear. (I’m also totally not the first or only person to say it!)

I had a recent week where out of the blue, I could not get through my morning music ritual for Gand without sobbing. Songs I would play almost everyday with no tears for like, at least a whole month prior, were suddenly directly attached to my tear ducts. And at first, it kinda annoyed me. I just didn’t understand. I thought I was beyond that point. It happened every single fucking day until I finally just gave up on trying to understand “why?” I accepted that I’m probs gonna sporadically feel my grief more deeply sometimes, and maybe that’s okay. I was able to get through my ritual again by the following week.

While that’s just a small example of how grief has taken me by surprise at times, there have also been days here or there where it’s impacted me beyond just a twenty minute ritual experience. I’ve had some days where my plans just went right out the door, and it almost always happens out of fuckin’ nowhere. The last one I can remember, I was finishing my daily physical therapy exercises and when I turned to walk out of my bedroom, my gaze just happened to catch Gand’s urn on my bookshelf—and I burst into tears. I cried so fucking hard, I ended up on the floor cradling his urn and just sobbing and slobbering for what felt like the entire day. I think my partner tried to help at one point and there was just like, no helping me. There was nothing they could say or do to keep the floodgates of grief from flowing. And that’s okay! Because it clearly needed to be let the fuck out. I don’t think I did jack shit the rest of that day. I may not have spent the whole day crying, but I was totally emotionally depleted afterwards and didn’t get up to much else. And that was okay too. It’s okay to switch gears in order to take care of ourselves. It’s okay for grief to take longer than we expect. Really, I’m in acceptance now that grief actually never ends—it ebbs and flows just like every other feeling and situation we’ll navigate in our lives.

2. Compile pictures and videos of your loved one.

This one is actually something I’m still trying to get through because it’s still hard sometimes. I don’t know if it’s just the overwhelming nature of having to sort through all the shit on my phone, or if I’m avoiding feeling sad because it does make me sad, but more in a “I just fucking miss this cool lil furry dude” kind of way. I’m realizing now as I write this, though, that the emotional experience I’m avoiding isn’t even the emotional experience I end up moving through when I do go through my pictures. How silly, just tricking myself out of a potentially further healing experience.

Anyway, beyond giving yourself the opportunity to actively move through your grief while compiling the pics and videos, I’ve really enjoyed the simple pleasure of having a central location to go to and see hundreds of different versions of that one tiny furry face that I love so much. I actually created a shared folder with my partner on Google Drive so they could dump all their Gand content there too, and they can access all of mine also. It’s truly the best resource during times when I just really, really wish he was here.

*Just a lil peek at my Gand folder.*
*Image description: A screenshot of 24 thumbnail images from my Gand Google Drive folder.*

PS: The background on my phone, laptop, and secondary monitor are now all different pics of Gand. Sometimes it makes me sad, but most times it makes me smile. Try it, maybe it’ll make you smile too. It also helps kinda condition me into acceptance. Like, when I wasn’t looking at pictures all the time, then looking at pictures was very difficult. It’s less difficult now that I’m used to looking at the pictures. I get to enjoy them and laugh at the memories instead of wincing in pain at the sight of a mere thumbnail image.

3. Talk to your lost loved one often.

It’s okay if you’re not an altar person or you feel weird about having a shrine up forever. You don’t actually need any of that to maintain contact with your loved one. In fact, you can talk to them all the time! It always sounded dumb as fuck to me in the past (even though I would still totally try it), but for some reason, something about this particular death—maybe it’s just how extremely close we were—but I like, believe it now? Like, I totally believe now that they can hear us and we can hear them. It’s definitely a practice, which is totally annoying when you’re just sad in grief and have already exerted enough physical and emotional labor. But I find that the more I talk to Gand, the less dumb-as-fuck it feels.

If you want an idea from my own routine, this is how I do it: I visit him at my altar almost everyday. I actually have his urn in my bedroom and his picture with offerings on my altar. I light a candle for him with the intention to shine light on each other, and then I do my music ritual where I play a few particular songs on my ukulele. Sometimes I’ll pull tarot cards that I request from him. Other times I meditate or just talk with him in my head. There are times outside of this daily ritual where I talk to him too, especially if something reminds me of him or I have a sudden feeling that he’s around (this latter feeling has grown with my practice). I also try to encourage dreams by talking to him when I go to sleep. There’s really an infinite number of ways you can feel connected to your loved one far beyond the time they left us. Whatever you feel compelled to, I encourage you to try it.

And now, just for good cutie measure, here’s a few of my favorite Gand pics. I hope they cheer you up just like they always do for me. 🙃🖤