God Squad: Pets bless us, and we repay them with our grief

Dear Rabbi Gellman: I just found your old article on losing a pet. All of your articles “speak” to me, but this one touched me deeply. We have lost Franklin, Eleanor, Miss Kitty, Spenser and my love, Teddy. We laugh, we cry, remembering our fur babies. Your article was so heartwarming.

— M in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn

MG: Thank you, dear M, for your kind words about one of my favorite articles (an updated version is included below).

My love for animals began when I began. My grandfather, Leo Gellman, was a zookeeper at the Milwaukee County Zoo and my childhood memories included walking onto monkey island with my coat stuffed with Grandma Sara’s mandel bread. I was instantly covered by a “monkey coat” reaching into my pockets to extract the goodies.

As the year turns, I want to ask you to share your stories about what pets have done for you. I am not asking how you felt about losing them. I am asking what they did for your soul when they lived with you.

The Death of Miles

A letter to Dr. Alan Coren at West Hills Animal Hospital in Huntington.

Dear Alan,

I wanted to write to thank you properly and personally for your compassion and care for Miles through his life and up to his last moments when Miles died on the blanket you had spread out for us in exam room two. Miles’ debilitating renal failure was a death sentence, and thankfully his suffering is now over.

As Miles turned cold in my arms and entered a breathless eternal sleep, I was utterly unprepared for the flood of tears and grief I felt at his death.

I bury people, and I know that grief at the death of a pet is not the same as the grief at the death of a person, but it is still grief. It is still deep and raw and real and shattering to our admittedly irrational expectations that we will never be separated from those we love.

I tell people I counsel to try to give thanks for their grief because grief is the only true measure of love. Buddhists teach that the first Noble Truth is that suffering arises from our attachments to the beings of the world. Unlike Buddhists, I do not seek the removal of attachment. I am happy to be a mess of tears now because I was, and my family was, loved by Miles unconditionally, and I savor this grief as my way to repay the gift of unconditional love.

Alan, I know that you help families move through the grief of the death of a pet as often as I help families move through the grief of the death of a person. I know they need my steady soul to make it through the valley of the shadow. I just wanted you to know how much I needed you and how much I love you and thank you. You were a rabbi to a rabbi, and you were the steady soul of caring for a very good dog whom I loved more than I ever understood until this sad but healing moment.

God bless you, Marc