A woman asked me, "Am I wrong to be grieving over the death of my pet?" 

Grief can be attached to any loss, so why would it be wrong to grieve the loss of your "best friend" who gave you unconditional love and loyalty for 13+ years of your life? "It took a long time for me not to expect a wet nose in my face every time I bent down to tie my shoes," the former master of a doberman writes.

Former President Bill Clinton said that the death of his dog, Buddy, after being hit by a car, was by far the hardest thing that happened to him since he left office.

When my dog, BeeBee (a basset/beagle mix) was hit by a car I was inconsolable. That may have been the hardest I ever cried and to the 16 year old kid that I was at the time, it was the greatest loss I had ever experienced.

For some people, the death of their pet rips the scab off of earlier losses that they failed to grieve for a variety of reasons. The complicated grief they feel is very severe. When service-dogs die, the pain is intense for similar reasons.

Very recently, both of my son's families are experiencing pet grief. In each case the pets were older than my grandsons which means that those boys had this pet, one a dog, the other a cat, in their homes their entire lives. For my son's and their wives, the pet joined the family early in their marriages. With moves to other houses, job changes and over a decade of greetings at the front door, licks on the cheek, and immeasurable animal behavior entertainment, now those moments are gone and those places are empty. It is true, you don't know what you have until you don't have it, and that is true with pets. They play a big part in the lives of families.

Grieving a pet's death is real grief.

There are some good resources online. You may want to check out this one--http://www.petlosshelp.org/10commonquestions.html.

In the realness of pet grief, we can learn more about the impact of loss and grief.

Any loss causes grief. The dark, heavy emotions of sadness, anger, disorientation, and despair can take a controlling place in our souls. Moving to a new neighborhood can represent the loss of a house we loved or the familiarity of a town we lived in for many years. A job loss, in additional to the financial anxiety, is full of dark emotions because of lost relationships with co-workers, the removal a title, the change of a routine, a closed access to an office and/or a building, the all leave a hole in our lives.

Health changes that diminish our strength and mobility, can make us sad about what we cannot do any more.

Even happy things like growing up, graduations and marriages have the down side of leaving one stage of life in order to enter the new one. This is why mothers cry on the first day of school.

As we care for people, we should recognize the potential of significant emotional pain with every loss. Being present for them so they can identify their loss and express the pain that goes with it helps them grieve in a healthy and healing way. Because we care for people, their pain matters to us, whatever it is. Our world would be much healthier is we validated the pain that comes through loss.

So we say, "No, it is not wrong for you to be grieving the loss of your pet (or whatever else you lost). I'm sorry for the sadness you feel."