Do you remember your first romantic crush or relationship? Are you still with that person?
I’m not. Michael J. Fox seem to be happily married to someone else and I wholeheartedly hope it stays that way. But I was crushed when I realized it was never going to work out between me and Marty McFly.
Did anyone around me care? Not really.
“There are plenty more fish in the sea, Joey.”
“Oh, it was just puppy love, there’ll be plenty more.”
Because the fact that what I felt was real to me didn’t matter.
While this really was just a pre-adolescent crush, we often react the same way to more serious relationships – whether romantic, with a pet or even a job.
Grief myth #2: Replace the loss
In addition to telling us not to feel bad about grief, our parents, friends and society at large have another unhelpful piece of advice: replace the loss.
Forming a new crush, starting a new relationship, finding a new job or adopting a new pet doesn’t negate or stop any of the feelings of grief you had from the loss you experienced.
The grief is still there. Undealt with. Packed away. Boxed up and buried somewhere with you because you’re told that you need to get over it and get on with it, that your feelings are unacceptable and uncomfortable to the people around you.
But your feelings are real. They need to be addressed at some point or another in your life.
Sometimes simply acknowledging them is enough. I didn’t need counseling to deal with my disappointment that Michael J. Fox was not ultimately the one for me. I needed a hug, understanding, empathy and kindness.
The loss of a serious relationship or a beloved animal companion may need more support. And that’s OK, despite what you may have been led to believe by everyone around you.
Replacing one relationship with another rarely works to fix whatever is going on inside you. Adopting another pet can ease a broken heart, due to the sheer amount of unconditional love you get. But sometimes it backfires.
Replacing a pet: my story
When I was a teenager, I begged and begged my mum to let me adopt a cat. The first rental house we lived in didn’t allow pets so, after we moved into a new rental that did, I was incessant. We went to the local animal shelter and I found a grey and white striped kitten with a furry white belly. He was adorable and so loving. I named him Weasel, after a nickname a friend and I were given by a favorite teacher (we were the Weasel Twins, a pair of mischievous cartoon characters from some time before the Internet).
Weasel was the best cat ever.
He curled up with me at night. He’d wake me up in the morning my nibbling on my eyelashes (it was actually a sweet experience). He purred and purred and made me feel so loved at a time I really needed it. He was playful and mischievous and brought light into my heart.
On Christmas Eve, I came home from my part-time job at a local grocery store to find him soaking wet, mewling and hiding in the bushes in the backyard. He was hurt. Badly.
We quickly realized we needed to take him to an emergency vet. We couldn’t afford to take him to a vet and my mum was freaking out about the potential bill while I was freaking out about my cat being in mortal peril.
There wasn’t anything the vet could do. Weasel had a deep puncture wound and water in his lungs and the kindest thing we could do for him, the vet said, was to put him to sleep. I was 15. It was Christmas Eve. And I said goodbye to my beloved kitten.
Christmas day was really crappy and we spent it with a friend of my mum’s who had 5 cats. I hung out with them and cried.
For my birthday a few weeks later, my mum took me to the animal shelter and I found Hobbes. I knew she was meant for me, a small, thin, cowering ginger-striped tabby. We adopted her and brought her home, coaxing her to eat and get healthy. But I didn’t really love her.
It wasn’t until a year later, when I adopted another kitten (who I named Calvin) that my heart was able to open to Hobbes. Hobbes was also a wonderful cat, who lived to be 19 years old and passed the same year as my mum. We went through a lot together and she was loving and loyal throughout (as much as any cat can be, true masters of the universe that they believe themselves to be).
You can’t replace loss. You can’t circumvent grief.
Grief is meant to be felt and dealt with. The unfinished emotional business from our relationships needs to be looked at honestly and completed. Otherwise we continue to bring it into every other relationship we have, a little more closed off and scared of being vulnerable than before.
Rev. Joanna Bartlett is a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist® certified by the Grief Recovery Institute® and offers one-on-one and group sessions using the Grief Recovery Method® to help you move through grief and live life again.