Goodbye, Friend: Healing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has Ever Lost a Pet
grief does not prefer elitist loneliness, but is a wholly gregarious democrat, often when a pet “owner” begins to weep for that one dead creature, all the losses they could never weep about, all the unsung sorrows, all the undanced grief tangos, all the irrational praise poems, begin to flood the dance floor of the human heart,
Martín Prechtel • The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise
The most important way of remembering someone is by being the person they made us—at least in part—and living the life they have helped shape.
Mark Rowlands • The Philosopher and the Wolf
One way of comforting the bereaved is to encourage them to do something for their loved ones who have died: by living even more intensely on their behalf after they have gone, by practicing for them, and so giving their death a deeper meaning.
Sogyal Rinpoche • The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying: The Spiritual Classic & International Bestseller: Revised and Updated Edition
Pets began as an attempt to ritually remember and be responsible to what feeds us and what we must kill to live.
Martín Prechtel • The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise
read ‘What I Learned about Love, I Learned from my Dog’ to her, the same poem that had been read at our wedding. There are lines in it that still spring to my lips: When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle them gently… Delight in the simple joy of a long walk together. Love each other unconditionally.