I wanted to take some time to talk the kids about the trauma they experience after losing a beloved pet. My favorite cat Monty died unexpectedly last week and I took some time when the grief was still raw to write up this broadcast so that I could help kids to be comfortable with their emotions and to know that love is still a wonderful thing even though it can also cause us a lot of pain. I also talked a bit about how to be sensitive and kind when others are hurting. It is my hope that this will encourage conversations with parents and kids not only about pets but also when relatives pass on.
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Hi! I’m Miss Tyler and welcome to another episode of Context for Kids where I teach you guys stuff most adults don’t even know. If this is your first time hearing or if you have missed anything, you can find all the episodes archived at contextforkids.podbean.com, which has them downloadable, or at contextforkids.com, where I have transcripts for readers or on my Context for Kids YouTube channel. Parents, any scripture this week will be from the Miss Tyler Version (the MTV) which is the Christian Standard Bible reworded and expanded a bit to make it easier for kids to understand the meaning.
Parents, today we are going to talk about some sensitive issues related to losing a family pet. So, if this broadcast isn’t appropriate for your kids, this is the time to turn off the broadcast. However, I am hoping that this will reach the ears of kids who need to understand about the decisions we make for our furry, finned, or feathered family members and coping with the intense feelings of losing them.
So, I am super sad today. I am writing this about a week before I will record this broadcast because it is important to me to talk to you when real things happen that are sad for families. Last Friday, my tomcat Monty and his sister Sunflower were getting their yearly checkups and I showed the Veterinarian, the animal doctor, a lump on his back that was a few weeks old but wasn’t hurting him and I couldn’t get them in right away so I had to wait, which wasn’t a big deal. Well, the doctor didn’t like the feel of it and so she tried to see if it was just a cyst since it wasn’t hurting him. Well, it wasn’t a cyst and so she checked it for something really bad called cancer and that’s what it was. But still, as long as it was just under his skin it wasn’t a very bad deal because they could remove it plus the two other smaller lumps beside it that I hadn’t noticed. Yesterday he was supposed to get an operation but first they needed to look inside his body to make sure there weren’t any other problems. So, I waited at the store across the street for a couple of hours and organized the shirts that people had kinda messed up to keep myself occupied.
When she called me, the doctor wasn’t happy at all because Monty had lesions, which is cancer, all inside his liver and spleen and from there, it had spread everywhere in his body, and he had lost weight even in the few days between our visit and the day he was supposed to have surgery. She told me that we could keep Monty alive if we really wanted to, but that we had probably caught it just in time before he really started hurting very badly. It was very sad for me because Monty is my cat and his sister will miss him because they came from the same litter, which means their momma cat had them at the same time. So they have been together every single day of their entire lives and they love each other and snuggle and lick each other and play together all the time. Monty is my favorite out of all the cats I have ever had in my life. He was twelve years old and he was a total cuddle bunny, always purring and loving on me. I knew I would be incredibly sad without him. But I also knew that it wouldn’t be too many days before being petted by me would hurt him terribly, and he was already not wanting to eat very much in the past few days.
So, what we did was very hard but since there was no way to make him better ever again, and even though I would miss him very badly, I decided to call my sons Andrew and Matthew who rescued them from an abandoned house when they were only three weeks old and dying, and Andrew and his girlfriend Jackie were able to come and say goodbye. I brought his favorite treats because he hadn’t eaten all day because we thought he would have an operation, and he ate them like he was a wild lion eating an antelope. And then he walked around the room and butted his head against all of us and then the doctor came in and gave him a shot so that he would fall asleep. He never stopped purring and I had him wrapped in my bathrobe from home so that he wouldn’t get cold or feel scared, and it took about five minutes and he fell asleep and couldn’t feel anything anymore—like when a person has surgery and they make them go to sleep and they wake up later like nothing happened and didn’t feel anything that had happened to them. That’s what it is like for cats and dogs because we don’t want them to be scared or to hurt anymore. We want them to still be happy and not suffering. After he went to sleep, the doctor gave him another shot and used her stethoscope to check his heart until it just wasn’t beating anymore.
Although I was really sad yesterday and today I am even sadder, I know that it was good for Monty to not be hurting just because I wanted him to still be with me. But it isn’t an easy decision to make and no matter what we do, we always wonder “what if” so we just have to make the best decision based on what they need and we have to trust God to take care of the rest. Pets aren’t like people. People can be really sick and in a lot of pain but they understand what is going on and so there is still a reason to be alive. But that isn’t true with animals. They don’t understand what is happening to them—all they know is how bad they feel all the time. We don’t do this with people because people are created in the image of God. No matter how much we love our pets, they just aren’t the same as people and so when they are going to be miserable, we can help them out. Knowing that they won’t hurt anymore makes is easier but it doesn’t make it easy.
So, that was how I spent my day yesterday, and now I am very sad and his sister is very sad too. She knows something is wrong and she started to figure out last night that Monty might be gone forever. She is just laying on the couch not looking very good and just wanting to be near me. So, I turned on the heater because it was in the 30’s this morning, so it was really cold, and sometimes when we are crying and sad we get cold and can’t warm ourselves back up.
Have you ever lost a pet? Pets are very special to us because they love us with their whole hearts, and even if they get angry because we clipped their claws or shooed them off the table (no poo-poo paws on my table, I always say) or if they don’t like the new food you gave them to eat or, worst of all, if you have to give a cat a bath, they forgive us and want to be with us again pretty quick. They forget what we do to make them mad—not like humans because we can be angry at someone for a long time. Dogs are especially forgiving, even if cats might take a while. My dog Bandit died in the spring, he was very old, and our other old dog died the year before. My dogs were always glad to see me and didn’t care what I looked like or anything about me—they just loved me and wanted to do everything with me. It’s very nice to have a friend like that, who wants to be with you even when no one else does and pretty much thinks you are the best thing ever! Sometimes they even sleep with us at night, or maybe they can do tricks and play with us. It’s great having a companion, a friend, who is always there when we need them. When they are gone, we can’t just get a new puppy or kitten or bird or hamster because they all have different personalities.
It’s very important to give ourselves time to be sad. Being sad is what always happens when we love someone and then they are gone. There’s nothing wrong with that. Even Jesus cried when His friend Lazarus died—even though He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead. In Bible days, when someone died, all the neighbors would come over and sit with the family and they would all cry and be as emotional as they wanted, and for a whole week no one did anything else. They knew it was important to be sad and that it takes as much time as it takes for people to stop being sad all the time. But just because they aren’t sad all the time doesn’t mean that they can’t get sad for a while again. That’s normal and good too. God gave us these wonderful emotions and gave us the ability to love others and a need to be loved back and He didn’t do that because it is terrible to be sad. Girls cry, boys cry, mommies cry, and so do daddies. We all cry because we are dealing with a loss.
A loss is when you had something important to you but now it is gone. It feels really bad to not have that animal or something or someone in your life anymore. God gave us our emotions to help us deal with that. Just imagine your best friend moving away to another place and you just don’t even care. Does that sound right? You’d be disappointed and lonely and sad, right? But some people are really weird when other people feel sad. Instead of just sitting and hugging and crying and just listening, they try to get us to cheer up because grief, when we are sad about someone dying, makes some people feel bad and strange and they think they can just joke with us or give us a donut or take us to the park and we will suddenly not hurt anymore or miss them. Well, that’s not how love works and we are sad for as long as we are sad and that’s that. God wouldn’t give us those kinds of feelings if they weren’t important.
Or maybe you got mad because this happened to a pet you loved and didn’t understand why the adults in your life had to make the same decision I made. Maybe your pet looked okay but had things that were so wrong on the inside that they were going to start having very terrible lives. I know that it is hard, but remember that they loved your pet too and it was very, very difficult for them to do that and especially since they knew how much it would hurt you. They might not have cried in front of you, but they might have cried alone in the car on the way back home or later that night. They might feel terribly guilty even though they know they made the right choice to be kind. Sometimes, when we don’t understand and aren’t the people who have to make the hard decisions about what to do—it’s easy for us to be frustrated with and even mean to the person who had to do it. If that’s the case, I want you to pray to God about it and ask Him to show you what to do. You might need to forgive them and say you are sorry for being so angry at them. I know that what I sure needed was a big hug because I kept thinking that maybe there would be a miracle and he would get better. But I have to tell you that if I let him live and I was wrong, it would have been very bad for Monty in probably just another week and I would regret keeping him alive. And he wouldn’t want to be alive anymore. Sometimes, adults see problems that kids can’t because we have experienced more. An important part of being a grownup is knowing when our animal’s lives need to end.
And you might be angry at God, or just angry because you think it is unfair that your pet had to die. And you just want to be left alone to cry and sort things out but people bug us, trying to cheer us up and think they are doing us a favor when we really just want them to go away and leave us alone, right? And some people say terrible awful things while trying to be helpful that only makes it a lot worse. And sometimes when that happens, we just want to clench our fists, stomp on the ground, and tell them to shut up! Because we were sad but then they came along and said something hurtful and now we are angry and sad and we are sorry we even know them, right? That’s normal too. Some people think they always have to say something when they shouldn’t say anything at all. Being hugged can be good but hearing a speech isn’t always what we need. It’s okay to ask politely to be left alone to pray or to sleep or to cry or however you need to handle it.
But, you know what? When people say mean or stupid things when they are trying to be helpful, it’s important that we pay attention to what things make us feel bad, or hurt even worse than we already do, or make us feel like we should be happy instead. Of course, you aren’t happy! Why should you be?? Maybe you are relieved that your pet doesn’t hurt anymore but that isn’t the same thing as being happy. It’s more than okay to be sad and the Bible tells us many stories where someone dies and everyone cries and even for a long time sometimes. But people can say some awful things trying to make you feel better.
They might say, “Well, at least it wasn’t your mom or dad or your brother or sister, at least it was just a pet.” And dude, that is so mean! Making you feel guilty and foolish for being sad when you have every right to be sad is bad enough, but making you think about your family members getting sick and dying is even worse. It isn’t helpful at all and it is just scary. Just like when I got told by someone that if I didn’t want what happened to Monty to happen to my other two cats, they would tell me what to feed them and that was right after I came home, very sad. And then all of a sudden, I was hurting more and upset about the thought of my other kitties dying. That person meant well because she was concerned about my other animals. The timing was just wrong. Or how about, “At least they won’t suffer anymore.” But that doesn’t help either because then you might feel like they are saying you are wrong to be so sad. Of course we don’t want them to hurt but we miss them so much. We don’t want them to suffer but we do want them with us and healthy so that we can love them. You know what? No one should ever say those two words to someone who is hurting, “at least” or “look on the bright side.”
What about when someone says that we should have made different choices and how awful we are for helping our animal to die? Well, they weren’t there and they don’t know and some people just think way too much about their own opinions and can’t even imagine that anyone knows more about a situation than they do, or that their opinions aren’t helpful, or even correct. There are always going to be people who talk without thinking about how it would make them feel to hear that when they are already feeling horrible.
Or they might ask, “Did you pray?” And that isn’t helpful either because that can make people feel guilty thinking that they didn’t pray enough or that maybe they should be angry at God for not saving their loved one when they did pray. When we are sad, we need God to be there as our comforter and friend and to know that He is sad because we are sad but when we get angry at Him, we push Him away when we need Him most and when He wants to be there for us the most. When bad things happen, people want there to be a reason, someone to blame, some way to keep it from happening in the future but you know what? Bad things happen because they happen. Everyone in the Bible, including Jesus and especially Jesus, had terrible things happen to them. Sometimes because they did something wrong themselves and sometimes because someone else chose to hurt them, but God doesn’t go around killing people because you didn’t pray enough. He doesn’t have this list that says, “Uh oh, Janie only prayed nine times and not ten so I am not going to help.” The truth is that everything and everyone dies, and if they didn’t then the world would get pretty bad really quick. We all have our time on earth and when we are really blessed, we get people and animals to love and who love us in return. But nothing lasts forever.
Some people might ask, “Why are you so sad? It’s only a pet!” And when they say that, you might feel dumb and embarrassed for crying. Or they might say, “Oh that’s nothing, when my dog died it was much worse because…” Or “I know exactly how you feel because…” but they are making your hurt all about themselves! It’s very nice to hear things instead like, “I am so sorry, that’s so hard. It is terrible when the pet you love dies. I know how hard it is because I have been there too and if you ever just want to talk, I can listen and I will understand. You aren’t alone, and you aren’t weird for being sad, and crying, and even being angry and feeling guilty. You didn’t do anything wrong. I know you loved them very much and made them very happy. They had a good life with you and now that has changed and it is good and right to be sad for as long as you are sad.”
I am a grownup and so I know that Monty didn’t die because I did anything wrong, or didn’t pray enough, and God didn’t kill Monty because He was angry with me. Monty died because something went wrong in an organ called his spleen and the cells went crazy and it spread to his liver and then it went all through the insides of his body. It’s something that happens sometimes no matter how good care we take of our pets. I have probably had twenty pets over my life, cats and dogs, and it is fun having them as puppies and kittens, and then as grown-up pets, and as they get older the time comes for them to die one day. And that day is hard and so are a lot of days afterward. But you know what? It was worth it. I would still do it all over again even though I am sad right now. Right now, I am having trouble remembering what it felt like to have him on my lap purring for the last twelve years because it hurts too much when I think about him. But I am only hurting right now because of all that love. I still had all those good times with him when I played with him as a kitten, and when he jumped in my bed for cuddles, or when he would follow me into the backyard when I would work in the garden. Sadness doesn’t make love bad because it was always good and it is still good. Monty dying doesn’t undo all of the wonderful times and hopefully it won’t be long before I can remember the silly things he did and smile or even laugh. Love is always good. Love is God’s gift to us. There will never be another cat exactly like Monty and I had to stop myself yesterday from going to get another kitten because that wouldn’t help right now, but that doesn’t mean that there won’t be other things in my life that are just as good even though they will never be the same.
In the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 3, the teacher says: “There is a time for everything, and a time here on earth to do everything: there is a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant things and a time to pull them out, a time to kill and a time for healing, a time to tear things down and a time to build things up, a time to cry and a time to laugh, a time to mourn (which is what we do when someone dies) and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them up, a time for hugs and a time when we don’t want to be hugged, a time to search for things and a time to give up because they are lost forever, a time to keep things and a time to throw them away, a time to tear things apart and a time to fix things, a time to be quiet and a time to speak up and be heard, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.”
This is a very famous part of the Bible and there is even a song about this because this is some of the best poetry ever written by anyone ever. A lot of Hebrew poetry doesn’t sound very poetic when it is translated to English but this one does. We have to understand what people need when they need it and also what we need when we need it. If someone has died, then it is time to be sad. If a new baby is born, it’s time to dance and laugh and be happy. There is a time when medicine can make someone better again, and times when it can’t. Everyone who has even been born will die someday, usually because they get old and their bodies wear out, and that’s a good thing because just imagine if we got older and older and it was harder and harder to walk and we just never died? Dying can be a good thing then but the people who love that person are going to be incredibly sad and that is right too. It isn’t selfish to wish someone we love was still around. It just means that we love and miss them. And it is the time to cry. And so, I have been crying a lot and when I see my grown-up kids, I put out my arms because I need a hug and they do too. And I feel guilty because his sister Sunflower is incredibly sad and she doesn’t know why her brother isn’t here anymore. Those are normal feelings and God is helping me to feel them. He will always help you with your feelings too and you can be honest with Him even if you are really angry with Him. The people in the Bible do that a lot, because our relationship with God is very real and He knows what we are thinking anyway so why try to hide it from Him? He can take it. His love is bigger than anything you are feeling.
I love you. I am praying for you. And I am glad for my time with Monty. I bet you can say that you are very glad for the good things in your life too, even if they won’t be around forever. The Bible tells us that one day, God will wipe away all our tears and I can tell you that He does it here and now too. He heals us when we are sad because He loves us.