Grief

Tonight, I left in the middle of my senior's retirement dinner. That, it hardly needs saying, is not what I usually do. I did so because of my daughter's loss of her pet.

Our hamster died this evening.

Our family had talked about the short life span of hamster. One day she would have to leave us. We knew it. But even the fate is somewhat expected, it turned out that mourning was more difficult than I'd have expected. When my daughter left a sobbing voice message on my phone, I knew I should stay with her during such awful moment. We mourned the very fact that our hamster can die. We mourned about her death that early and that suddenly, before we had chance to buy and refill her favorite treat of sunflower seeds.

I remember reading a research on children losing a pet between the age of 6 and 13. Even years after the pet's death, according to the study, some school-age children still described their loss as "the worst day of their lives." In many ways, this is very true. If you are a little disturbed by this, I am with you. For better or worse (okay, clearly worse now that she died), the bonding with our hamster has wired our brains to treat her as a family member. No one could pretend that losing a hamster is anywhere near as losing a toy.

We saw so clearly the need for a goodbye ritual. That helps. She wrote text messages to her friends, the way people announce the death of a family member. After writing a poem and a letter, Jasmine brought hand shovels to dig a grave with us. We held a goodbye funeral. In some sense, we are, all of us, in the end, social animals not supposed to bottle up the emotional pain.

Amen.