The Forgotten Grievers

When we talk about grief, we usually focus on the humans left behind. Partners. Parents. Siblings. Friends. What often goes unnoticed are the quiet witnesses. The ones who never ask questions, never offer explanations, and never tell us how to heal faster.

Our pets grieve too.

They experience our lives not through language, but through presence, energy, routine, and emotion. They feel the changes in our bodies before we say a word. They notice when the house sounds different, when laughter fades, when schedules shift, when sadness settles into the air like fog.

Pets experience pregnancy in their own way. They notice the changes in our scent, our hormones, our movements. They feel the anticipation, the nesting, the emotional intensity, even if they don’t understand why. And when that pregnancy ends without a baby coming home, they feel that shift too. The absence. The heaviness. The grief that lingers in the corners of the house.

They don’t know what was lost, but they know something was.

They know when we cry more. When we sleep differently. When our energy is fragile. When the household feels quieter, slower, heavier. They adapt, just as we do, but they carry it with us.

My dog, Stella, has been my best friend for six years. And in many ways, she has been my lifeline.

She has been by my side through every moment of grief, without question, without expectation. She has sat with me on the floor while I sobbed, gently licking the tears from my face as if to say, I see you. I’m here. She has followed me on long walks around our property, matching my pace when my body felt heavy, staying close when my thoughts felt loud.

She watched me do strange, very human things in the name of survival, like painting my bathroom on a random Tuesday because I needed something, anything, to distract me from what I was feeling. She laid nearby, head on her paws, keeping watch. Not confused. Not impatient. Just present.

Stella was also by my side for Bodhi’s memorial.

While we gathered to honor and remember him, she laid quietly in front of his memory table. Surrounded by reminders of a life gone too soon, she rested there as if she understood the weight of the moment. Celebrating and mourning his life right along with us. She didn’t wander. She didn’t need calling back. She stayed.

That image is etched into my heart. My dog, keeping vigil, bearing witness to love and loss in the purest way she knows how.

That’s the thing about pets in grief. They don’t need explanations. They don’t need timelines. They don’t need you to be okay.

They sit with you in the mess.

Stella didn’t try to fix me. She didn’t rush me. She didn’t tell me I was strong or that everything happens for a reason. She simply stayed. Through the silence. Through the tears. Through the days when getting out of bed felt like too much.

In a world that often grows uncomfortable with prolonged grief, pets never do. They don’t pull away when sadness lasts longer than expected. They don’t expect progress. They love us exactly where we are.

Our pets are forgotten grievers because their pain doesn’t look like ours, but it exists. They mourn routine. They mourn energy. They mourn the version of us that existed before loss reshaped everything. And still, they choose closeness. Still, they offer comfort.

There is something profoundly healing about that kind of companionship. Something grounding about being loved by a being who doesn’t need you to explain your sadness or justify your tears.

If you’re grieving and you have a pet by your side, know this. You are not imagining their awareness. They feel the change because they feel you. And in their own quiet way, they are grieving too, while also helping carry you through it.

Stella may never understand the details of Bodhi’s life or loss, but she understands love. And she understands me. And some days, that has been enough to keep me going.

Sometimes healing doesn’t come from words or answers or breakthroughs. Sometimes it comes in the form of four paws, steady breathing, and a presence that says, You don’t have to go through this alone.

And maybe that’s why pets are the forgotten grievers. Because even in their grief, they are still taking care of us.