Dealing with grief for first time. I need Advice

[islaa]

On 21/08/2025 my beautiful angel Coco passed away. She was only 7 and was so healthy and then one day she started to not act herself and then within a few days she was taken to the vet for not eating or drinking. Less than 48 hours after that she was gone. I can’t stop replaying the moment i was told she isn’t going to survive , i kept thinking off all the ways i could help her but the moment i went to the vet and saw her i just knew it was her time, my poor baby was so sick and all i could do was stand there and watch, that pain and guilt is eating me up alive. It’s been a few days now and all i do is cry, i feel so empty without her in my life and waking up alone has been terrifying. I think ive been in denial because it all happened so fast, she was healthy one day and then next she was gone, how does someone come to terms with that? I’ve never experienced grief before and i know there’s no right or wrong way to grieve but does it ever get easier? does the pain ever go away? All i want is to hold her one more time, hear her heartbeat one more time and tell her i love her just one more time. Sometimes i feel her with me, i don’t know if I’m going crazy because i want to believe she is still with me or if she is actually here. I just hope wherever she is she’s okay. I’ll never forget watching her take her last breathe, watching the life fade from her and all i could do was tell her i’m sorry; i feel like i failed her. I know she lived the best life possible, she was my soul dog, i love her more than life itself, so now i just feel so lost. Sometimes i think when i come home she’ll be there waiting for me but she never is. I’ve been feeling so much guilt knowing in the weeks before i wasnt home much, if i could take back time i would have spent every waking hour with her. In every conversation i would find a way to bring her up, everyone knew me with the girl that was obsessed with her dog, and now life just doesn’t make sense. I need advice from someone who has gone through the same thing, does it every get easier and how can i make the pain now hurt so much ? Please help , i miss my angel so much.

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[islaa]

Thankyou , that was so beautifully said❣️

[VM-Fern]

Hi @islaa. Thank you so much for reaching out and sharing your incredibly sad story. You are feeling utterly devastated right now, of course you are, because you have lost your soulmate in such a tragically shocking way. You had no idea you were going to lose her because Coco was so healthy and so young. She was so suddenly taken from you when you fully expected to share your life with your angel for years to come. And you are quite correct, it is really hard to come to terms with your loss because you weren’t prepared for it all. Any pet owner reading this would empathise so much with you right now, particularly those who (like me) lost a pet at a relatively young age. You feel robbed, and guilty, and overwhelmed and helpless and hopeless and all those big grief feelings which are perfectly normal when you love a pet so much. At that extraordinary time when your pet takes their last breath and you watch the lifeforce go out of them to wherever it goes, it is normal to feel like you failed them, that you didn’t do enough, and that’s what all of people who care experience. If I could ask Coco what she thought of that, I wonder what she would tell me? Maybe that you were her soul human because you were so loving and caring and so obsessed with her as you said?

So the bigger the love and the bigger the shock (which shows up as those feelings of numbness and the thoughts that this can’t be happening), the bigger the emptiness and the pain and the hurt. She was such a large part of your life and your identity as the owner of a gorgeous dog. You mentioned that you’ve never experienced grief before, so again you were unprepared for the initial shock and just how much it hurts. Does it ever get better? It did with me, but it took a few days for that initial raw hurt to dissipate a little. For a few days I kept “seeing” my beautiful little cat walk into the room out of the corner of my eye. Someone bought me a little photo montage thing to put on the wall, and my family and I went through our many photos and laughed and cried at all the memories they brought up as we selected the very best ones. Which then stayed on the wall for a couple of years. That did help. The Griefline website has really good resources to help cope and you can always call our Helpline as and when you need to. Just to share those huge feelings with people who will not judge you and will understand how hard it has been for you. Talking about your grief is so important to help ease the pain. You’ll never forget her, and with time the pain associated with all those memories (good and bad) will ease.

Thanks again for posting and my thoughts are with you.

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