We Grieve Them Too

For Iveia. Some goodbyes hurt a little more than others. You were one of those goodbyes.

There is something about grief in veterinary medicine that I don't think most people ever get to see.

We grieve your pets too.

I don't mean that in a way that compares our grief to yours. It isn't the same. It can't be. You are losing a member of your family. You are going home without them. You are walking into a house that suddenly feels different. You are seeing the places where they used to sleep, hearing the silence where there used to be little noises, and realizing that your life is going to look different without them.

Our grief is different. But it is real.

I can't count how many times I have stepped out of a room after a final goodbye and cried. Sometimes I make it just outside the door. Sometimes I make it a little farther. Sometimes I take a deep breath, wipe my eyes, and tell myself I have to pull it together because there is another patient waiting.

And then I walk back in and do my job.

That's the part people don't always see.

You may see us holding your pet. You may see us talking softly to them. You may see us helping you through one of the worst moments of your life. What you don't see is what happens after we step out of that room.

Sometimes we cry.

Sometimes we have to take a minute.

Sometimes we talk about your pet with another technician or veterinarian because we need to let someone else know that we are hurting too.

And then we go back to work.

Because there is always another appointment. Another animal that needs us. Another family that needs reassurance. Another patient who needs medication or treatment or someone to hold them while they are scared.

We don't stop caring just because the next patient walks through the door.

The truth is, we get attached.

We see these animals over and over again. We learn their personalities. We know which ones are nervous and which ones are excited to see us. We watch them grow up. We watch them get older. We are there when they are sick and when they get better. We celebrate the good news with their families and we worry when things aren't going well.

They become part of the fabric of our work and, whether we mean for it to happen or not, part of us.

So when they are gone, there is an empty space.

We just don't always get to acknowledge it.

We don't get to go home and grieve the way you do. We don't have their collar sitting on the counter. We don't have their bed sitting in the corner. We don't have their pictures filling our phone. We have to put our feelings somewhere in the back of our minds and keep going.

But sometimes those feelings catch up with us.

And there is another part of this that I don't think people realize.

Sometimes we grieve the loss of the client too.

Because over the years, we don't just get to know your pet. We get to know you. We see you again and again. We watch your relationship with your pet change as the years pass. We become familiar faces in each other's lives.

And when that pet was your only pet, sometimes we know that we may never see you again.

That goodbye can be a goodbye to both of you.

And there is something incredibly sad about that.

We may know that you won't be back for another appointment. We may never get to hear how you're doing. We may never see you walk through the door again. And even though our relationship with you existed because of your pet, that doesn't mean it wasn't meaningful.

Sometimes we lose a patient and a client on the same day.

I think that is one of the hardest parts of this job.

We love these animals knowing that, eventually, we will have to say goodbye to them.

We know that when we meet a new puppy or kitten, someday we may be standing in the same room years later helping their family say goodbye.

We know this.

We accept it.

But that doesn't make it easy.

Some patients stay with you. Long after they are gone, you remember them. You remember their name. You remember their face. You remember the way they acted. Something completely unrelated can bring them back into your mind years later.

And for a moment, you feel that loss all over again.

I think sometimes people assume that because we work in veterinary medicine, we must become used to death.

We don't.

We become familiar with it.

There is a difference.

We learn how to help families through it. We learn how to remain calm when someone else is falling apart. We learn how to make the process as peaceful and gentle as possible.

But we don't become immune to it.

So if you have ever said goodbye to your pet in a veterinary hospital and wondered if the people in the room felt anything when they walked away, I want you to know that sometimes they walked out of that room carrying some of that grief with them.

Sometimes we cried.

Sometimes we talked about your pet after you left.

Sometimes we remembered them long after you were gone.

And sometimes, even years later, we still remember.

We know that your pet was your family.

But they were our patients.

And sometimes, the line between those two things gets very blurry.

We grieve them too.

Quietly.

Behind closed doors.

And then we wipe our tears, take a breath, and go back in to care for the next one.