Good Grief: On Loving Pets, Here and Hereafter

E.B. Bartels has had a lot of pets—dogs, birds, fish, tortoises. As varied a bunch as they are, they’ve taught her one universal truth: to own a pet is to love a pet, and to own a pet is also—with rare exception—to lose that pet in time.

But while we have codified traditions to mark the passing of our fellow humans, most cultures don’t have the same for pets. Bartels takes us from Massachusetts to Japan, from ancient Egypt to the modern era, in search of the good pet death. We meet veterinarians, archaeologists, ministers, and more, offering an idiosyncratic, inspiring array of rituals—from the traditional (scattering ashes, commissioning a portrait), to the grand (funereal processions, mausoleums), to the unexpected (taxidermy, cloning). The central lesson: there is no best practice when it comes to mourning your pet, except to care for them in death as you did in life, and find the space to participate in their end as fully as you can.

Punctuated by wry, bighearted accounts of Bartels’s own pets and their deaths, Good Grief is a cathartic companion through loving and losing our animal family.

A heartfelt and surprisingly funny exploration of what it means to say goodbye:

• A Moving Memoir about Animals: Follow the author’s own wry and poignant journey through a lifetime of loving and losing dogs, birds, fish, and even an escape-artist tortoise named Aristotle.
• Fascinating Cultural Traditions: Travel from the mummified pets of ancient Egypt to the modern Buddhist pet cemeteries of Japan to discover how different cultures have honored their animal family.
• Honest Talk About Pet Euthanasia: A compassionate look at the difficult decisions pet owners face, offering comfort and understanding for one of the hardest choices we have to make.
• The World of Pet Aftercare: Explore the surprising and deeply personal ways people remember their companions, from taxidermy and cloning to scattering ashes by a lighthouse.