The Final Farewell: Memorialising Your Late Furry Companion

When it’s time to say goodbye, immortalising memories of your beloved pet can help cope with its loss and keep them close to heart.

There comes a time when the kids are all grown up, moving on with their careers and building their own families. The house is no longer filled with the bustling activity and life it used to. It is within the blink of an eye that you find yourself battling with the empty nest syndrome – having previously identified too strongly with the parental role that the sudden solitude becomes hard to bear. To fill this void the children have left behind, many empty nesters turn to having a pet as their companion and a recipient of their love and attention.

However, with pets having a limited lifespan, one has to be prepared for their inevitable passing. What happens when your furry family member who has grown to be an inseparable part of your life, passes on? With the loss of a good friend and partner, sorrow and grief may ensue. While the sadness will mellow over time, here are some ways you can deal with the loss of your pet companion:

Pet Funerals

Photo Credit: DeJohn Pet Services

One way to cope with the loss of your furry companion is to hold a funeral to honour and celebrate the wholesome life it has led. Gathering your loved ones to remember the memories shared with your pet can offer closure and help with healing. A funeral ceremony also serves as an appropriate occasion to purge all feelings of sorrow and help you find solace.

While many may think it strange and inappropriate, do whatever sits right with you. Allow yourself whichever way you deem appropriate to rejoice at the life your pet has led.

Memorialising Its Favourite Spot

Should your late pet have had a favourite spot in the garden or yard, or a special area he used to bury his prized possessions, perhaps memorialising that area can help honour this memory of your pet.

Creating a personalised pet memorial to place at your pet’s favourite spot in the garden can help remind you of the good times it used to play and laze around there. Be it a stone accent or an engraved wooden sign, a memorial inscribed with a quote or a fond memory of it can offer peace in your troubled times of grief.

Pet Cremation

While many are averse to the idea of cremation due to religious reasons or the thought of reducing a beloved to ashes, it presents itself as a practical solution to preserve your pet’s remains. A pet burial might not be a viable option in Singapore due to local laws prohibiting backyard burials for safety reasons or space restrictions. In light of such circumstances, cremation serves as the best way to handle your pet’s remains.

The idea of cremation is not as callous as it sounds. With the cremated remains of your pet, there are several avenues you can take to memorialise your pet and better cope with their absence.

Turning Ashes into Art

Photo Credit to: GLASSbits

Incorporating your pet’s ashes into physical objects such as glass works allows you to eternalise and keep the memory of your pet by your side. Some shapes and forms your pet’s ashes may take include perfume bottles, vases and sculptures. In fact, if you are so inclined, you can even turn your pet’s ashes into a sun-catcher for instance, to pay respect to the memory of “Bob the Cat” who always liked his afternoon sun naps.

With various forms and colours your pet’s remains may assume, what makes this meaningful is that you can assign your own favourite memories and stories of your pet to the artefact. Capturing these memories of your furry companion in a tangible, symbolic object can help compensate for its absence.

A Piece of Jewellery To Remember It By

Turning your companion’s ashes into a precious wearable article can be a sentimental way to memorialise it and a constant reminder of how it has stuck by you.

Companies such as Life Gem allows your pet’s ashes to be pressurised in a lab to form a precious diamond. Its ashes are first heated in a lab and then pressurised in a diamond maker to form a gem that is refined and cut to a design of your choice. Perhaps having a blue-coloured gem could remind you of “Max the Dog’s” blue eyes, or even a clear diamond to remind you of its white fur. With a full line of cremation jewellery, rings, and pendants to choose from, “wearing” a piece of your beloved pet’s remains can allow you to keep it close to heart always.

With the belief that life does not end with death, preserving your pet’s remains is one way to hold on to the good memories and move on from the loss. Dealing with your pet’s death need not be laden with undertones of sadness, but instead, can be seen as a sweet conclusion to a life well spent. Keep things in perspective with the knowledge that even with death, your pet would accompany you through the rest of life’s journey and always stay close to your heart.

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