Page 16 - MidWeek - April 19, 2023

16 MIDWEEK APRIL 19, 2023
Anyone who’s ever loved a pet knows losing an animal com- panion can be as painful as los- ing a human loved one. But pet deaths are rarely afforded the same weight as human deaths.
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“Pet loss can be one type of grief called disenfranchised grief, where it’s kind of devalued,” says Rosemarie Grigg, facili- tator of Hawaiian Humane Society’s Pet Loss Support Group. “Some of our group members will hear comments like — and I usually don’t say this out loud, but peo- ple bring it up when we talk — ‘Oh, it was just an animal, get another one.’ ‘What’s the big deal? Suck it up.’ ‘What’s wrong with you? You knew they were getting old.’
who do OK without a formal support group — and Grigg says that’s fine, too.
“And when they’ve got people saying, ‘Just get another one,’ that can be so hard to hear. Then (they) don’t want to talk about it, and they shut down.”
“Sometimes people can find support with their best girlfriend or boyfriend or partner,” she says. “If their current re- sources work for them, I’m definitely not going to make trouble for them. I would never, as a therapist, want to bring up is- sues that are not there.”
The Pet Loss Support Group — which is free and meets monthly via Zoom — provides a forum for people to mourn their late companion animals without judgment.
In many ways, her service to grieving pet owners parallels her work with special needs individuals (she is a service super- visor at Hawai‘i Behavioral Health and runs The WINGS Group, a club for those with developmental disabilities).
Grigg has been leading the group for nearly 25 years. She saw an ad for the volunteer position in the former Honolulu Advertiser back in 1999, when she was studying clinical psychology at Univer- sity of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.
She finds purpose in helping others.
“I thought, ʻWow, this is the perfect combination of my love of and my desire to help people and animals.’”
Over her more than two decades of vol- unteering as a pet grief counselor, she has seen what a supportive environment can do. Grievers who swore they would never get another pet appear on Zoom with a new kitten or share stories about volun- teering at the Hawaiian Humane Society. Some even start nonprofits to support re- search into the illness that afflicted their late pets.
She sat in on a couple of sessions with her predecessor, then took on the lead role herself and never looked back.
“I feel so honored to be welcomed into folks’ lives at their worst possible moment ... when they open up their heart and let me know how they’re feeling,” she says.
But she’s quick to point out that this isn’t group therapy, it’s a support group. The goal isn’t to change anyone, but to help them cope.
“People never forget their loss,” she says. “But they are able to work through it and make a sense of meaning out of it.”
“Some folks aren’t able, depending on the people around them, to share what happened to them after such a loss,” she says.
For more information on the Hawaiian Humane Society Pet Loss Support Group, visit hawaiianhumane.org/events/pet- loss-support-group-virtual/.
On the other hand, there are people
— Karen Iwamoto
Photo courtesy Rosemarie Grigg