There's a moment I see over and over again, in my sessions and in my own life with animals.

An animal is aging. Or ill. Or slowly declining. Not eating the way they used to. Not bouncing back the way we hoped. Not "themselves" in whatever way we've quietly decided that should look like. And their person, who loves them with everything they have, starts trying to help them through it. Maybe it's more supplements. More vet visits, or seeing other practitioners. More food options to entice them at the food bowl. More watching of them. More wanting and willing for them to be okay.

All of this is from a place of love. And all of it carries something underneath that we rarely stop to notice.

When our animals are sick or fading, something in us reaches out. Even when our words are soft. Even when our hands are gentle. Underneath our care, there is often a silent energy saying:

Please eat something.

Please get better.

Please hold on.

Please don't decline yet.

Please show me you're still okay.

They feel this. Not through our words. Through how our body naturally braces in uncertainty. Our hovering. Our sighs at the food bowl. Our watching. The way we search their face and body for signs. Animals are constantly reading the relational field between us. They feel when our care carries our hidden urgency. Often before we know or feel it ourselves.

I learned this long before I knew anything about animal communication.

When you deeply love an aging or ill animal, part of you is always watching.

You notice every breath, every change in appetite, every subtle shift in behaviour or energy or the way they move through a room. You tell yourself you are simply being attentive and caring, which you are. But often what is happening beneath that watchfulness is something much deeper and much more exhausting than simple attentiveness.

It is anticipatory grief. And it does not only live in your emotions. It lives in your thoughts, your body, your sleep, your decision-making, and the quiet background hum of your days.

The Weight Beneath the Watching

When we love an animal who is aging or ill, we can find ourselves slowly shifting from living in the present moment to worrying about what is coming. The questions begin to accumulate:

Am I doing enough? Did I miss something? Am I making the right choices? Am I holding on too long? Am I letting go too soon?

These questions come from love. They come from the enormous responsibility you feel toward your animal and your deep desire to ease their suffering, make the right decisions, and not miss something important. They come from wanting more time and from living in a situation that offers very little certainty.

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I was 17 when I had to make the difficult decision to euthanize my horse, Tim. I remember feeling the weight that I was ending the life of my best friend.

What made it even harder was that I was completely alone in it.

My parents didn’t have the capacity to discuss or support me emotionally, and they said the decision was only mine to make. All of us were floundering in fear, helplessness, and overwhelm, without understanding the gravity of showing up. I didn't have words for all that was happening inside me then, and it's now how my adult self understands my 17-year-old self felt abandoned in one of the hardest moments of her life. 

I desperately wished someone had been able to hold space for me, so I could hold space for Tim.

Instead, I shut down. My body grieved what I couldn’t express. I stayed in bed for two weeks. I barely spoke. When I went to school, I felt numb and disconnected, like a ghost moving through the day. I had nosebleeds for four days straight. Looking back now, I understand my body was carrying grief that had nowhere to go.

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Overwhelm has a way of arriving quietly, when emotional reserves are already low. It can surface after difficult news, noticing a shift in your animal’s health, or when life asks more of you than your heart or body has capacity for. Sometimes it’s that one small request layered onto an already full emotional plate. And you may find yourself trying to hold everything together, searching for answers, or pushing forward even when you're stretched thin.

In these moments, overwhelm is never a personal failing; it’s a nervous system response to your body saying, “Please slow down. I need support.”

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Avoiding the emotions of anticipatory grief that you don’t want to feel is often exactly what prevents you from feeling the ones you do want: love, joy, and connection with your animal.

When we’re walking alongside a beloved animal during illness, aging, or the end of life, it’s natural to want to protect ourselves from the hard emotions, as we often believe we are protecting our beloved animal from our pain. Grief, sadness, fear, and worry can feel overwhelming. Sometimes, without even realizing it, we try to push them down, avoid them, or distract ourselves from them. It’s a very human response. And our animals feel this struggle within us.

Here’s the tender truth: trying to selectively turn off emotional pain doesn’t work. When you numb or suppress difficult emotions, you’re not just turning off sadness, anger, or anxiety; you’re dampening your entire emotional range.

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There’s a moment in every pet parent’s life when the bubble quietly bursts. The one where we hold onto the hope that our beloved companion will live forever. It’s not that we don’t know, deep down, that life has limits. But when the signs of aging show up, when a diagnosis is spoken aloud, or when the vet gently says, “We need to start preparing…” the world shifts…

Suddenly, you are walking with grief that hasn’t happened yet.

This is called anticipatory grief.

It’s tender, messy, and often overwhelming. One moment you may feel fear clawing at your chest, the next you’re swept into sadness… and then, out of nowhere, a deep wave of gratitude for every soft pawstep beside you. These emotions don’t arrive in a straight line. They swirl and collide, often leaving us exhausted and questioning whether we’re “doing it right.”

But here’s the truth:
There is no perfect way to walk this path. There is only the way that is yours, guided by love.

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Grief has a strange way of dividing us into two worlds. There’s the version of us that moves through the world, who gets up, shows up, smiles when expected, answers messages, and maybe even laughs. And then there’s the version of us behind closed doors, wrapped in the ache of impending loss or the absence, curled up in the quiet, and trying to breathe through the weight of either anticipatory grief or missing someone who is no longer here.

When we grieve the loss of a beloved pet, this duality can feel even more isolating. Our grief may not be seen in the same way. It’s often misunderstood and not talked about. And so we wear a mask.

The outside mask says, “I’m okay.”
The inside voice says, “I’m not.”

Some people believe that if we’re functioning, working, smiling, and holding a conversation, our grief must be gone. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.

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We don't get over grief and heal in the way society tells us. Instead, it becomes a part of us, and we discover how to navigate and create a new way to be, as our loss has changed us.

The adage "time heals all wounds" is not quite true. Grief isn't something we "get over," nor do we “heal from” it; we learn to be with it and grow from and through it. We learn to carry it. We are different because of it. With time, it becomes an integrated part of us. We are forever changed.

Grief lives in the body, not just the heart, mind or your emotions. It's not something to think your way through. Grief must be felt, witnessed, and tenderly held in a way that allows your nervous system to find its way to move with and through it. Grief isn't meant to be carried alone, and yet many people hide or mask it to get by in the outside world, only to unmask when they're back in the safety of their own home. And in essence, many often feel like they live a dual life, one of grief and one of pretending “I am fine”. Grief is a complex, orchestrated array of emotions, each contributing its own note. And when we find others who understand and walk alongside us, it helps us walk this journey.

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