“Death renders all equal,” wrote Claudian. How each one of us relates to death, however, is individual, and always changing — as we mature; as we contemplate life, and death, around us; and as society changes. In this special edition of the National Post, we present stories and columns looking at the different ways we see, and prepare for, the Great Equalizer. To read the complete series, click here.
UXBRIDGE, ON — Seated in a wing-back chair in a quiet room, Diane Reilly can’t fight the tears as she recalls the death of her “soulmate.”
The Markham, Ont. empty-nester was sure Taylor would live until 18 or 20. She fed the miniature poodle homemade food, took her to a holistic vet. Their bond was strong.
Peter J. Thompson/National PostA memorial to miniature poodle Taylor.
When Taylor’s kidneys started to shut down last fall, Ms. Reilly was distraught and prepared to pay $10,000 for a transplant, but the dog only had a 10% chance of survival. Taylor died in February while her owner was out shoveling snow.
Unable to bear the thought of Taylor’s body stashed in a bag and tossed in a landfill, she called Nancy and Colin Graham. The owner-operators of Thistledown Pet Memorial, the only pet funeral home and crematorium in the Greater Toronto Area, told Ms. Reilly to bring her here, to this homey office, when she was ready.
“So I bathed her and put a bow around her — she was so pretty,” Ms. Reilly says, her voice cracking. “I sat in this chair and held her all afternoon.”
Twenty years ago, people buried their pets in the backyard or let vets dispose of the creature’s corpse. Today, people hold funeral services for their dogs and cats that would rival a human’s. They’re purchasing plots at pet cemeteries (where they’re legal) and niches at dedicated memorial centres like Thistledown. They’re freeze-drying Fluffy or getting their animal’s corpse encased in bronze. They’re having a tough time saying goodbye.
Twenty-first century pets are little people in fur coats, cosseted companions with personalities that complete our modern definition of family. As the rapidly growing “pet aftercare” business makes clear, this doesn’t change in death.
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The complete special issue: How We Die Now
“The human-animal bond increasingly is being recognized as a legitimate attachment relationship,” says Michael Meehan, a professor at the University of Guelph’s Ontario Veterinary College who researches grief and euthanasia. That’s partly due to advances in technology and preventative health care keeping both humans and pets alive longer. We also live more disparate lives. People are far more likely to live alone, have smaller families, and the baby boom generation is now full of empty-nesters.
“The more time [people] spend with their pets, the closer the memories, the closer the emotional connection,” he says.
Even so, pet grief is not widely legitimized in society, researchers and aftercare providers say. People get three days off work if a close family member dies. Zilch for Fido, even if he was your world.
Peter J. Thompson/National PostSix months after the death of her dog Taylor, Diane Reilly — seen holding Taylor’s sister Madison — is still emotionally fragile.
Mr. Meehan is now researching “complicated grief” in pet loss — when people feel ashamed of their grief when met with comments such as “It was just a cat, you can get another one.”
The Grahams are as much grief counsellors as they are funeral directors and crematory operators. After buying 50 acres of land on the Oak Ridges Moraine two decades ago, the civil engineer and nursing assistant launched a boutique concierge service of sorts — picking up a dead pet, sending it to be cremated and returning the ashes in a respectful way.
Five years ago, the couple started doing the cremating themselves. The price for animals over 10lbs is $235 and under is $135. The niches indoors are lined with plaques in memorium: A 10-year-old bunny named Phebe Lam. Chi Chi, the three-year-old hamster. The plots on either side of Debu the dog are marked with yellow stickers requesting that no cats be interred there. Debu didn’t like cats.
They hold funerals, too. Ms. Graham holds out an order of service for a cat named Tango, who “quietly left my world, Oct. 1, 2007. Never to leave my heart.”
The cost of a full funeral service, cremation and plaque-covered niche for a Golden Retriever would cost $813, tax included.
Jocelyne Monette, owner of Pet Loss Care Pet Memorial, says she does 80 services a year, providing chapel services and cremation on site. Before she moved her business to Victoria, Ms. Monette had a client in Montreal who held three full-on funerals for her pets. When Micheline Goyette’s rabbit died in 2005, friends crunched on crudites to bid adieu to the bunny. Her dog died a year later, and guests gathered to share stories and snack on dog bone-shaped biscuits. Sushi made the menu for her cat’s 2008 funeral, themed around Valentine’s Day (the cat was born and died on Feb. 14).
Most people, like client Pat Rose, have more laid-back goodbyes. Her dog Rosie was laid out on a special table with soft lighting and a little fountain for a final viewing before cremation. Many clients want to watch the cremation, to be reassured that the ashes they’re getting are really their pet’s, but Ms. Rose decided against that.
“She delivered Rosie’s ashes back, she had clipped the corner of the fisherman sweater [Rosie liked to sleep in]” and placed it in the urn, Ms. Rose says. “It was a nice closure to have.”
While filming Furever, her documentary about pet death, Amy Finkel met people who had such a hard time letting go that they packed their walls full of paintings of the deceased or had the animal freeze dried (one freeze-dryer said a client threatened to sue because the dog’s eyes didn’t look life-like enough). One woman had her standard poodle “mummiformed,” a process done by Salt Lake City religious outfit Summum, in which a body is encased in bronze, marble, patina or copper with DNA intact. A mummiform costs US$30,000.
Peter J. Thompson/National PostThistledown Pet Memorial owner Nancy Graham (R) chats with Valeri Wilson and her eight-year-old dog Angie.
“It was confusing for them when I asked ‘What happens when you live beyond your pet?’” Ms. Finkel says of Summum’s pet owner clients. “Every single person I met wanted to be mummified too.” That way, they could join their pet in the afterlife.
Ms. Rose believes she’ll one day be joined again with Rosie and her dog, George, whom she had put down years before at a vet’s clinic. Susan Milton-Lloyd, a Boston terrier breeder in Calgary does too. She’s sent many of her dogs to Pet Heaven, a pet funeral home in Calgary, and likes the way owner Arnold Paterson comes respectfully with his hearse to pick up the deceased.
One family had a very human-like funeral service at Pet Heaven for their old dog, Mr. Paterson says, carrying their pet down the chapel aisle in a casket, hoisted by pallbearers. Another human in their family had recently died and this was a way of further easing their grief.
Saying goodbye to a pet often pulls unresolved grief to the surface, Mr. Graham says. Often people will feel guilty that they’re mourning their pet more than they mourned a dead relative, like a mother or a sibling.
And so they come to Thistledown and have a service with a professional singer who will tailor lyrics of a comforting song just for them. They’ll light candles. They’ll buy a $70 handcrafted urn. One family flew their pet’s corpse to Toronto from the Caribbean so Mr. and Mrs. Graham could pick it up, cremate it, and fly it back.
Peter J. Thompson/National PostA dog's final resting place at Thistledown Pet Memorial in Uxbridge.
A visit to Thistledown’s crematorium reveals the heartbreaking reality of this line of work. The feet of a euthanized Boxer can be seen poking out from under the pet’s favourite blanket.
On the freezer sits a hefty garbage bag filled with the remains of a beagle who, earlier this week, followed its nose and ended up hit by a car on the Queen Elizabeth Parkway. He had been in the care of a friend while his owners, who never travel, finally took a short vacation to Montreal.
“[The dog is] in pretty rough shape,” Mr. Graham says. And so is the family.
Six months later, Ms. Reilly is still in terrible shape, her emotional fragility almost embodied by the delicate dog she clutches in her arms — 13-year-old Madison, who is Taylor’s sister. She wishes she could talk to Taylor in the after-life, tell her how much she misses her.
But for now, she’ll wear some of the poodle’s cremains in a tiny, stainless steel urn-style locket.
It’s engraved: “Taylor…Always in my heart.”
National Post
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