Missing Pieces, Broken Heart: Barbara Shonk

Have you ever felt the pain of losing a pet? Have you been heartbroken over losing your dog, your cat, or any pet that brightened your life for years? If so, this episode is for you. Barbara BJ Shonk, author of Missing Pieces, Broken Heart, lost her beloved family dog after 16 years of companionship. The loss left a huge hole in her life and in her family, but BJ was often taken aback by the responses from others when she expressed her grief. To many of us, pets are a part of the family, but is pet loss something that is largely misunderstood in our society today? In this episode, she’ll guide you through the grieving process after the death or disappearance of your beloved pet. Key Points From This Episode: Why loss is loss: no matter what, who or how. How can we support friends who have lost a pet. Positive ways to process the loss of a pet. How can we be better pet owners? Get BJ’s new book Missing Pieces, Broken Heart on Amazon. Find out more at BJRandolphLLC.com. What is it like to lose a beloved pet? We’d had Wookie in our family for 16 and a half years, which is basically about a quarter of my life. She was just the fluffy kid, the fluffy companion, fluffy family member and we’d had her for a long time. We went on a vacation, she was home with one of our sons, Will. I mean, my heart was just breaking and crumbling even more. Then we got over, met the vet, this was not our normal family vet, had never met her because our clinic had another emergency, we went to her secondary clinic and we met Dr. Quinlivan the first time. She’s looking at her and evaluating her and you know what the news is going to be. I mean, three seizures in a matter of less than 24 hours, it’s not good news for a 16 and a half-year-old dog. During that time, my son and I just took turns holding her and just hearts breaking, tears flowing, just one of the most heart- wrenching moments in my whole life. Then my husband came. Same thing. He got to hold her, spend time with her and with Dr. Quinlivan. We went back in and it was cute because it was a mirror image of myself all over again. These are all things that you have to go through when you’re very emotional and it’s very difficult. One of the things I might add is as we had this wonderful trip, this vacation visiting family in Colorado, then we get a phone call about the dog and everything just went downhill from there. To make those end of life decisions is very hard, but not only is that hard, the 20-minute drive back home was – seemed like hours in misery. Then we walked through the laundry room and there’s her kennel and her bowl and her blanket and her tennis ball. To walk through there, the thing I knew immediately is that I couldn’t look at those things. I quickly kind of got them out of sight and we tried to progress and it’s kind of like you’re doped up. You don ‘t know what to feel, you don’t know what to do, you’re totally miserable. So with this process of euthanasia, it was myself, my husband and our son Will, who was living with us at the time. There were the three of us — myself, my husband and our son Will who was finishing his degree and living with us. Wookie was absolutely one of his best friends in the world. Where Will went, Wookie went. Every place. They’re guys, big guys. I mean, we had already — all three of us — shed buckets full of tears and you don’t know what to do. You don’t know where to go, you don’t know what you’re feeling or how you’re supposed to feel and I guess, I’ve lost a lot of people that I love, family members and things like that and it’s devastating and it’s hard. But I think in our society today, that pets loss is just not accepted or totally understood by a lot of people. We kind of got through that day and the next day, we went to church and I knew that totally it was useless for me to wear makeup because it would end up all over the place. I looked and felt terrible. Obviously, people saw I was miserable and they come up and they – “Hey Barb, BJ, you don’t look very good, what’s wrong?” I’ll say, “Well, you know, we lost our puppy and we had her for 16 and a half years,” and a few people come up and pat you on the back or I’ve you a hug and say, “I’m sorry to hear that.” It makes you so angry that your feelings are not validated by others. Why did you decide to write the book after Wookie and not the other pets? Most of those were when I was a kid. I was very young but when we went through this with Wookie, trying to f unction and get along, it was so hard, it’s just you’re just living through this grief and misery. I went on the internet and I looked at a lot of books and I read the book reviews and different things like that. Okay, which book is right for me, which one should I take? What it shows you if you go out there and look for books, there’s lots of books relating to grief and pet loss. Obviously, I’m not the only person in the world feeling it and I applaud everybody who has taken the time to try to do this to help others. As I was reading and doing research, I wasn’t quite finding what I was looking for. Because what I was looking for was a little bit unique and different, in that I wanted to understand the journey that other pet owners have taken while at the same time, I wanted to companion and partner that with the expertise and medical advice and information that veterinarians and their staff would have. That’s what I was thinking about. Interesting little thing went back, we had Wookie cremated and we have this little sweet box on and it says, it’s engraved with a little silver thing on it that says, “Our puppy girl, Wookie.” When I went to pick that up, Dr. Quinlivan was there and I said to her, I said, “Dr. Quinlivan, you got a moment that we could talk?” She says, absolutely. We went and we talked outside her building and we ended up talking for quite a few moments and I said, “You know? This is really hard.” I said, “I’ve lost pets but I’ve never felt like I do now.” I told her, I said “I have a business and journalistic background so you know, I’m really thinking that there needs to be a book out there for this. Something that can immediately help people that are getting ready to navigate this difficult journey and how to get through it.” I just went on to tell her my feelings. She went into her pocket, handed me her card and said, “When you’re ready to write the book, come back and talk to me.” I hung on into her card and I did. After a year’s time, I got back with her and that’s been the journey. In fact, we lost Wookie on October 31st 2015. We’re coming on two years actually this Halloween. That was kind of the beginning of it and I had kept a journal. I had documented the experience, I kept the journal for about a year. Then we collaborated with veterinarians across the country, one out on the east coast, one in the west coast and two in the Texas area, who have just been fabulous in helping in the journey of writing this book. So it applies to not only pet owners who have had the loss but as a tool for veterinarians to use for themselves, with their staff, it’s actually a big idea behind it is when the loss occurs, whatever the loss. And loss is very encompassing. I mean, your dog could get hit by a car, your dog could run away, your dog could simply pass away of old age. Anytime that you lose a pet, a loss is a loss. That’s what it applies to. Just proceeded with the book, we went to veterinary conferences, we read lots of literature, we had the vets involved in the editing, Dr. Quinlivan, actually was there right along with us and she proofed, she edited, she offered her expertise and advice along with three other veterinarians. If you wanted people to take away one central idea or one story from the book, what would you pick? I think for them to identify and be able to grasp that loss is loss and there’s a lot of stories about that. I mean, you’ve heard my stories but there’s a million other stories and we have documented a lot of different kinds of stories about loss. One of the things I want people to know is that a lot of times their feelings are not going to get validated. It is painful and it can be painful beyond measure and your heart feels like it’s shattering. If you feel like you have a tool, if you have a resource to understand the journey, it makes all the difference in the world. Was it journaling that helped validate your feelings and understand what you were going through? It did, I wrote them down, number one, I like to write but it doesn’t matter if you do like to write or you don’t like to write. When you kind of have that pen in the hand, it’s a release. I wrote it and I actually went back later, I tried to read it at certain point, little sections, it was very painful, it’s like it brought it all back but I read the whole thing about a year later and what I found is that I realized how far I had come. I’m glad that I documented those feelings because when I wrote the book, literally it was going back and forth, reading what I wrote, listening to the comments of the vets and it kind of flowed, it kind of came together about what, someone who has had a loss of a pet. Now, what’s interesting too is I’ve had friends that never lost a pet yet they’ve been very kind to me in gestures and different things like that. I’ve had people that have never really had that relationship with a pet and there’s nothing wrong with that, it just never happened for them. The thing is, as they said, “You know what? I’m excited for your book because I want to know how to understand and help my friends that lose a pet” and one of my best friends, that was a situation for her. How can we support our friends that are losing a pet without coming across as insensitive or dismissive of their feelings? Sometimes you just have to give people a little bit of space. It’s like losing any loved one, you’re kind of overwhelmed during that time. Were your friends not doing that when you lost Wookie? My close friends were, I mentioned the activity of we’re not validated the day after we loss Wookie and people kind of passing it on and people will say things. One thing is when people say something to you like, “It wasn’t your family member, it was just a pet.” You feel like you want to bop somebody. How would you describe a relationship with a pet from a relationship with another person? I think it is the perfect definition of unconditional love. No matter what. It doesn’t matter what your hair looks like, it doesn’t matter if you’re sweaty because you’ve worked all day in the yard. It doesn’t matter. When your pets sees you and you’ve developed this bond, they just love you and there’s nothing more soothing than seeing some kind of a sweet pet, whether large or small and being able to stroke them. What can you say about dog adoption programs for prisoners that reduces the rate of recidivism because they develop compassion and empathy and a sense of purpose? The animals that are used for emotional attention deficit or things like that, whether it’s riding a horse or petting a horse, or seeing I docks or I mean, look it out there, all the different things with soldiers, post-traumatic stress syndrome, it is unbelievable. The stories that you hear of how these animals bring back people from wanting to pull the plug. Their life has no purpose and then they pair them with these animals and it changes their whole life. You mentioned something about the soldiers and being alone. Think about the fact that there are many, many people out their that they’re pet is their only family member and I am not just talking older people. Younger people and everybody in between, sometimes that’s the only family member you have. So that’s a very devastating thing because each of us is different. The pet kind of intertwines and becomes part of our life in a different fashion. But there certainly are commonalities of the way we feel for pets and if you’ve ever had a really, really rough day and you are just quiet and that little cat or dog comes up to you and they sense it. I don’t know how they do it but they sense that you’ve had a rough day and they look at you and they rub against you or licking you or jump up next to you and what happens to your heart the moment that happens? You know we talk about sixth senses. I think when you have a pet companion, a pet family member, it’s almost like there’s a seventh sense. That unknown sense that only that little creature is going to be able to pull from you. What lessons did you learn from Wookie on how to be more of a loving person? I think it’s something that built but I would just see her continual patience. I would see her come up to me when I had a bad day and maybe I never said anything and what’s funny is if you think about your pet, you talk to them all the time. But sometimes if I wasn’t talking to her, that was her signal that, “She needs me. It’s time to go over there. Time to talk, time to give a kiss, time to hop on her lap,” or things like that. Just to watch it, just to watch her in action and she did this with everyone. You know something I’d like to bring up, if we could take a moment is something interesting to me was to see the reaction of the men in my life when we lost Wookie. My husband had lost pets and everything else and he was there and Will and Randy and I, we all tried to support each other but at one point, this was a week or so after we lost Wookie, he just walked into the room and lost it. We think guys are just absolutely this big stoic creature that’s always strong and they can handle everything that is piled on their shoulders. I mean society kind of and women too. And everybody in the family, there was a part of her sweet lovingness that fit into their needs to make them whole, to make them a better person. What are some other things in the book that you want people to take away? Here’s this concept that loss is loss. When you lose an animal, regardless of the way you lose the animal your heart breaks. It’s hard. If you lose your pet in relation to they die in a surgery, they ran away, they’re lost in natural disaster, there’s elements of uncertainty involved in that and when we don’t know something it tends to magnify the pain. So, we just have to accept that sometimes with the loss of an animal, we may not put a finger onto all the details around it. If somebody rescued them or whatever but we need to stop and we need to say, “You know this is one of the things that happens in life.” Life companion’s die and there’s going to be bad things that happen but we are responsible for ourselves and we have to be able to get passed this and that’s where having tools, having information, having our feelings validated, to know what we need to do to move passed it because it is going to hurt really intensely, especially upfront. And then it’s going to gradually get better. That doesn’t mean that you won’t miss your pet. You won’t miss that interaction, that relationship you had but you will get better. But taking the responsibility and doing very positive things for yourself can make a difference. If you dwell on it, it’s only going to fester worst. What kind of positive things are you talking about? I think of the things to do is to get out and do good for other people. We had one of our kiddos was struggling and come to dad and talked about it and he says, “You know what? Get out there and serve people. Get out there and do something good.” And so she went and worked at a food bank and made all the difference in the world and when she would feel down, she’d say, “You know it’s time for me to go work at the food bank,” but in order to find yourself. If you lose yourself in service and you are doing good things for others, you don’t dwell on what’s wrong with yourself but you do something positive for somebody else. How do you know if you are serving others to avoid that pain and to avoid processing those emotions versus are you serving people to take the focus off of yourself and to regain that healthier way of life? I understand what you are saying. I think one of the things is in a sense to give yourself a pep talk, is “I am feeling bad, I don’t want to avoid this pain but I need to get out of myself.” For instance, we talk about serving others. You have to take care of yourself. I mean you’ve got to work if you have a family. You have a family to take care of, you have a life to live and one of the things, now this is interesting and this is very sentimental. And this is what I personally believe and everybody can believe what they want but I believe that Wookie would not want me to feel sad. I believe she would want me to cherish her memories. How can we be better pet owners while they are alive? One of the things is to really understand your pet to understand their needs. I think just as we take care of our self medically, we need to do this for our pets. One of the things that is really, really important is to establish a good relationship with your veterinarian and their staff and to understand the path forward. Maybe you’re a new pet owner. You have to understand about their shots, you have to understand about their food. You go through this journey, it’s like getting a new baby. You know, here’s a new child, here’s a new pet and what to do and that we are responsible for our pets. We are the advocate for them. We are the advocate for their quality of life and of course quality of life is all during their life and quality of life becomes very, very important at the end of our pet’s life and we sometimes have to make hard decisions in their behalf. What kind of transformation are you hoping you’ll be able to provide for the reader? I want the readers first of all to know that the loss is a loss. It doesn’t matter who does and doesn’t validate that loss. You know how you feel, you know the love you have for your pet. That’s a gift. You have their memories, also your life was better because of them and with that, when you lose them you are going to feel that immense grief. You are going to feel your heart breaking and I want them to know that I worked very hard to provide a definitive guide. A tool to help them understand the journey, to help them on the course of recovery from the time it happens, through the first year, anticipating getting a new pet, just the whole gamut of the journey that they are going to go through and it’s not easy. As I mentioned, the importance of taking the responsibility for that journey and you know when you mentioned new pets. Getting a pet – that relationship with a veterinarian just like your own doctor, you need to have a good relationship with your veterinarian because of advocating for your pet. And when things get rough and tough at the end and you have to make end of life decisions, it’s a lot easier when you have a veterinarian that is there to help you go through these decisions. Is the book a guide through the emotional journey of losing a pet? Yes, so you don’t feel alone and that you understand what you are going through is normal and that you see that it’s a process and that you take it day to day. And you can do all the steps and go through the whole journey and there could be something that just you don’t expect that, that sends you back and you have to realize that’s going to happen but along the journey sometimes – as you see a little setback, you can look at that. And sometimes you know, not only bringing a tear to your eye, it can bring a smile to your face or a laugh. One of the things now since it’s going on two years, I mean I look back at Wookie and it was tough but I wouldn’t trade that time with her for anything. I mean it’s worth all the pain in the end to lose her, for the time that we had together. Where can people connect with you and follow you online? It’s bjrandolphllc.com and so we have our own website. It talks about the book in great detail. You can order directly off of there. We also have a lot of information for veterinarian professionals. So that they have their own lengths where they can purchase the book so they can distribute it to their clients and then it can be utilized for their staff as far as compassion, fatigue and things. As I mentioned this is very much a collaboration between a pet owner and the veterinarian. So we are trying to cover a lot of ground and fit a lot of needs to help a lot of people. Get BJ’s new book Missing Pieces, Broken Heart on Amazon. Find out more at BJRandolphLLC.com. The post Missing Pieces, Broken Heart: Barbara Shonk appeared first on Author Hour.