Healing Pet Grief Series: Create a Memory Book

This is part of a series of articles regarding things you can do to work through pet grief.

One thing that can help you work through your pet grief is to create a pet memory book. You can do this in several ways. Buy a blank journal or scrapbook, or you can even keep it simple and use a ruled notebook. Write about fond memories of your pet, feelings about your pet, good times you had together, special personality traits that your pet had, funny things your pet did, nicknames you had for your pet, your how your pet came into your life, how your pet left your life, etc. You can include pet photos if you wish. This book is yours and you can do whatever you want with it. You can make it very fancy or keep it very simple. There is no right or wrong way to do it.

You can spend a day or a weekend working on it, or it can be a work in progress that you spend a few minutes on each day. I know of one person who wrote in her pet memory journal for about 10 minutes each evening before going to sleep.

Whatever you choose to do, try to keep it as simple as possible. Some of us have a tendency to complicate things and because of that we sometimes don't get around to doing things that we really want to do. Therefore the more simple the better. If this is something that appeals to you, the important thing is to do it. Your memory book can be something that helps you heal your grief in the present and it will be a wonderful memory book to look back at in the future.