Animals, Grief & Discernment
When love does not give us a clear answer
There are moments for which we cannot prepare.
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When an animal we love becomes seriously ill, approaches the end of life, or dies unexpectedly, we can find ourselves confronting questions without simple answers.
There may be diagnoses, test results, treatment options, and the counsel of veterinarians and people we trust. We may also have our own sense of what the animal needs. And still, we may not know what to do.
Is there more we should try? Are they suffering? Are we giving up too soon? Are we asking them to stay because we are not ready to let them go? Is it time?
Discernment does not promise a certain answer. It asks us to attend carefully to what is present—to the medical realities, to the animal before us, and to what may be shaping our own perception as we consider what to do next.
How I accompany you and your animal
I've worked with animals and the people who love them for over a decade, through serious illness, difficult decisions, dying, death, and grief.
My role is not to tell you what decision to make or to offer certainty where there is none. I attend to what is known medically, what you are observing and experiencing, the relationship between you and your animal, and what I may perceive beyond what is immediately apparent.
That perception can offer information that is useful to the discernment process, but I do not treat it as infallible. It does not replace veterinary care, nor does it remove the responsibility of making decisions when decisions must be made.
I accompany you in looking at what is present so that you can meet your animal, and the circumstances you are facing, as truthfully and carefully as possible.
Grief rarely comes with resolution
The death of an animal can leave us with questions long after there are no more decisions to make.
We may replay what happened. We may wonder whether we missed something, waited too long, acted too soon, or could have done more. When a death was sudden or traumatic, there may have been no opportunity to prepare or say goodbye.
Grief can also be complicated by how deeply the relationship mattered and how little that loss may be understood by others. The absence is real, even when the world around us expects life to continue as usual.
I do not believe every death has an explanation we are meant to find, or that grief must lead us to meaning. Sometimes there are questions we cannot answer and circumstances we cannot change. The work is not to make those realities disappear, but to make room for what is true and tend carefully to what remains.
"You saw straight into the situation with my sweet dog Maggie and straight into my own heart and challenges. The insights you offered, the shifts that have happened—I will be forever grateful.
Thank you for sharing your grace and caring with Maggie, my family, and me.”
—Lisa Kahn-Allen, Naples, FL
"Keveney helped me through a tough time in relation to my cat, but also in relation to me.
Of course there were tears when Beli finally passed away, but there was also a deeper understanding of her role in our lives and our role in hers. It was an invaluable experience for us and I would not change a thing.”
—Leigh McGilvray, Los Angeles, CA
