“The Book of Pet Love & Loss: Words of Comfort & Wisdom from Remarkable People”

c.2023, Simon & Schuster, $22.00, 240 pages

Goodbyes are never easy. Even if it’s just “So long!” or “See ya later,” and there’ll be other times together, your mind lingers on the fun you’ve just had. Call you tomorrow, hurry back, don’t be a stranger, the sting is minimal. But “The Book of Pet Love & Loss” by Sara Bader may help when “Goodbye” is forever.

Eleven years ago, when her elderly cat died, Sara Bader looked for solace in a book she couldn’t find, “in or out of print.” She needed a small collection of quotations, one that “documented … heartache over the loss of … cats, dogs, rabbits, birds, horses, mice, frogs, and other animals…” Because what she wanted didn’t exist, she began to fill the gap.

Falling in love with a pet is a natural, delightful event, a sometimes surprising, life-changing thing. Said Andy Warhol, “I just got a dog and I think I’m falling in love with him.” Rolling Stone Keith Richards had a white mouse named Gladys when he was small, and he took her to school with him. John Steinbeck’s “setter pup” destroyed a manuscript one evening – two months’ work gone, and Steinbeck accepted it with grace.

Sadly, though, we know, the minute we bring home a tiny fluff-ball, that we will probably outlive it. With a goldfish, Fred Rogers taught that lesson to his youngest viewers. Charlie Brown missed his pet, as did musician Fiona Apple, journalist Natalie Angier and cat whisperer Jackson Galaxy. Roy Hattersley wondered how the world could continue when his Buster died. Author Dean Koontz was paralyzed at his desk, and couldn’t write. Eleanor Roosevelt fretted that Fala’s doggy friends might also grieve.

Author Amy Tan avows that “Grief is remembering how you once filled his bowl and seeing the perpetually empty one.”

Says Bader, “It’s no wonder that we’re devastated when [our pets] depart; to be honest, it’s a small miracle that we find a way to continue on.”

One thing is for sure: Every copy of “The Book of Pet Love & Loss” should come with a box, maybe two, of tissues. If you’ve lost a pet or your furbaby’s a senior citizen, this book is going to wring you out.

And yet, you’ll be very much comforted with it around. Author Sara Bader collected a nice assortment of true sentiments, some of which you’ll want to write on sticky-notes, to post on your computer. She offers words of her own and others that you’ll carry in your wallet or in your heart. This book takes you from those moments when you look at a calendar and realize, hey, wow, Fido’s not a pup anymore, to the end, the shaky weeks of disbelief and the idea that there’ll never be a replacement for your dog, cat, bird, or gerbil, but there might someday be room for another.

For that, “The Book of Pet Love & Loss” is a hard book to read, but it’s hard to ignore, too. If you’re someone who needs it now or soon, it’ s a good buy.

— The Bookworm Sez