The situation
Our dog died on Saturday. He was fourteen and had been with me through two house moves, a divorce and my kids growing up. I know some people think he was only a dog, and I feel a bit silly being this upset, but the house feels empty and I keep listening for him at the door.
Your situation, reframed
AI interpretationGrieving an animal who shared fourteen years of your life is not silly: you have lost a daily companion and a living link to a whole chapter of your life. The Stoic perspective does not ask you to have loved him less, but to let the ache of his absence turn, over time, into gratitude for what you were given.
The dichotomy of control
AI interpretationYours to act on
- Letting yourself grieve without apologising for it
- Remembering the walks and the years, not only the last days
- Marking his life in a way that suits your family
- Whether and when to welcome another animal, in your own time
Not yours
- His age and the end of his life
- How much other people think a pet should matter
- The quiet in the house for now
- How long the sharpest part of the grief lasts
The Stoics said
Verbatim from the source · full citationsSeneca, To Marcia, on Consolation 12
… It is better to enjoy pleasures which soon leave us than to enjoy none at all. Which, again, would you choose? to have had one who was a disgrace to you, and who merely filled the position and owned the name of your son, or one of such noble character as your son’s was? a youth who soon grew discreet and dutiful, soon became a husband and a father, soon became eager for public honours, and soon obtained the priesthood, winning his way to all these admirable things with equally admirable speed. It falls to scarcely anyone’s lot to enjoy great prosperity, and also to enjoy it for a long time: only a dull kind of happiness can last for long and accompany us to the end of our lives. …
Epictetus, Enchiridion 11
Never say about anything, I have lost it, but say I have restored it. Is your child dead? It has been restored. Is your wife dead? She has been restored. Has your estate been taken from you? Has not then this also been restored? But he who has taken it from me is a bad man. But what is it to you, by whose hands the giver demanded it back? So long as he may allow you, take care of it as a thing which belongs to another, as travellers do with their inn.
What this means here
AI interpretationSeneca, To Marcia, on Consolation 12
Seneca is consoling a mother whose son had died, so this passage is not about pets, and in one aside he dismisses them as paltry amusements; you are entitled to disagree with him there. But even in that aside he grants the real pleasure that comes from “the sight and touch and fawning caresses” of an animal you have raised. His wider argument is that if the one you lost gave you much joy, the fitting response is not complaint about what has ended but thanks for what you had. Fourteen years of a dog at your side is a great deal of joy.
Translation note: Paltry means trivial, and dumb creatures means animals, which cannot speak.
Epictetus, Enchiridion 11
Epictetus asks you never to say that you have lost something, but that you have given it back. In the first raw days that can sound cold. But the image at the end of the passage is a gentle one for anyone who has had an animal: you were the one who looked after this life for as long as you were allowed, the way a traveller takes care of a room that is never quite theirs. You did that for fourteen years, and the emptiness in the house is a measure of how well you did it.
Translation note: Restored here means given back, and an estate is land and property.
Seneca turns grief towards gratitude: a joy that has ended is still better than none, and the right response to much happiness is thanks. Epictetus adds a sense of stewardship: he was in your care rather than your possession, and you looked after him to the end. Together they treat your sadness as a sign of something good, not an overreaction.
One action for today
AI interpretationWrite it down
This week, with your children if they want to join in, write down a handful of specific things you are grateful for about him: the way he greeted you at the door, a walk you will always remember, how he was there through the divorce. Keep the list with his lead or collar. Then choose one daily habit he gave you, such as an evening walk, and keep it going for a while in his honour.
A line to carry
“It is better to enjoy pleasures which soon leave us than to enjoy none at all.”
— Seneca, To Marcia, on Consolation 12