Creative Ways to Help Your Child Memorialize and Remember a Lost Pet

Losing a beloved pet is hard on anyone. If you have recently lost a pet, you may be wondering how to deal with the grief over the loss and how to help your child understand what has happened.

In this article, I hope to offer you some encouragement and some creative projects for ways to move through the grieving process and to help honor your pet's memory. Pets do provide us with so much emotional comfort and support so take a little time to reflect on all the happiness that you experienced together.

Create a Memory Collage
Engage your child with this project. By actively participating in the collage, your child will be able to remember the good times he or she had with a special pet.

Make copies of photographs of your pet. Use glue to adhere them onto a poster board. Use scissors or other cropping tools to cut them into shapes and add interest to the collage. Leave a little space at the top or bottom to write in your pet's name and a special phrase. When the project is completed, have your child help you select a perfect spot to hang the collage. It might be in the child's bedroom, on the refrigerator, or a place of honor in the hallway.

Commission a Painting of Your Pet
If you or your child is interested in painting, try recapturing a special memory on canvas. If you're not the painting type, think about having a portrait of your pet painted where you can display it in your house as a special memory. One of my favorite pet watercolorists is Lisa Chase. View her online gallery to see her beautiful paintings. You can email her a picture of your pet, and she'll reproduce it for you at reasonable prices in beautiful watercolors for a lasting memory.

Donate to an Animal Charity
After our beloved cat of many years died recently, I donated to a nearby animal rescue hospital in my cat's name. They sent us a beautiful thank you card and letter that we included in a scrapbook. For other children, you can have them send in the donation with a handwritten letter. Later, the child can add the thank you note to a special memory book alongside pictures of your pet.