How to Get Through Pet Loss Anniversaries and Hard Dates
Updated: Sep 29
In this video, Grant Hazell, Pet Loss Grief Expert, shares practical guidance for navigating pet loss anniversaries, holidays, and other emotionally significant dates. He explains why grief can feel more intense around these milestones and offers a compassionate approach to preparing for them through self-compassion, reflection, and intentional ritual. This video supports anyone facing a hard date after pet loss and looking for a steadier, more grounded way to get through it.
There are dates on the calendar that look ordinary to everyone else and feel completely different to you. The anniversary of when you lost your pet. Their birthday. The first Christmas without them. The gotcha day you've been quietly dreading since the last one came and went in tears.
These dates don't just remind you of your loss. They pull your grief closer. The yearning becomes more intense. The absence that you've been managing suddenly feels as raw as the first week. That's not a setback. It's a normal part of how grief moves through time.
Why Hard Dates Feel Different
When we assign meaning to a particular date, we create a signal, and grief responds to it. The anticipation of an anniversary can sometimes be as hard as the day itself. You feel the dread building, and then the day arrives, and all of it lands at once. This isn't grief going backward. It's grief doing exactly what it does when it's still present and working.
Don't Avoid. Lean In
The instinct to distract yourself on hard dates makes sense, but Grant Hazell's guidance is to move the other way. Trying to push the feelings away, stay busy, or work through the day like nothing has happened tends to make the pressure worse, not better. The feelings are going to come. Allowing them to arrive, noticing them, naming them, is what lets them move.
On the day, let yourself feel it. Allocate time, even just half an hour, to be with the grief intentionally. Have a conversation with your pet, write down your thoughts, adopt a ritual that brings you closer to their memory. "I'm going to feel everything," Grant says. "I'm going to notice. I'm going to name. I'm going to show myself a lot of compassion."
What Holidays Need From You
Holidays are their own kind of hard date, especially the ones that were tied to togetherness. Christmas. Their birthday. The anniversary of when you first brought them home. These are days when their absence feels both universal and specific at once.
The approach is the same: allow the pain to be present. Surround yourself with people who understand if you can. Tap into whatever grounds you. These days will pass, the same as every other day has. Nothing has changed in how much you love them. Your grief is just a little closer right now, and that's okay.
Grant Hazell is a Pet Loss Grief Expert and the founder of The Pet Loss Counselor.
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