My kitty Ellie was hit by a car last weekend; she died instantly.

I found out when a neighbor came into my house to let me know there was a cat in my driveway. When I went outside, there was Ellie, laying on her side. She looked like she was sleeping, but she was gone.

I was devastated.

And then I had to tell my kids and decide whether they should see her.

I decided that they should have a chance to say goodbye and I carried her in my arms to where they were playing.

When I was a kid, our dog died. I don’t remember my parents helping me to process the grief at all. What I do remember is that, like my kids, I didn’t express sadness immediately. I didn’t really know what to say.

My parents took that to mean I didn’t care and said words that led me to believe there was something wrong with me for 1) not noticing our dog was gone earlier and 2) not feeling immediate sadness that he was gone.

Looking back now, I realize this was just one case where my parents had a lot of thoughts about the ways I “should” feel about things.

That made it difficult for me later in life to discern how I did feel v. how I should feel.

And, I’m sure it contributed to the fact that even now I have a difficult time expressing my feelings with my mom.

When my kids saw me carrying Ellie and I told them what happened, they didn’t really seem that upset. They had a friend over and wanted to keep playing. They comforted me momentarily and then returned to their game. (side note: their friend’s dad was over when the whole thing happened and was fine with me telling my kids while he was there).

Had I judged their reactions in the moment, I would have done just what my parents did and made them feel as if there was something wrong with them for not feeling sadness or acting more sad that Ellie was gone. All that would have done is made them feel bad and made it very unlikely they would feel safe expressing their sadness later.

I didn’t comment at all on their feelings. I just let them know I was sad and let them keep playing.

Later on in the evening, when their friend had left, Kaia and Noah started asking a lot of questions about Ellie and I asked them to each share what they loved about Ellie the most. It was then that the tears fell for both of them.

By giving them their own time and space to process Ellie’s death, I gave my kids the dignity and respect of dealing with their feelings in their own way and in their own time. Sometimes that’s hard to do because we have expectations of “the way things should be” in the moment. But if we can take a step back and allow every person to have his or her own experience and accept that expression exactly as it is, our own ability to be authentic in the moment will grow stronger.