I don't think I mentioned it here before, but one of my budgies died back in March. He was everyone's favorite, and the loss was painful for us. It wasn't a sudden or unexpected passing though, as he had been sick for a long time and had pretty much been in hospice care for months at that point. I was medicating him three times a day and my schedule revolved around taking care of him. It was tough, but I wanted him to have the best quality of life I could give him. He had vet appointments every couple weeks to check on his condition, and sometimes it took hours for them to finish. I spent a lot of time in my car in the parking lot there. The vet was always very kind and talked to me at length about Bill and the treatment options.

Today I received a card from the vet. Everyone in the office had signed it and written a note expressing their condolences about Bill. Reading it was emotional for me, and brought up feelings that I had mostly not been feeling for awhile as life moved on. It's funny though, because I don't think I ever met most of the people who signed the card, and I doubt that they all met Bill or got to know him in a way that showed why he was so special to us. For that matter, I'm sure they send these cards to all their patients who lose a pet, so they probably have default messages that they write. Despite that, it's still a very touching gesture to me. It doesn't matter whether these people knew Bill or actually care that we loved him deeply and are grieving his loss. Somehow it's still impactful that they said something at all.

As I get older I understand more and more the value of this kind of gesture. When I was younger I thought these things were pointless without sincerity of sentiment, or that just expressing the sentiment verbally was more than enough, and a card was superfluous and pointless. I mostly thought these things about thank you cards, but I would have felt the same about sympathy cards if that was a more regular artifact in my life. These days I feel differently about it. I'm still not in the habit of sending thank you cards, but they make sense to me in a way they didn't before. Engaging in this behavior signals to the other person that you care-- not necessarily about whatever you're writing in the card-- but about social conventions and expectations. I know that seems burdensome to a lot of people, but those social conventions provide structure in our lives, which is necessary on some level to feel secure and comfortable. For me, this card is a reassurance, not just that someone cared about my bird, but that they cared about me enough to follow a norm that gives me the structure that serves as a buffer between me and the void formed of ambiguity and uncertainty. Structure is important during grief, when it can otherwise feel like things are falling apart.

Being able to tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty is a strength, but it does take energy and causes stress. I am grateful when I have the option to follow a prescribed social norm that eases the burden of having to figure out something entirely on my own. Even if I ultimately decide not to follow it, it's nice to know that there is an established way of doing things sometimes.

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