At Wildflower, we spend much of our time walking alongside people through the loss of human loved ones. We witness grief in all its forms—quiet, complicated, raw, and deeply personal. And yet, every so often, someone will say something almost apologetically: “I don’t know why this hurts so much… it was just my dog.”Or “I feel silly being this upset about a cat.”

Ambiguous grief, or ambiguous loss, is grieving a significant relationship change or loss where there's no clear closure, often involving someone who is physically present but psychologically gone, like with dementia. The emotional, psychological, and spiritual processes that come with ambiguous grief are very different than those that come with unambiguous grief, like that following a death.