Blog Contests are a Win-Win

Posted on July 3rd, 2008 in corporate world, mommy blogging, new media, web 2.0 by Kelby

Stand out with a blog contestI have won four blog contests in the past month. I am not the luckiest person on earth. I also don’t have time to spend hours entering online contests. But I am a perfect example of why blog contests are a win-win, both for the participants and the companies providing the prizes. This is a case of less definitely being more.

It can be pretty difficult to explain to someone in a company that engagement with a smaller group is actually better. That is part of the reason I think corporations are having a tough time in general in marketing during these times of information overload. But to cut through all this clutter, it is better to connect closely with a few than it is to be barely a blip on the radar of the masses.

The benefits for are pretty clear. They get a contest, which helps drive traffic and can be used to encourage interaction with their blog (with feed subscriptions, comments, etc.). But there are a few reasons why blog contests are a better return on investment for companies than your generic, impersonal traditional contest:

  • Blog readers are often themselves. They are likely to write about the contest, or the products. They are likely to have more respect for your company, just for the sheer fact that you are connecting with .
  • You can do more than engage those who enter to give you a faceless name, email and address. You can prompt them to discuss your product or say which product you offer that is their favorite (then you have people recommending you before they even try you!). Better yet, you can encourage them to promote your product for free by making a blog post or link to the contest one way to enter the contest.
  • are wonderful promoters themselves. If you provide a contest prize for a blog, odds are great the blogger will promote the contest (and your product) across social networks. You could try this yourself as a corporation but, well, it won’t work. Social networking is about people, not entities. In fact, I believe I heard about all of these contest from moms I follow on . I get loads of emails about company contests in my in-box that I ignore.
  • The same who enter the contest can become new leads for your marketing efforts. For example, in the case of a couple of the prizes I won, I later asked the PR or marketing person about partnering with me for my own contests or other promotions. In fact, I often look at my favorite blogger’s contests to get ideas of which companies “get it” when it comes to outreach to .
  • You can directly target very specific audiences, whether you want to reach out to single moms or web 2.0 dads or photographers or geeky -junkie foodie mom types.
  • who win prizes tend to write, tweet, blog, and share news about it.

And just to prove my point, I will write about some of the cool prizes I’ve recently won. So if nothing else, you companies are getting that extra bit of exposure… and the cool who hosted the contests are getting some sweet link love.

And I will definitely continue entering blog contests.

Photo of standing out of the crowd with a blog contest, © andrej troha

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Are You a Blogger or Blog Junkie? Start Noshing!

Posted on June 26th, 2008 in freelance writing, journalism, mommy blogging, new media, parenting, web 2.0 by Kelby

I can’t resist a great idea. This is why my About me page makes me look mildly psychotic. But hey, I’m known as the queen type-A mom, so that’s just me. When I first heard about Blog Nosh Magazine, I knew I had to get a bite of that. First of all, it’s the brainchild of the mind behind Velveteen Mind (add her to your feed right now, yo!).

Beyond that, however, I liked the idea of a magazine style blog to serve as the epicenter of the blogosphere. For one thing, I think there are certain old school fools who think isn’t real writing. Well, Blog Nosh is about to truly prove you wrong. Off the top of my head, I can list several amazing writers who are .

Flash forward to today, and the site launched with quite a buzz. I am one of the esteemed Blog Nosh editors for the geeky-sweet Tech and Metablogging channel. And I’m in some amazing company… I can’t list everyone, but you can see the list of editors. It includes some of my fave at cool must-read blogs like Crash Test Mommy, This Mommy Gig, Mamma Loves, doobleh-vay, To Think is to Create, so many more I’ve got to just stop.

If you’re still wondering what exactly Blog Noshin’s about, this is the succinct description on the site:

What is Blog Nosh Magazine? We are an online magazine featuring the best archived content from primarily personal blogs, spotlighting a cross-section of topics and perspectives. New posts daily.

For , if it has fallen off of your front page and you know it deserves more time and exposure, we are your ideal resource. We are in the business of building your audience. As such, we republish your posts in full. Teasers and headlines alone aren’t always enough to tempt new readers, so we give them the opportunity to nosh on your writing in its original form, not just through crumbs that don’t entice much click-through.

For readers, we are a veritable blog buffet. A little bit of this, a little more of that, and lots of treats you never thought you would even want to try, let alone enjoy. We hope you will take the time to read posts in categories and channels that you might never seek out on your own. Most importantly, we ask you to take a moment to click through to the blogs of the authors we spotlight. This site only works if the authors feel they are gaining a real reader, not a random one-time hit. Give them a chance– we’ve already taste-tested them for you!

So hey you and blogaholics, get Noshing.

(Psst: If you’re a blogger, you can get some sweet free exposure by submitting one of your kick-butt posts for consideration on the Nosh.)

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Why Newspaper Stories Need to Be Longer - Part I of the Newspapers Are Doing It Wrong Series

Posted on June 24th, 2008 in journalism, new media by Kelby

I have some advice for newspapers. I won’t even charge you for it. I know you can barely afford to have each reporter do 3-7 beats as it is, so consider this one a freebie. Hey, you underpaid me for 15 years, so I guess I owe you.

You are doing it all wrong. All of it. Wrong. Just stop.

Newspapers are running the wrong way.

Hey, it happens. We all can panic when we’re confronted with change. It’s called the fight or flight response. And newspapers have taken the flight route. Sad.

Step back five years, maybe 10. Newspapers see their penetration levels dipping, just a little, so they all do a redesign. They all switch to an a.m. cycle. (Is there an afternoon daily left? I’d love to hear about it.) They realize young people are not reading newspapers, so they decide to revamp to be alluring to said young people.

And don’t think they were, like, losing money. In fact, they were still making money. A lot of it. A fellow newsroom reporter characterized it perfectly. They used to make money hand over fist. Then, they were just making a shitload of money.

“Why, oh why, won’t 20-35 year old males read us?” they lamented! (Psst: it’s because they don’t like you, and they don’t have time for you, and they have wives and families who keep them far too busy to spend time with you.)

Flash forward to today and you can see how this strategy worked out for newspapers. Umm, yeah.

So here I am going to break down each thing you newspapers are doing, and why you should be doing the exact opposite to survive and even thrive.

So I’ve decided to start a series, one just for my own amusement because I know there isn’t a newspaper executive who is actually listening (or even knows what a blog really is). But hey, if you’re still working in newspapers you could, like, print this on paper and fax it to your editor. Maybe then they will listen to it. Let me know if you need a masthead.

I would worry this is burning bridges, but I pretty much set a torch to that bridge a while back anyway. So expect me to be quite blunt, open and frank in this series.

In this issue, one of the biggest, baddest, panicky things newspapers are doing: newspapers are going shorter when they should be going longer.

If people want short news, if they just want to know what happens when it happens, they are not turning to newspapers. Why would they? They can get it online or on TV faster. In this day and age, they can find almost anything one can possibly think of written sooner from a source other than the print newspaper.

There is only one thing the newspaper has to offer that a newspaper can do better than anyone. The long story. The investigative, special project story. The story that (now don’t sprain yourself) takes time to report. It takes time to craft it into an amazing piece of compelling writing that someone will read from lead to inch number 50.

Yes, I said time. So you need to quit doing what you call “beat shuffling” but all the reporters know is really downsizing. I was working at a Gannett newspaper, a reporter who was skilled at advanced computer-assisted reporting (as in building databases from scratch, followed by analyzing them, and then reporting, and then writing). I was told I would be the assistant business editor with loads of time for projects.

By the time I left (and left the news business entirely), I was expected to do the following in a typical week:

  • Edit the business section when the business editor wasn’t in (as in, daily)
  • Edit the real estate section
  • Cover a small town
  • Cover the transportation beat
  • Be a business reporter
  • Do business briefs
  • Do some dorky weekly construction report thingie (mindless BS)
  • Attend numerous staff meetings
  • Attend editor meetings when the business editor wasn’t in (again, quite frequent)
  • Post breaking news update to the web site (and they would get on you if they discovered you were slacking to less than 2-3 daily)
  • Write 2-3 special project stories per month

Yes, you saw the last one correctly. How hilarious is that? At my previous job, my entire job description was that last bullet although, of course, in reality I did much more… such as getting yanked off reporting and running a local news desk for a couple months. That kind of ate into my investigative reporting time.

Needless to say, with newspapers operating this constant “feed the beast” mentality in some vain attempt to keep up with the myriad faster news sources, that doesn’t leave much time for, well, .

But newspapers should be embracing what they are. They are the perfect spot to do the opposite. There are few things in life better than kicking back with a Sunday newspaper, sipping on coffee, and reading an in-depth investigative piece and news feature. Nothing.

And that is the one thing newspapers have on all their competition. And it’s the one thing they flat-out refuse to do because it takes commitment to real against all odds, commitment to real because readers should be more important than profit margins and studies and demographics and penetration rates.

Part of the reason I got on this tear was something I read by the Queen of Spain blogger Erin Kotechi Vest, who is a fellow journalist turned blogger. If you haven’t yet, go read the full post, Damn You Harry Shearer.

Rarely was I able to dig any further, as the news cycle was short, the attention span of listeners shorter, and I had an average of 30 seconds to tell you everything you needed to know.

That is not , that is marketing packaged as fast-food news and information.

On the few occasions I approached news directors and asked them for the time or leeway to dig a bit further, I found myself in that real world where you are looking and striving to hold someone or something accountable. To find out what really happened, and make it public.

Damn brilliant.

So what is the solution in an industry that is laying off and consolidating left and right, even outsourcing local news to India? How can you do more with fewer reporters?

Well, I have a confession to make. When I was temporary editor for a Lee Enterprises newspaper, reporters would often tell me about a bigger, better story they could write if they had just a few days. You can ask any of those reporters, and they will tell you. If it sounded like a cool story, I told them to go for it. I told them I would much rather have a kick-ass Sunday story than a lame Tuesday story. I just made sure I didn’t have the whole newsroom doing real at the same time.

Nothing bad happened. The beast didn’t attack. The newspaper was printed, and all the news holes got filled. Shoot, I rarely even used AP copy. But you newspapers can. If you really think 90 percent of your readers distinguish between AP stories (or an AP story with a local lead) and your own reporters’ stories, you are seriously deluding yourself.

If I’d told the powers that be about my strategy, they would have flipped. After all, this is a newspaper where we were told in-depth stories should be no longer than 10 inches. This is where I was working as a special projects/CAR reporter. Not good. I totally swear I am not making this up. This is not a joke. You can read the full internal memo sent to Romanesko if you don’t believe what you are about to read. Or if you don’t want to believe. This was a directive:

Routine stories need be no longer than 6-8 inches. In-depth stories should be within the 10-12 range.

Our technique must be – tell ‘em what the story is about, tell the story and get out quickly.

Wow. Yeah. Take a moment and just soak that in. This is what has happened to a business that once brought down a President.

What newspapers should do instead is feed the beast crap instead of tying up your reporters’ valuable time regurgitating press releases or compiling information for cutesy graphics or writing briefs. Use the wire for filler, not real reporters with real brains. Shoot, let the beginners do that.

But those reporters who want to do more, who have the skill and passion to do more, let them loose! Let them be newspaper reporters. Again.

And for those of you who just like newspapers, and miss them, go read real journalism where you can still find it from time to time. And when you do, write the publishers of those newspapers and tell them you want more of it.

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Homemade Bruschetta from Garden Tomatoes and Basil

Posted on June 18th, 2008 in food by Kelby

This is precisely a main reason, a culmination, of why I am doing my . It’s just for amazing experiences like this. Just yesterday, I glanced over towards my garden. I noticed a flash of red. Not green, and not the even more likely brown. Red. It stopped me in my tracks.

Tomatoes fresh from my garden Tomatoes. Tomatoes that I grew on my own. This may not sound amazing, but considering my brown thumb, this is nothing short of miraculous.

It’s funny the simple pleasures for a foodie mom like myself, too. It’s amazing that I found the time to grow these tomatoes, and it’s amazing they grew. It’s amazing that I could walk over and pick four fire engine red tomatoes from my own garden.

I looked at my special little tomatoes and pondered what to do with them. There really wasn’t enough to make something for the whole family. Each tomato was maybe one to two inches around. I could smell the tomato awesomeness just oozing from them. I also have so much basil growing, I don’t even know what to do with it. So it clicked. It was time to make bruschetta. Brilliant.

BruschettaI should also specify that I decide to make brushetta for me, and just for me, and not for anyone else. It isn’t very often a mom can do something completely and utterly selfish. We’re constantly thinking of the kids first. But I had this gift, and it was just enough for one.

I waited for the kids to go down for nap. Then I did it. I diced the tomatoes. I grabbed a couple of the little dices just to get a pure taste of the tomatoes. It was so amazing, I had to take a sample to my husband. I had to bug him to try it (”This is what home grown tomatoes taste like, honey!”), and even he (the lover of all things pizza and burger) was impressed with the flavor.

I chopped some basil, then let them marinate in some organic extra virgin olive oil. I then tossed in some crumbled feta cheese and sprinkled a little sea salt, and served it over toasts.

Then I sat back, relaxed, and tasted. Unbelievable.

Bruschetta close-up

So even though it took hours of effort, and it cost money for my raised bed, and I had to encounter all sorts of Homeric-like challenges (well, bugs, dirt and the threat of frost), it was all worth it.

This is the ultimate local food. Forget farm to table, this is yard to table. Delicious!

Bruschetta close-up Bruschetta Adding crumbled feta cheese to the bruschetta The tomatoes are marinating Fresh tomatoes and basil marinating in olive oil My homegrown tomatoes Tomatoes fresh from my garden

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Need Some Ultimate Indulgence? Try Thalassotherapy

Posted on June 16th, 2008 in travel by Kelby

A popular pursuit in since the 1960s, the Aquitaine is a prime destination for pursuit of thalassotherapy. Thalassotherapie, translated to mean sea water cure, was discovered by a Tour de cyclist who healed from his injuries by sea water in his home of Brittany. Today, there are numerous thalassotherapy treatment centers in the Aquitaine, which has become a bit of an epicenter of thalassotherapy.

I posted an article on my About.com site: Thalassotherapy Spas

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Cathar Country, an Amazing Undiscovered Part of France

Posted on June 16th, 2008 in travel by Kelby

One of the bloodiest points in the history of this area revolves around the rise and eventual massacre of the Christian Cathar religious sect in the 12th century. Tourists can visit the ruins of Cathar strongholds, and villages where crusaders conducted massacres with a trip to the beautiful and history-rich Cathar Country.

I just posted all about this cool place on my About.com site here: Cathar Country

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Bite Me, Wachovia! A Case Study in What’s Gone Wrong with the Banking Industry

Posted on June 7th, 2008 in corporate world by Kelby

bank fees and banking industryI am not that old. I am in my 30s. But I feel like a geriatric for what I’m about to say. I remember way back when banks didn’t piss me off. They didn’t suck. I actually used to have a bank that would call my cell phone or work if I was overdrawn just to let me know, and they would give me a couple hours to run the few doors over from my newsroom with some cash or a check to cover it instead of bouncing it. They wouldn’t put a 5-day hold if I told them I really needed the money now, and they would waive a silly fee if I asked nicely.

But banks like that keep getting devoured by banks that suck. Banks like Wachovia (although in my experience, Bank of America is a nightmare, as bad as bad banks go, but that is another tale for another time). Needless to say, the banking system long ago stopped serving customers and starting serving their own CEOs and investors.

I have my own personal case study in banking BS absurdity. We had a financial hit (as you may have read, when we unexpectedly one Wednesday lost our cat and cut a check to the vet for more than $700). It was a tough hit to the account, but I figured we’d live tightly for the few days until the next direct deposit went in.

Then an unauthorized charge went through, something that came about as a simple misunderstanding but resulted in $170-some in charges that weren’t correct or expected. This bumped the account only a mere $48 in the negative. So I’m sure I know what you must be thinking. That’s not a big deal right.

Think again, my friends. Think again. It was $48 in little charges like gas and a few $9 domain renewals. Each charge was a new fee. Grand total in fees was $280. Now, they only had to cover that for two days until the bad charge was reversed, but I can’t find an APR calculator that will calculate one day’s interest… so presuming they fronted me that money for an entire month, the APR they charged was 7,000% (or like 250 times the typical limit for interest rates on consumer loans). And yes, nearly six times the amount we were overdrawn.

Now they argued it wasn’t a loan, but really it is. But that’s besides the point.

I can understand how the charges got there in the first place, but here’s where I take issue. They flat out, absolutely refused to refund the fees. They acknowledged that it wasn’t my fault the account went negative. They also acknowledged that the money was refunded, and it was clearly an unauthorized charge. But they argued that it wasn’t THEIR mistake, so the fees were valid, and they would not refund them. Period.

Don’t think that I let it go at that. I made a grand total of five phone calls. I spoke to supervisors. One supervisor didn’t take kindly when I stated I would spread bad word of mouth about Wachovia. Here was how that pleasant convo went down:

Rude Wachovia supervisor: “Are you making threats?”

Me: “No, I’m stating a fact. If you treat a customer like crap, they will of course spread the word about it. How is that a threat?”

Rude Wachovia supervisor hung up.

Nice.

I talked to the local branch. Twice. They said there was nothing they could do.

Here’s what really gets me. It’s not like they would be losing money by crediting those fees back. This wasn’t money out of their pockets. This was less money they were making. There is a huge difference. So really, to decide to refuse to refund it is sending the message: “Screw you! No matter what the circumstances are, we will drain you of cash if we legally can do it.”

I actually did think about filing complaints and writing letters. But I decided to blog about it. Because I think there is more to this obnoxious tale than one customer’s bad experience (and nasty hit to the wallet). Just do a search with the name of any major bank and the word “sucks,” and you’ll find endless results. Can you do that with any other industry?

People are getting fed up, too. The owner of Wachoviabank-sucks dot com, for example, has an awesome statement blasting the bank plastered across the back of his minivan. Oh, too funny.

Banks are on a downward spiral, from the insane mortgage crisis (mortgage anyone? I mean anyone? ANYONE???) to credit card rates that double if you pay one day late to the incessant nit-picking of checking account customers with fees and loopholes and rules. In fact, the Charlotte Observer just did a piece about the impact of the banking industry’s calamity on their city (which is the second biggest banking center in the nation).

This is our money! You don’t have a right to have your way with it. Obviously, major legislation (and enforcement) is needed to get this out-of-control industry in line. I mean, we clearly (above example as a case in point) can’t count on them to do the right thing just because a customer asks.

Meanwhile, I’m moving to a smaller bank. I will keep moving to new banks until I find one that isn’t ridiculous, until I find one that treats me like a human and not their personal slush fund.

And I am asking you guys to help me prove a point. One, link to this post (and please comment if you do). Better yet, write your local senator or congressman and tell them the banking nonsense needs to stop now. Write your fave presidential candidate (or both!) and tell them the same. Write to your bank and tell them what you’ve done.

We need to send a message that we aren’t taking their crap anymore.

Until they get it, ask around. Find out which locally-owned bank people like (if you even have any left in your town). Open an account, and close your account with that mammoth bank. Let’s hit them where it really hurts. In their wallets.

Bank / money graphic © Barun Patro.

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Psst PR People: 5 Secrets to Annoying Mommy Bloggers

Posted on May 25th, 2008 in corporate world, mommy blogging by Kelby

PR people and corporations are just dying to get the attention and love of mommy . We’re like this mysterious creature they want to observe. Actually, we’re more like the cool chick they sooo want to be friends with, but they are so eager and desperate that it can never be.

There have been various fiascos, such as the Camp Baby Blogstorm. But hey, they say any PR is good PR, right? So if you hope to be the focus of some sweet mommy blog venom, and get all that great blog blasting that really helps a brand, here are some secrets to annoying the crap out of a mommy blogger. Cross your fingers! You just might tick her off enough to get her to blog about you!

  1. Send her a press release. In fact, go ahead and just cc her on a blanket release you’re also sending to about 100 other journalists and . We wouldn’t want the mommy blogger to feel special, would we? We wouldn’t want her to think you actually read her blog (if you simply must send it directly to her, be sure you misspell her name, too). Better yet, just add her to the email list to get all of your firm’s press releases. She won’t mind getting daily press release email blasts that have nothing to do with her blog.
  2. Pitch first, read her mommy blog later (or never). Mommy just love this. It really shows how much you don’t care. See, if you read her blog first you might get an idea of what she writes about, how she writes about it, or even if she has a policy of never doing reviews.
  3. Learn nothing about moms or mommy . That way, you can enjoy ignorant bliss and not realize that, for example, it might be an issue to have a mommy blogger event on Mother’s Day (or Easter , or Passover even). Request interviews during busy mom hours like mornings and afternoons (or 9-5 for working moms). Or at least insist interviews be handled by phone, because that’s so convenient for moms.
  4. Have childless people handle the pitches. That way you can avoid the PR people having any idea what will offend, annoy or provoke the mommy . After all, if you have moms or dads handling these things, you would never have all that blog coverage Johnson and Johnson got for telling a new mom she couldn’t bring a baby. Because, after all, a no-baby policy at Camp Baby is impossible to resist about.
  5. Treat mommy like old school journalists. Go ahead, assume they will respect your embargo (or know what an embargo is, since they might not have gone to J-School). I mean, annoy a journalist and the worst that will happen is probably nothing, no coverage. But you could get really lucky if you annoy a mommy blogger, and get her to slam you in her blog (and probably copy and paste your annoying email in its entirety, including linking your email address). She might even tell all her network of mommy blogger friends who will also blog about it. Then they will all tweet, stumble and Digg it.

What’s that? You don’t want the wrath of a mean circle of mommy ? Smart kid. If you want to do it correctly, I highly recommend you consult the great page by Velveteen Mind, Mommyblogging: the Resource. Be sure to scroll down to the section, On Mommyblogging and PR. Then also consult this great post from the Queen of Spain, “ So You Want to Talk to Mommybloggers.”

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Goodbye, Claudia - a Cat’s Obituary

Posted on May 22nd, 2008 in pets by Kelby

Claudia the CatIt is amazing, in fact astounding, just how intensely painful it is to lose a pet. Today, I stroked the fur of my sweet cat Claudia while her veterinarian euthanized her. This was easily one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. I’m pretty much an ice queen when it comes to emotions, but I’ve been crying off and on all day. I think there’s just something so intimate and raw about the simple love between a human and a pet. It’s not an easy thing to shake.

A decade ago, when my husband and I first started dating, we decided to get out first pet together. I brought a dog and cat into the relationship already. That’s when we met Claudia, who was just a tiny kitten. She had a hard story. She and her litter mates were found abandoned in a Dumpster. If someone hadn’t overheard their mews for help, she wouldn’t have lived 10 weeks much less 10 years.

Claudia was always a bit of a non-cat. When someone knocked on the door, my other cat would flee for cover while Claudia would sprint FOR the door to eagerly and happily greet whatever stranger was on the other side.

She was a cat who actually loved kids, even the small toddler types who grab tails and smack heads. In fact, even yesterday when she was struggling to breathe and lethargic, she went to the kids’ play area. She chose to spend the day before she died surrounded by screaming 2-year-olds and a raucous 5-year-old.

The twins were there when Claudia was put to sleep. I think they knew something was wrong. My son kept saying, “Claw claw.” He calls her that so much that the whole family actually calls Claudia the same thing just because we’ve heard it so much. We told them both to say bye-bye to Claudia when she was put to sleep. My son told Claudia, softly, “night-night,” as we walked away.

Claudia at Christmas My oldest child, my 5-year-old daughter, was the one I was most concerned about. She wasn’t there to say goodbye. She was always very close, even when she was a tiny baby. In fact, her first word was, “Kitty,” and she said it calling Claudia, who used to fawn all over her as a baby.

We picked up my daughter at daycare. She asked if Claudia was still in the car (as she was when we dropped her off, because we were headed to the vet’s office). I said no. I asked my husband if I should tell her now. We decided to get it done with.

I looked to the back of the minivan.

Me: “The doctor said Claudia was very, very, very sick.” In my mind, I knew I needed to say more. But I couldn’t. I just stared at her.

Daughter: She frowns deeply, and just stares back at me while she digests the idea. “Is she coming home when she’s better?”

Me: “No, honey. She’s gone.”

Daughter: “You mean she’s gone forever?”

Me: “Yes. I’m so sorry.”

Daughter: Her face crumbles. “But she’s my favorite kitty.”

Oh, it was just awful. Luckily, just like a kid, she was off on another subject a moment later. But it was still just so sad.

It’s also crossed my mind many times today how our life’s experiences of the past shape how we cope today. When I was just maybe 2 or 3 years old, our cat died. I was very young, but I distinctly remember the conversation with my parents. They told me she went to Heaven. So I asked where this alleged Heaven was, and when we could go visit her there. I couldn’t help thinking about this when deciding how to tell me children their cat was dead.

About a decade ago, a few months before adopting Claudia, I went through almost the exact same experience with my cat who was just 4 at the time. It was just awful, starting with the same symptom (rapid, labored breathing) and ending with most of his organs shutting down, an all-nighter wondering if he would make it, and a $1,000-plus vet bill.

I remember afterwards feeling that people just didn’t understand the difficulty of a pet’s death. It’s like people think, “Why are you so upset? It’s just a cat.” If only it were so simple, or easy. Afterwards, I regretted putting him through so many painful procedures and drawing the whole thing out. It was something in the back of my mind when my husband and I decided to euthanize Claudia, as the doctor felt she had a tumor and there was very little chance she would make it. I didn’t want her to suffer.

Many, many years ago as a gritty cops reporter, I witnessed an inmate’s execution by lethal injection. Today, it was just disturbing how much the process of euthanasia reminded me of that memory.

Honestly, I am not entirely sure why I’m writing this post. Maybe it’s to honor Claudia, or maybe it’s to help me cope with this urge to tear up every time I picture Claudia in my mind. I would like to think it’s a way to help or connect with those who have lost a pet, or will lose a pet.

Did you lose a pet? Feel free to add your pet’s obituary in a comment below. Or I hope in some small way this post helps you understand that it is OK to feel devastated, even if it’s “just a pet.” Because pets are, truly, so much more, and their death is no easy thing to endure.

Claudia update:

Thanks everyone for such kind comments. It really makes it all much easier to know I’m not the only one who got so upset about the death of a pet.

Also, and I find this a bit demented, but here’s a sign of a family of writers. My dad learned about the death of Claudia in his email inbox… when he got the daily feed email from my blog. So then wrote a poem, which he emailed me. This must be a case of modern technology and the interesting ways in which writers cope with bad news. Anyway, here is his very nice ode to Claudia:

Claudia, oh Claudia, what a character you were

You could prance, and prowl and purr

You walked and skipped with a happy face

Needing to keep your keeper in pace

You shunned being apart

Preferring to be in at the start

Which is why you were a marvelous pet

One of the best I’ve seen yet

I also got some amazing and sweet condolences on .

I posted this:

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Kelby Carr typeamom anyone have tips on explaining cat’s death to a 5-year-old and two 2-year-olds? or to a 30-something mom (aka me)? :*(

I’m just in awe of the way the simple interface connects one person sitting on a laptop with so many others. Here are the nice comments, and it’s amazing just how much people can say in 140 characters. For those of you who are/have dealt with the death of a pet and explaining it to a child, there are some great book recommendations:

Kimber Schmahl FabGirl @ typeamom Awww, saw this earlier and it made me so sad. We lost our PepperCat a few years ago. ON the weekend of my girls’ night out.
C @ FoodieTots FoodieTot @ typeamom sorry no advice, just sympathy and best wishes.
Christina christinalemmey @ typeamom So sorry about your cat! We had a similar experience in March and the Rainbow Bridge poem is great but had me in tears
followthatdog followthatdog @ typeamom there is a Mr. Rogers book called something like “When a pet dies” that we used for our son when our dog died. Very direct & kind
summerm summerm @ typeamom Oh how sad. I hope they take their cat’s death OK. :(
Devra Renner ParentopiaDevra @ typeamom Great book on death for kids “Fall of Freddy the leaf” and “Dinosaurs Die” also “10th best thing about barney” good for all ages!
Becky Carey busymom6 @ typeamom sorry about your cat, great book called Cat Heaven
Michael Pelz-Sherman mpelzsherman @ typeamom I mean, who better to trust with this stuff than Mr. Rogers?