Collecting the Dead: My Closet Is a Pet Cemetery

For over 20 years, I’ve kept the cremated remains of my pets—but I don’t know what to do with them

Kristina Wright’s conure parrot Lola, who passed away in 2024

At a summer barbecue in 2004, a friend from the library where I worked stood by my fireplace, scanning the framed photos on the mantle. Her gaze settled on a floral box about the size of a tea tin.

With a playful nudge, I bumped her shoulder and asked, “Do you want to pet my cat?”

When I picked up the box labeled “Orville” and held it out to her, she flinched. “That’s so morbid!”

It was morbid, but my dark humor masked the lingering grief of losing my sweet, blind tabby the summer before. Orville’s ashes may have been the first to rest on my mantle, but he was neither the first—nor the last—pet I would love and lose.

My childhood dog, Jarvis, died when I was twelve. My mother thought he was a peekapoo, though he didn’t look like one—short-haired, thirty pounds, and nothing like the fluffy dog she had expected. He was meant to be the family pet, but he chose me as his person. He met me by the door when I got home from school, slept at the foot of my bed, and followed me everywhere. Even his name came from me, borrowed from a beloved stuffed bunny. He was my shadow, my constant companion, until the night he wasn’t.

I woke up thirsty and found Jarvis sitting in the living room, his breathing heavy, his eyes glazed, tongue hanging out. I tried to coax him back to my room, but he didn’t move. He just stared at me with an expression I’ve never forgotten. I was just a kid—unsure, unprepared. So I went back to bed.

By morning, he was gone. My parents left with him and returned alone. My mother’s eyes were red-rimmed when she told me, “It was his heart.”

I didn’t even get to say goodbye.

I hadn’t known to worry that Jarvis might die. His loss was a shock, made heavier by the resentment I felt when my parents brought home a new dog just a few months later. To me, it felt like they were trying to replace him—and my heart couldn’t take it. I never bonded with the new dog, Muffet. It wasn’t her fault, but there were days I couldn’t bear to even look at her because my heart was broken over the dog I had lost.

Decades later, I still can’t let go of my pets. Over the years, I’ve collected tins and urns, each holding the ashes of a beloved companion. Orville was the first. He died in the summer of 2003 while my husband was deployed with the Navy. I held him as he took his final breaths, then sat there, lost in grief, unsure of what to do next. In tears, I called a friend.

“What do I do with him now?” I asked.

She gently suggested cremation.

A week after Orville’s death, I brought his ashes home in a small decorative tin, tucked inside a gift bag with a certificate of cremation—an oddly cruel (and yes, morbid) sort of gift. Unsure what else to do, I placed him on the mantle. Five years later, my calico cat Annabelle joined him, followed by Wilbur, Orville’s grumpy brother, in 2010. Henry, our pre-kids dog, passed in 2011. Grace, a stray I rescued and rehabilitated, died the following year. As the mantle grew crowded and my toddlers searched for “Gwace” under the bed, I moved the remains to a cabinet.

Out of sight, out of mind. For my children, at least.

When we moved in 2016, I packed them all, four cats and a dog, into a box labeled “Pet Stuff” and brought them with us to our new house. By then, we’d buried small pets in the backyards of two houses—hamsters, gerbils, finches, a parakeet, even a kissing fish named Leo. But these ashes came with us and, once unpacked, they went into the back of my closet tucked inside a grocery bag.

That’s where my five-year-old son found them one day. “What’s inside?” he asked, probably hoping for candy or birthday presents.

“Just some old pet stuff,” I told him. It wasn’t a lie—the bag held not just cremated remains, but also collars, clay paw prints, condolence cards, and even a clipping of Henry’s fluffy blond fur.

I’ve only recently begun to consider that my inability to let go of my pets might stem from the trauma of losing Jarvis so suddenly. His absence was so final, so shocking, in a way I wasn’t prepared for. Maybe that’s why I feel an unexpected relief when I bring my pets’ ashes home—it gives me a sense of closure. But now, years later, the tins and boxes still sit in my closet and I don’t know what to do with them.

With every loss, I second-guess myself. Was it the right time? Could I have done more? Would it have made a difference? I’ve had to make difficult choices for most of my pets, deciding when their suffering was too much. It’s a crushing responsibility, made bearable only by the belief that it’s the kindest thing I can do when all other options have been exhausted. Almost every time, I’ve been there in their final moments, whispering love and apologies as they slipped away.

I was six months pregnant with my youngest son when we lost our dog Henry. Sitting on the floor of the vet’s office as he took his last breaths, I fought back tears as I told him what a good boy he was and how much we loved him—so much that, eighteen months earlier, we had given our oldest son his name as a second middle name. My youngest son never got to meet Henry, but he has often said he feels like he knows him from our stories and photos.

In July 2018, we lost the first pet in our new home—Savannah, our twenty-year-old curmudgeonly cat, who died in my arms late one night. My kids were old enough to understand death and grief, and while they were understandably sad, they were also a little freaked out by the dead cat in a box in the laundry room. Savannah’s ashes soon joined the others in my closet, resting alongside her best friend, Henry.

Four years later, we lost Clementine, our eleven-year-old “pound puppy,” whose health had been declining for several years. An in-home veterinarian helped her pass peacefully, with my ten-year-old son and me by her side. In that moment, my focus was on him; he had asked to be there, and I wanted to make sure he was okay as we told Clemmie we loved her. Afterward, I cried for days. When her cremains were delivered to my doorstep in a box, I put her collar and paw print in the velvet bag with the container holding her ashes and added her to the growing collection in my closet.

Now we’re down to two dogs—Barnaby and Piper—and one cat, Jasper. They’re all close enough in age that I worry we’ll lose them like dominoes in a few years. I’ve sworn, no more pets, but my husband isn’t convinced. To be honest, I’m not sure I believe it myself. I said I was done with cats when we were down to just Savannah, unwilling to face that kind of loss again. But then Jasper—my scrappy, ginger stray—ran straight into my path as a kitten and, instead of bolting when I got out of the car, ran to me.

Who am I to say no when a pet chooses me?

A few months ago, we lost our longest-living pet. Lola, a blue-crowned conure, had been with us since 1994. She had briefly belonged to two other people before we took her in, completely clueless about how to care for a parrot. It was a learning experience for all of us, and Lola never hesitated to let us know, loudly, when we got it wrong. Conures can live up to thirty years, and she surpassed that by at least a year or two, so her death shouldn’t have been a surprise. But the suddenness of it, following the onset of a respiratory illness, was still heartbreaking.

Her small blue-gray urn now sits on a shelf. Every day I say “Good morning” to her, and months later, I still catch myself expecting her to chirp back. Some days, I swear I hear her.

Lola’s urn, one of numerous pet remains Kristina Wright has kept

Now that my kids are older, I’m thinking about bringing the other pets out of the closet, too. But I don’t know what to do with them. We’ve talked about burying them in the yard since we don’t plan to move again—but what if we do? After carrying them with me for over twenty years, will I regret leaving them behind? I’ve also considered combining their ashes into one larger urn engraved with their names, but it feels wrong to mix pets who never knew each other—or worse, ones who didn’t get along in life. Am I overthinking it?

Paralyzed by indecision, their ashes remain as they always have—tucked away in the closet, except for Lola. A steady reminder of love, loss, and the countless goodbyes that never, ever get easier. Eventually, I’ll have to decide what to do with them so my children don’t inherit that choice. Would it be wrong to have their ashes added to mine someday—or is that a morbid thought? For now my pets will stay with me—because keeping them close is the only thing that feels right.

I only wish I could have Jarvis with me, too.

Kristina Wright has written personal essays for a variety of publications, including the Washington Post, Business Insider, The Girlfriend, and Narratively. She is a regular contributor at BookBub and writes a monthly column for the Washington Independent Review of Books. Kristina lives in the suburbs of Richmond, Virginia, with her husband, two teenage sons, two Goldendoodles, and a ginger cat.