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Woman turns grief over beloved dog's death into a second career
By Dave Ferman, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas


December 1998 turned to spring 1999, and Diane Pomerance couldn't stop crying, which didn't make any sense. Yes, her beloved dog Caesar was dead from cancer, but the sad-eyed Alaskan malamute/Labrador mix had enjoyed a good life after being rescued from a Los Angeles park in 1985. And besides, Pomerance had a happy marriage, a flourishing media career and three other dogs.

It's not like Caesar's death was the end of her life -- it just felt like it. The death merely compounded years of a stressful career. "I'd go off to the park where I used to take Caesar and cry and cry," Pomerance said. "And I started researching grief, and I found there was nobody to turn to for counseling. I really thought I was losing it." Talking about her grief was difficult. Many people, she said, told her that Caesar was "just a dog" or something similar and couldn't understand why she was so upset. Couldn't she just, you know, keep a stiff upper lip and all that?

Pomerance channeled her grief and the lack of sympathy she received into a second career. She has written and self-published five books about grieving over pet loss, and related topics. (Visit her website: http://www.animalcompanionsandtheirpeople.com) She also counsels those suffering from the loss of a pet -- in groups, over the phone and over the Internet, often in conjunction with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Texas.

"People are almost afraid to talk about grief," said Pomerance, 54, "It's more difficult with pets because people will accept grieving over another person. But there's tons of people out there who regard pets as family members." Pomerance's books and her counseling have helped people heal emotionally, said James Bias, president of the SPCA of Texas. "This is a passion for her, not a paycheck," Bias said. "Several times a week, we get a phone call or an e-mail from someone saying how much Diane has helped. These people deserve the respect other people get when they lose a friend."

Pomerance was born in New York City, the oldest of three children of Benjamin, a college professor, and Gerda Yapko, a nurse. The family lived in numerous cities, including Milwaukee and Washington, D.C., before settling in the Detroit area when Pomerance was 16. She began her TV career as a production secretary with NBC in 1976 and over several years worked as a production associate and then an associate director for Captain Kangaroo. She has also been an associate director for The --- Cavett Show and a segment producer for PM Magazine. In 1972, she married Norm Pomerance, whom she had met on a school bus when both were in high school. In 1985, the couple moved to Los Angeles. They returned to Texas in 1995.

After all the complications of living in Los Angeles and then leaving that city and their friends behind, Caesar's death in 1998 was "the straw that broke the camel's back," Pomerance said. "Grief is cumulative," she said. So she researched grief and began writing the highly acclaimed children's nonfiction book on pet loss, When Your Pet Dies which teaches children how to cope with and recover from not only the loss of a beloved companion animal but the inevitable losses all of us experience.

She became certified as a grief-recovery specialist by the Sherman Oaks, California-based Grief Recovery Institute. In 1999, she founded the SPCA of Texas' pet grief counseling program and wrote its training manual. Her book Finding Peace: After the Loss of a Loved Animal Companion "is much more specific about the steps in grieving and how you can translate that loss into something positive," she said, sitting inside her home while some of the family's 14 dogs played in the large back yard, which features a pond with ducks, catfish and turtles. She is also the author of Animal Companions: Your Friends, Teachers & Guides, Animal Companions: In Our Hearts, Our Lives & Our World and her most recent book Animal Elders: Caring About Our Aging Animal Companions.

"I've lost many friends -- human and canine and feline and equine -- and the book goes into a lot of details about grief recovery and getting on with your life," Pomerance said. "It deals with loss of every kind. We need the tools to find peace, and they have to come from inside us."

ANIMAL COMPANIONS AND THEIR PEOPLE: http://www.animalcompanionsandtheirpeople.com