Hello TwilightWoods: Thank you for sharing your grief here on PC. I see this is your first post. Welcome to Psych Central. One additional forum, here on PC, that may be of interest to you would be the grief & loss forum. Here's a link to that one:

https://forums.psychcentral.com/grief-and-loss/

You might also like to check out the pets sub-forum:

https://forums.psychcentral.com/our-pets/

And then here are links to 3 articles, from Psych Central's archives, on the subject of pet loss, the first by our host Dr. John Grohol, Psy.D. Dr. Grohol's article also provides links to additional articles on the subject:

Losing a Pet Can Be Just as Hard as Losing a Loved One

15 Myths About Pet Loss

Grieving a Pet is Real | Strategies to Live and Thrive

I hope you find PC to be of benefit.