The hardest page is the blank one.
People write to the press, often, in the first week after a dog dies, or a cat, or a rabbit who outlived everyone's predictions. They say: I want to make a book. I don't know what to put in it. They apologise for the email being short, or for sending it at midnight, or for not knowing what they are doing. None of that needs apologising for. The page is hard because the thing it has to hold is heavy. Of course you don't know what to write yet. You only just lost them.
This is a note from the studio about six small ways to begin. Not a template. Not a formula. Just six places to put the pencil down, when the whole story feels too large to start.
Begin with one specific thing only you would have noticed.
Not she was the best dog. Not he was a good boy. Everyone's dog was the best dog. Everyone's cat was a good cat. The sentences that survive are the ones nobody else could have written about anyone else. The corner of the kitchen where she stood when the doorbell rang. The way he sighed before he lay down, the same three-note sigh, every time. The spot on the rug, six inches across, that she had pressed flat over thirteen years and that we cannot now bring ourselves to vacuum. These are the lines a memorial book is built on. Not adjectives. Specifics. The smaller the better.
A pet memorial book is a hardcover storybook about the life of one named animal, bound once. At sundayfawn it is a first edition of one and ships in a few weeks. After we ship the book, the file is closed and the press is reset. You do not need to write the whole thing. You give us the small specific memories, and the studio sets them down.
Begin with the day they arrived.
Most people remember the arrival in unreasonable detail. The shape of the cardboard carrier. The cat under the bed for three days. The puppy who threw up in the car on the way home and who you forgave by the second exit. The shelter, the breeder's kitchen, the rainy night, the friend who said I think we have a dog for you. Even people who say I cannot remember anything right now can usually remember the day they came home.
Write that day, if you can. Not the full day. Just one moment. The first time they fell asleep in the new house. The first time they put a paw on your foot. The first time you said their name out loud and they did not yet know it was theirs. These are origin pages, and they tend to set the tone of the whole book — gentle, surprised, a little disbelieving that this small animal is going to live with you now.
Begin with the small daily things.
The walks they liked and the walks they tolerated. The food they would not eat. The food they would have killed for. The window. The chair they were not supposed to sit on and which became theirs anyway. The squeaky toy that survived for eight years. The brand of treats you cannot now walk past in the shop. The route around the block you took every morning. The corner of the bed.
Grief that doesn't get bereavement leave — which is most pet grief, almost all of it — collects in the daily things. Nobody at work knows that the dog used to wait at the door at five-thirty. Nobody knows that the cat used to sit on the keyboard during the third meeting of the day. The book is where these things go. Not for an audience. For you, and for the people who knew them, and for the few who will read this on the anniversary and remember the morning routine in detail.
Begin with the people they belonged to.
A pet memorial book is sometimes a book about a pet. Often it is a book about a household, with the pet at the centre. Children who grew up alongside them. A partner who pretended not to be a cat person. A grandparent who would only admit, in private, that the dog was their favourite. A roommate who moved out years ago and still asks after the cat in the Christmas card.
If you are not sure what to write about the animal, write about the people who loved them. She was the dog my father held on the porch in the year he was learning to walk again. He was the cat my sister kept on her lap through the long winter. These sentences are not detours from the memorial. They are the memorial. Pets live inside the geography of a family. The book can hold that geography.
Begin with what was funny.
This is the line people most often skip, and then most often miss, after the book is finished. I wish we'd put in the thing about the sock. I wish we'd put in the thing she did with the cushion. Pets are funny. Real grief leaves room for that. A memorial book that is only solemn will feel, six months later, like a stranger's book. A memorial book that includes the thing with the sock will feel like theirs.
Write the funny things. The character moments. The small reckless brave stupid sweet things they did. The time the cat brought the leaf in from outside as if it were a kill. The time the dog learned to open the cupboard. The way they used to look at you when you said the word bath. None of this is disrespectful. It is the opposite. The closer you get to who they actually were, the closer the book gets to telling the truth.
Begin with the last week, only if you can.
Some people can. Many cannot, not yet, not in the first month. Both are fine. The press has made memorial books built almost entirely from the early years, where the last weeks are reduced to a single quiet page — and then she slept, and then she did not wake — and the rest of the book is the long bright middle. Other people send pages of detail about the final week: the sun on the floor, the vet's name, the song that was playing in the car, the friends who came over, the way they held them. The press will set down what you give us, in the register you give it to us.
There is no right amount to write about the end. Some animals get a chapter. Some get a sentence. Some get only the colophon — for the dog who lived from this date to this date, and whose name was — and that is its own kind of right.
After the six, the press takes over.
You do not have to fill in a form. You do not have to write a manuscript. The studio (The in-house writer, the one who sets these down on the page) takes whatever you give us — paragraphs, voice notes, a list of fifteen specific memories, a single page of bullet points — and writes a hardcover storybook about your animal. We will ask follow-up questions when we need to. We will let you read the draft. The scenery is illustrated: the kitchen corner, the window, the chair they were not supposed to sit on. The book does not reproduce a photograph likeness; it is a painterly register. The painted register is its own promise. You can read more about how the press makes a custom hardcover book on the craft page.
The book that arrives is the only one of its kind. After we ship, the file is closed. There will not be a second copy. If you are making the book for a household, the household gets the book. If you are making it for one person — yourself, your mother, the friend whose dog died last month — that person gets the book. The press makes a dog memorial book for one named reader, one named animal, one shelf at a time.
A note on grief that doesn't get bereavement leave.
Most pet grief is invisible. There is no service. There is no week off. There is, in many cases, no one at the office who knows the name of the dog you lost. The book is, partly, an answer to that invisibility. It is a held object that says this animal existed, and was loved, and is missed. It sits on a shelf. It is signed. It is the only one. The household reads it once a year, or once a decade, or every Sunday. Either is right.
We do not write passed away unless you write it first. We do not write crossed the rainbow bridge unless that is the frame the family already uses. We do not write fur baby. We write the dog's name. We write the cat's name. We write the small, specific, true things you give us, and we paint the rooms they liked, and we bind the book once, and we send it. Then we close the file.
Common questions.
What do you write in a memorial book for a pet?* Write specifics. The corner of the kitchen they stood in when the doorbell rang. The brand of treats you cannot now walk past. The chair they were not supposed to sit on. Specifics outlast adjectives. The studio will weave what you give us into a hardcover storybook. You do not have to write the whole thing.
Is a pet memorial book just a photo album?* No. A photo album collects pictures. A pet memorial book tells a story. sundayfawn paints a hardcover storybook about one named pet — their name, their habits, the small specific things only the household knew — and binds it once. It is read aloud, not flipped through.
How long does a pet memorial book take to make?* A few weeks from order to ship. Each book is illustrated, bound, signed, and sleeved one at a time. We do not rush them. If you need a book inside a tighter window, write to us and we will tell you honestly whether we can.
How much does a pet memorial book cost?* One edition. Hardcover. No tier. No upsell. The same price whether the reader has two legs or four.
Can I write the book myself, or does the studio write it?* Both. You give us the memories — paragraphs, voice notes, a list, however you like. Juno (the in-house storyteller) writes the book around them. You read the draft. We adjust, then bind once.
— A storybook no one else has ever read.