Abstract · Although companion animals, like cats and dogs, gain a growing significance in our lives, in the field of thanatology they still play a rather marginal role. For many people, however, the most intimate lived experience on the finitude of life may come from the disease, dying, and death of a companion animal. The death of a companion animal raises ethical questions, as we often must make painful decisions, not just on the basis of traditional ethical theories, but in the general and deeper sense of the human-animal relationship. A narrative approach can provide us with tools for a moral reflection on the meaning of the whole life in relation to our animals too. In my paper, I analyse a prime literary example, Tamás Beregi’s novel called Egyszer egy kutya (Once a dog) (2021), which presents a moving story of the relationship between a man and a dog, Bertram and Lulu, the deteriorating health and the resulting death of the dog, and then Bertram’s overwhelming grief.

Abstract · The purpose of art is to make humans capable of experiencing the existence beyond the horizon and to expand truth and reality. To express all that is hiding in the deepest and most mysterious layers of the human soul. Thus art can become a means and support through the paths of grief, due to its ability to offer comfort where science and philosophy fail. Perinatal death is the unthinkable tragedy, whose depth inspired a lot of artists. This essay portrays pieces of literature by Miklós Radnóti, cinematic arts by Kornél Mundruczkó and fine arts by János Thorma, through the four determinant aspects of perinatal grief. My aim is to embrace the healing of our wounds by experiencing, sensing and observing the transcendent.