Michelle Stafford Mourns the Passing of Her Beloved Dog, Beauregard
Please join us in sending love to Michelle Stafford (Phyllis, THE YOUNG & THE RESTLESS; ex-Nina, GENERAL HOSPITAL) and her entire family as they mourn the death of their beloved dog, Beauregard. The actress shared some cute pics of the animal on Instagram as she warned her fans there was an “obnoxiously long post” incoming.
“Today we said goodbye to this good boy,” she expressed. “I knew this day was coming soon. I was thinking of not telling my kids and just doing it alone. Not giving them a chance to say goodbye. After all, they ceased to give him the attention they once had and I thought it was a better idea to tell them when they noticed he wasn’t around. ‘Oh, he passed on. But he’s in a better place now.’ That’s what we say, right? ‘He’s in a better place.’
“Truth be told, I didn’t want my kids to be sad. Or feel pain,” Stafford continued. “I wanted to make it easy for them. That’s my job as a parent. I suppose. Then I realized that my daughter would use that against me in years to come… right? ‘You just killed Beauregard without letting me say goodbye,’ she would probably say as a sassy 15 year old. Since I am not interested in giving my daughter ammunition against me… I decided to tell her what was going to happen to Beau. I’m joking, but I did think it would ultimately be wrong to not let my kids say goodbye to him, pain or no pain.”
Beau even made a pretty princess. (Photo Credit: Instagram)
So Stafford braced herself and delivered the heartbreaking news to nine-year-old Natalia and three-year-old Jameson. “Pain and loss are funny things,” she mused. “None of us wanna feel it but it truly is inevitable. We seem to be living in a world these days of feeling wronged to feel pain or loss or sadness. Or we pop a pill to ‘fix’ it. Pain is a part of life. Honestly, how can we measure joy correctly if we haven’t felt sadness?
“So my daughter was quite upset,” Stafford added. “We said goodbye and told Beau he was the best boy in the world and we thanked him for protecting us. We wished him well on his next adventure. I told Natalia it was important to tell him what a good boy he was. She did. J, too. I listened as Natalia cried (keeping my composure), after all he had been my dog for 15 years. But our kids pick up our emotions and copy us. I just wanted to be there for her. I let her do whatever she wanted so we had a little funeral in the backyard.”
Natalia loved Beau to bits. (Photo Credit: Instagram)
In the end, Stafford feels that she did the right thing for everyone involved. “As we got ready for bed tonight, she said, ‘I’m glad for Beau, that he’s out of pain.'” the actress shared. “I don’t know if she would have come to that if I had chose not to tell her. Life is up and down and we gotta be willing to feel it to really live it. We gotta let our kids feel it, too. Thank you, Beauregard, for teaching me a valuable lesson. You truly are the best boy in the world.”
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