When a Familiar Ages: Grief, Magic, and Letting Go in a Witch’s Life
There’s a unique and sacred bond between a witch and their familiar, a connection that transcends companionship. It’s spiritual, intuitive, and often forms the quiet heartbeat of a witch’s daily practice. But what happens when that vibrant ball of energy begins to slow? When the sparkle fades from their eyes, their steps stiffen, and their once playful presence becomes a hushed flicker?
My girl, Lola, is nearly 13. She’s been with me since she was five weeks old. She is a black-and-white goblin with a fierce will and a trail of destroyed squeaky toys in her wake. She’s not just a pet. She’s been my anchor, protector, mirror, and teacher.
Lately, I’ve started to notice the shift. Moments of confusion. Long pauses between snores. The occasional look of disorientation, followed by a soft return to herself after a belly rub. The world may tell me to laugh it off, but I feel the change in my bones. The magic is different now, quieter, more fragile.
The energy of a familiar doesn’t just fade, it transforms.
An aging familiar isn’t just a beloved pet growing old; it’s a shift in the energetic current that has shaped your spells, your rituals, and your home. Where there was once motion and noise—paws on the floor, a bark or meow during meditation, there is now stillness. It’s disorienting. Your rituals may feel hollow. Your spells might fall flat. That’s not failure, it’s grief, creeping in even before the final goodbye.
This is pre-mourning or anticipatory grief and it’s a form of magic all its own.
You begin to adapt. Your magic shifts from calling in energy to conserving it. You light candles not for power, but for comfort. You whisper blessings over bowls of water and pain medication. You build tiny altars of gratitude for the time you still have. Presence becomes your practice. And in that practice, your familiar becomes a guide, not to spellwork, but to soul work.
They teach you patience. Stillness. Surrender.
And, eventually, how to say goodbye.
The death of a familiar isn’t just a loss, it’s a spiritual rupture. It marks a deep initiation. A reminder that impermanence is sacred. When the time comes, you bury them beneath a favorite tree or scatter their ashes under the full moon. You grieve. You remember. You change.
But the story doesn’t end there.
Because when the magic changes, so do you.
You carry them with you, not just in memory, but in every step of your practice, every spell whispered with gentler hands, every new familiar who may one day find you. They are part of your lineage now. A piece of your path. A ghost woven into the roots of your craft.
This, too, is witchcraft.
Not the kind that calls down lightning, but the kind that sits with death and keeps the candle lit anyway.
The kind that says: I loved you. And that love was magic.