We have a variety of traditions to choose from when it comes to the honoring of and the grieving for our fellow humans' deaths.

Not so when it comes to our animal companions.

Today, this is going to change.

"A Community Pet Memorial Service: Honor the Loss, Celebrate the Bond" is being offered at Carrboro's Century Center by Project Compassion, a Chapel Hill based non-profit whose work, until now, has dealt only with humans across the Triangle.

Doors open at 3:30 p.m. for a 30-minute art event at which people can honor their pets, and from 4 to 4:45 p.m. there will be a memorial service. It is free.

The Century Center is at 100 N. Greensboro Street.

Project Compassion has spent the seven years since its inception following its mission of creating community and providing support for "people living with serious illness, caregiving, end of life and grief."

James Brooks, the organization's executive director, said they have never done something like this event before. It grew out of a suggestion made by Tiffany Christensen, a member of the group's community engagement team.

Christensen strongly feels there is a real need to address the emotions that come with pet loss. Brooks said he has tried with this team to bring together professionals and community volunteer leaders connected with all different aspects of grief, to bring their best thoughts and ideas into the organization.

"They are a dynamo group," Brooks said. ÒWe had several conversations about when people have a pet that either comes to the end of its life because of age and illness or is killed suddenly, there is significant grief that people experience that often goes unacknowledged by our culture. Among us we had such an awareness of not only ourselves but also other people in the community we knew who were saying, "My companion has been my family member, and I feel guilty or embarrassed talking about their death and don't know what to do with this.' "

Brooks said he expects some quizzical comments about the event.

"Many question whether this is true grief," he said. "There are two key messages when it comes to grief. One is we grieve because we love. The other is that the worst kind of grief is your own. People compare grief, saying 'My experience is easier or harder.' "

Brooks will offer the welcome at the event. His main contribution, though, is assembling the bouquet. People will be able to take a flower, put it in a vase and say their pet's name, aloud or silently. The idea is that each flower expresses an individual's loss, but as a bouquet, the losses are honored in a community.

For those who are unable to attend today's event but would like to see something like this offered again, there is a space on Project Compassion's website (www.project-compassion.org) for input.

Christensen recently left her job as a bereavement coordinator at Cole Park Vet Hospital to focus on her role as a public speaker for patient advocacy and to promote her new book, "Sick Girl Speaks," a handbook on patient advocacy issues. She will speak at today's event.

She came up with the topic about pets as a witness in our lives as she kept asking herself why it is that the loss of a pet is so significant and why we miss them so much.

"What I realized is that there are not that many other beings that see this much of our lives as pets do -- dancing in our underwear, crying from the boyfriend break-up, feeling sick and being scared," Christensen said. "It is an incredibly intimate relationship."

Despite honoring her dog Gatsby's death in the privacy of her own home, she feels today's memorial will help her say goodbye in a way she hasn't been able to yet.

Jan Clark, chaplain and bereavement coordinator at UNC Hospice, will lead the memorial service at Christensen's invitation.

"Life and death issues are a big thing for the human spirit," Clark said. Adopting a cat named Tom several years ago sensitized her even more to the grief that people feel when their animals die. "Grief is grief," she said. "Sometimes it is over a person, or a move to a new town or sometimes over a pet. I want to invite people to know what they might experience when they are grieving and respect and honor the responses they might have."

She hopes that people will be supportive of those who are grieving over the loss of a pet.

"People can heal themselves if they have an opportunity to mourn, and this service is an opportunity to do artwork and participate in a service where people will remember their pet," Clark said.

Creating art helps to channel one's emotions, which has a positive effect on brain chemistry and can even bring your blood pressure down, explained Beverly Dyer, who will lead the art portion of the event. Dyer is the author of "Cats and Dogs of Chapel Hill: Furry Tails About Town."

"When folks are feeling strong emotions, including the loss of a pet, creating art can take your inner feelings and give them a place to express themselves," she said. "It is not art in that we are going to make a beautiful piece of art, but more about the process of doing something with your hands and mind."

Dyer has painted a wildflower meadow on watercolor paper for the event. Anyone who wishes can take the rice wing cutouts she will have available, write their petÕs name or something about the pet on it and place it on the painting. Or they can write or collage directly on the painting.

"This will honor the pet, and the creative process can help with the catharsis of emotions," Dyer said.

She will offer this at the opening and closing of the event.

This week in North Carolina is Grief Awareness Week. I hope that for today's event, Project Compassion is yet again held up as a positive model for what can be done to enhance our brief time on earth and that this becomes an annual event.