Loving and Losing Pets with E.B. Bartels, Rev. Sarah Bowen, and Karen Fine, DVM, at Bark! Fest

If you’ve ever lost a pet, you know how hard it is. Watch these three authors as they talk about how we memorialize and cope with the loss of a pet.

By Zazie Todd, PhD

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Loving and Losing Pets with E.B. Bartels, Rev. Sarah Bowen, and Karen Fine DVM

Bark! Fest, the book festival for animal lovers, took place in September 2024 to celebrate the launch of my book Bark! The Science of Helping Your Anxious, Fearful, or Reactive Dog. Bark! is coming in paperback on June 10th.

This is the recording of the panel Loving and Losing Pets with E.B. Bartels, Rev. Sarah Bowen, and Karen Fine DVM.

You can watch Loving and Losing Pets on Youtube or below, listen to The Pawsitive Post in Conversation wherever you get your podcasts (Apple, Spotify) or below, or scroll down to read a transcript of the highlights. 

Get the books

The books from Bark! Fest are available wherever books are sold, including from Bookshop (which supports independent bookstores), UK Bookshop (ditto), and my Amazon store.

The conversation with E.B. Bartels, Rev. Sarah Bowen, and Karen Fine, DVM

Loving pets means thinking of them both in life and after their loss. In the poignant and personal Good Grief: On Loving Pets, Here and Hereafter, E.B. Bartels takes us on a global tour of how we love and mourn our pets. Sarah Bowen shares her deep insights on the lives and loss of all animals—pets and wildlife—in Sacred Sendoffs: An Animal Chaplain’s Advice for Surviving Animal Loss, Making Life Meaningful, and Trying to Heal the Planet. And Karen Fine DVM’s heartwarming memoir about becoming a veterinarian, The Other Family Doctor: A Veterinarian Explores What Animals Can Teach Us About Love, Life, and Mortality, is full of tales about what we can learn from the animals in our lives.

We talked about:

•     Why E.B. Bartels wrote her book Good Grief and what she learned about how people memorialize their pets, including taxidermy and mummification
•     The way that grief for a lost pet is often disenfranchised
•     What an animal chaplain is and why Sarah Bowen wrote her book Sacred Sendoffs
•     Blending science with spirituality, and practical tips to help when someone loses a pet
•     What it’s like being a veterinarian, how Dr. Karen Fine was influenced by her grandfather, and why she wrote The Other Family Doctor
•     The value of making home visits as a veterinarian, and helping other pets cope when one of their fellow pets has passed
•     Plus each author read from their book

The quote by Irving Townsend can be found here. 

Learn more about the authors:

E.B. Bartels: https://www.ebbartels.com/ 

Rev. Sarah Bowen: https://www.sacredsendoffs.com/ 

Karen Fine DVM: https://karenfinedvm.com/ 

The conversation is co-hosted by Zazie Todd and Kristi Benson.

Highlights of the conversation with Rev. Sarah Bowen

Z: So Sarah, you’re an animal chaplain and this is something that some people haven’t come across before. So can you tell us what an animal chaplain is?

S: I can and shout out to some of the animal chaplains I saw put their names in the chat and you ANZO folks, so excited to be here. So I may define it in a way that they may want to add something else into the chat, but here we go.

So an animal chaplain is someone who provides emotional and spiritual support for animals and their humans. So emotional and spiritual support.

So some of the things that we do is we use compassionate listening, active listening. We might help people through meditative exercises to be able to deal with emotions in their body. We also tend to do rituals and ceremonies, things like being present with people as their pet passes, helping them prepare for what I call the best worst day. What can we have together for when that moment comes? Doing ceremonies, doing memorials. 

I love to do furry wakes, which is when we get people together and we share stories about the animal that we’ve lost.

And then we also help people, you know, in kind of the after, the after days, after pet loss. We also help folks. We help the animals and we help and we help people. So we’re involved with veterinarians and conservationists, with shelter workers, sanctuary workers, to help in those areas where there are human animal conflicts and where decisions need to be made. 

Anyone ever been in one of these situations where a decision needs to be made and you don’t like any of the decisions available? Like, none of them. Right. There’s not one that’s clear. An animal chaplain helps with that kind of ethical noodling or looking through messy situations to find what your heart really wants and what makes most sense for you.

And an animal chaplain is a little different than a pet chaplain. I want to kind of set that out too, in that we consider all animals part of the folks that we are attending to. So, yes, it may be dogs who we’re talking about today, and it may be cats, like the ones that are in that room over there.

But we also might be talking with people about issues that happen with wildlife or animals who are exploited or captive or who are having other types of challenges.

So I think, in a nutshell, Zazie, that’s what an animal chaplain is. Emotional and spiritual support for any animal and any human.

Z: Thank you. And so why did you write Sacred Sendoffs? 

S: I wrote Sacred Sendoffs specifically because I get a little annoyed sometimes how we bypass talking about death, right? We’re uncomfortable talking about death. We see death as something to fear. We’re unable to see death as something that can be beautiful, that can be part of the cycle of life, that can be something that is a transition to what I call whatever is next and something that we can have enduring connections with an animal. 

We know now from research that closure isn’t necessarily what’s most healthy for us. Enduring connections is also what can be very, very healing.

So I wanted to write a book where I talked about death, right? With a little sass, a little snark, a little tears. And, you know, all of that, all of that that goes with that experience. 

Z: And it has all of that in the book for sure. It’s a beautiful book. And it definitely has that sass as well as the tears. And it isn’t just about pets either. So can you give us an example of some of the other types of animals and why you included them in the book?

S: I’d be happy to. And I want to start by saying this. Would it surprise you to know that we are 0.01% of life on the planet, us humans, 0.01%.

There are 8.7 billion of us roaming around this planet, but there are over 2 million other species other than humans. 2 million folks, which means there’s. I’m going to give you Another number, and this one’s going to make our heads go, Wah. 20 quintillion. Other than humans, 20 quintillion. I didn’t even know what a quintillion was until I tried to look up how many other than humans are on the planet.

And so when we try to think about some of the things that are impacting them, for example, urbanization impacts them, climate change impacts them, what happens when habitats are destroyed.

You know, I always talk about how, like, I like to connect to nature, but nature’s a habitat, nature’s someone’s home, Nature’s where other beings live.

I’m going to have to mention the word squirrels. And those of you who know me know I’m always going to mention squirrels because they’re all over the planet and we have relationships with them.

Some of us might have good relationships with them. Others might be busy trying to figure out how to get them not to go into the bird feeder. But the squirrels don’t know there’s a bird feeder, right? Doesn’t say. They don’t say bird on it.

So some of these different kind of things is what I wanted to raise up in the book. Can we look at our relationships with other animals? Because we find that we can have a better kind of approach to eco anxiety, nostalgia, all of that kind of stuff we’re feeling about the planet if we consider a lot of other species.

And I’ll wrap this up by saying research also tells us that when we’re compassionate to other animals and we consider the needs of other animals, we’re also more compassionate to other humans. We have a ton of research that tells us that.

So being compassionate to squirrels, folks, might make you nicer to your husband or your wife or someone else in your family the next time they annoy you.

Z: Good to know. So your books blend science and spirituality, which are two things that some people think don’t go together. But what do you think are the benefits of having both approaches?

S: Yeah, I think there’s two things. One is that I see spirituality and science as two different languages for describing how we experience the world. They’re not opposites, they’re complementary.

Spirituality can talk to some of the mysterious things that we don’t necessarily have science for yet, or some of the things that we might feel that might, you know, might be a little more personal to us that are experiential in a way that when we apply scientific language, it loses a little bit of their magic. We lose a little bit of the feeling of things sometimes when we break it down to what’s happening physiologically.

So spirituality and science can be used together to have a really great picture of the world. When we talk about things like wonder and awe and moments where all of a sudden we feel like we are connected to everything in the world and we don’t exist anymore. Right. That’s a moment of spirituality.

I think the other reason, Zazie, is that when we look at end of life and we look at afterlife, spirituality and religion really impact our beliefs about what’s going to happen at that moment. Even if we’re unaffiliated with a religious tradition or spiritual tradition, there are stories or beliefs that we might have about where an animal goes, what happens, is there a soul? 

All of these kind of questions have their roots in religious and spiritual thinking. And so being able to understand where those thoughts came from and where those beliefs came from helps us work through some of our thoughts about what’s going to happen or what might happen.

We don’t know for sure, right? But we have some different beautiful ways of thinking about it. One of my favorite is the Buddhist belief in the bardo, which means after a cat or a dog dies or any other animal, for seven weeks, they are in this transient state called the bardo. And you can still connect to them. Leave their food bowl out, talk to them, tell them you miss them. It will help them in their transition to whatever’s next.

There’s a place where spirituality might offer something that science doesn’t.

Z: And that actually leads into my next question, because your book includes lots of practical tips for coping with loss. And I wondered if you could share one of those tips with us, please?

S: Sure. There’s a lot of different kind of practical things you can do, right? We always want to do. What can I do to get away from whatever I’m feeling or to cope with whatever I’m feeling?

Number one is other people. And support number one is not going it alone. Okay, so find people who get it. If you don’t have people around you who get it and say, oh, it’s just a dog, find an animal chaplain. Go to findanimalchaplain.com you can find one of us, right? We are happy to talk to you about anything.

The second thing, when you find someone, be real, be honest and use the words you’re afraid to say. Say the unsayable.

We often want to filter our language. We want to filter what we really feel because we want to make it more palatable. We’re dealing with guilt and shame and all sorts of emotions. We don’t need to do say what’s on your mind. Say the unsayable to someone that has a lot of impact on our emotions. 

When we can offload and unload that to someone with a compassionate ear who says, yeah, and if you are dealing with a friend who has a loss, let them say the unsayable. And be really careful not to all of a sudden snap to. It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known.

For healing, we need to say the things that we don’t feel so good about. So listen to people when they share their stories and say, wow, what does that feel like?

That sounds hard.

Can I sit with you with that?

Instead of jumping to, it’s okay, it’s not your fault, you’ll get over it. Right? We bypass that.

So find people that get you talk honestly, say the unsayable and be able to sit with that a little bit. That’s how we heal.

Highlights of the conversation with E.B. Bartels

K: So, E.B., why did you decide to write this book?

E.B.: Well, I have always been someone who’s had a lot of pets. Growing up, I loved animals. I had pets at school, I had pets at home. And as of right now, we still have not figured out a way to let pets live forever.

So someone who’s had a lot of pets means I’m also someone who’s had a lot of pets die. And I always felt really upset about this as a kid and as an adult, as a young adult when I was in college and I found out we had to euthanize my childhood dog.

And I had a lot of close friends who also loved animals. And I did feel like I had people I could talk to about it. But sometimes I wondered, you know, was I overreacting? Did other people feel this same, you know, extreme sadness when they lost their pets?

And I wanted to investigate that idea a little bit. And I started writing these short essays about pets I’d had and the different ways that we mourned them and remembered them in my family. And I shared them with some friends when I was in my grad school writing program. 

And I was blown away by the responses I got where other people came out of the woodwork and said, you know, like, I’ve never talked to anyone else about this before, but my family and I used to sneak into our neighborhood park at night to bury our parakeets or, you know, people had all these wonderful stories about, you know, funerals they attended for friends, cats, or different rituals they had every year to remember their dogs on their birthdays.

And it was honestly, you know, a sad subject, but also really delightful and wonderful to have people start sharing all these different things with me. And I was really excited to learn all this and start to do some research into not just how people in, you know, my present life mourn them, remember their animals, but also people across the planet and also throughout history.

And what I learned is pretty much that as long as we’ve had pets, we have been mourning pets and we have been trying to find ways to celebrate and honor those pets.

So I was inspired to write this book about my own pet losses and the things I’ve done throughout my life to mourn and remember them. And also trying to weave in as many other other things that I learned as possible as well.

K: Like following on that you mentioned in your book that grief for pets is often disenfranchised. So what do you mean by that?

E.B.: Yeah, so when I was first, you know, starting to write about this topic and research it, I was nervous because I felt, you know, was I overreacting? Was this something other people felt?

And disenfranchised grief are types of grief that we as a society don’t really talk about as much. I mean, as Sarah already brought up, I think that especially in America, people are very weird about talking about death in general.

But there are some types of death that I feel like people are more familiar with. So the death of a grandparent, maybe, or the death of a parent, those are things that maybe people understand or can relate to.

But when it comes to certain disenfranchised types of grief, which can be anything from the death of a pet to miscarriage, to losing your home in a fire, to going through a divorce, like, there’s so many more subtle ways you can feel grief and mourn.

People often feel uncomfortable talking about those things because they’re not sure the reaction they’re going to get.

So, you know, when I, you know, would mention, oh, you know, I’m feeling really down because, like, I put down my dog last week, I never knew if I was going to find somebody, you know, like Sarah or like Karen here, who would immediately say, oh, my gosh, like, I’ve been through that. It’s so hard. Like, how can I help you? You know what? You know, do you have dinner tonight? You know, really treating that grief at the same level as a human loss.

Or you can have someone say, you know, it’s just a dog. Like, there are tons of dogs down at the shelter. Just go get another one. Right. You know, and that, you know, would make me hesitant to bring up the topic at all. So disenfranchised grief, I think, is often when people kind of hide it, bury it, and are afraid to talk about things because they don’t know the reaction they might get.

So writing this book, in part, I was inspired to do it because I wanted to try to show people who are reading it that they are far from alone in these feelings. There are so many people who feel the same way, and so many people, professional people, you know, like animal chaplains who are there to help you during these hard times.

K: Yeah, I think that’s a lovely sort of… And I don’t know if it’s just that I’m sort of recent into the dog world in the last 10 or 15 years or if maybe it’s just become more popular. But I certainly see a lot more people being able to reach out and get help, you know, professional help.

There’s people who are, you know, therapists whose. Who their work is to help people get through pet loss. I think that’s really nice sort of happening. And so for your book, you research different ways that people memorialize their pets, including in the past, historically.

So what did you learn about mummification?

E.B. Yeah, so mummification was one of the, I think, one of the oldest traditions in terms of memorializing and burying pets. There’s, you know, sort of classic burial. And then mummification was popular in ancient Egypt and in Peru.

And it was really interesting to learn about that because, you know, at least in ancient Egypt, people honored their pets with the same love and care and, you know, prepared the body, wrapped the body, cleaned the body, and placed it in these beautiful tombs and sarcophagus forms just like they would a person as well.

And I did learn that there are different types of animal mummies. So not every animal that was mummified was a pet necessarily. That our archeologists have found. There are some that were offerings to different gods, and there were some actually that were considered food. Right. So if somebody, you know, wanted to have food in the afterlife, maybe, you know, a chicken would be mummified, so they would have a chicken to eat.

But there were definitely a lot of pets. And one professor of archaeology who I interviewed and write about in the book, Salima Ikram, she talks about. You can tell often if an animal was a pet based on the paintings in the tomb. You know, if she talks about seeing one that was a man with, you know, a cat curled on his lap. And you could guess, okay, the cat in this space is probably very important to him.

Or even just the posture of, like, sometimes having a dog and a person be separately mummified, but in the same sarcophagus together, sort of like maybe they shared a bed at night when they were alive as well.

K: Very cool. As an archeologist, I find that super interesting, too. Yeah. So another way that some people memorialize their pets is through taxidermy. How do you feel about that?

E.B. Yeah, so I tried really hard when I was researching this book to go into all types of memorializing pets with a very open mind. I really didn’t want to go into anything in a judgmental way because I had felt so judged in the past sometimes.

But I will say the two that I sort of went into, not really knowing what to expect, was taxidermy and cloning, actually, which I write about in the same chapter in the book. And part of me, like, a little judgmental, part of me was like, are these people who can’t let go and, like, accept that their pet is dead and they’re trying to, like, reanimate their pet or, like, you know, preserve their pet in this way?

And when I interviewed both taxidermists and people who had their pets preserved in that way, I actually found that they were some of the most in touch with death people I spoke with. They were very aware that, you know, a taxidermy form of a dog is not the same as their dog, you know, when their dog was alive.

And I was really blown away by sort of the approach of thinking about it as a form of an art form, you know, like making a beautiful 3D sculpture, almost like having a photograph that’s more detailed and three dimensional to have in your home to honor your pet. And a lot of the people who pursued taxidermy or cloning often had animals with very unusual fur patterns or there was something very distinctive about their look. Maybe they were a mixed breed that was, you know, very hard to recreate.

And I was really impressed by sort of the way that they could all look death in the face every single day. Like, one woman I interviewed had her Boston terrier named Ace taxidermied, and she keeps him in a glass case that she uses as a side table in her house. And she says she likes seeing him there. She says hi to him in the mornings. Her son, you know, tells his classmates that they have a live kitty and a dead puppy at home, which I always think is very cute like, that he thinks of him as one of their pets.

But she knows that’s not Ace, as he was alive anymore, but she likes that he’s still present in that way. So I thought it was really cool to learn about the different techniques.

And it got me thinking, I have pet tortoises. And I was like, you know, maybe I’ll preserve their shells once they’re gone, though, they’ll probably outlive me. So.

K: So the pain of losing a pet is profound. I think everybody here is going to accept that. Yet they bring Us a lot of joy. And there’s a lot of joy in your book. So what does your book teach us about the joy of having a pet?

E.B. Yeah. Over and over, while I was writing this book and researching the topic, I would keep asking myself, why do we do this to ourselves? You know, like, nobody really forces you to have a pet. You know, you don’t like, accidentally, don’t use a condom and end up with a kitten. Right?

No, it’s a choice that people make. I mean, I will say I interviewed a lot of parents in my book who maybe say they felt they didn’t have a choice in getting a pet, that their children forced them to get a pet. And then the kids went off to college and then suddenly this like, cat or dog was their new best friend.

But it’s a choice that we make over and over to have these animals. And even though it is brutal when they die, like my dog Seymour just died in June and I’m still so upset about it and will be for a while.

You know, it’s something that we choose to do over and over again. And so I was like, there must be something that makes it worthwhile.

And I actually really think that in some ways pets bring us so much joy because they remind us of how short life is and how close death is really at any moment.

And I think that in order to really appreciate, you know, just like the beauty of taking your dog for a walk on a gorgeous fall day and, you know, appreciating the animals. And Seymour would always was very prey driven. So he was always pointing out squirrels, pointing out birds. 

And I just felt very present in a way walking him and, you know, just always thinking like, this could be our last walk. Like he could get hit by a car and this could all end tomorrow, you know. 

And I think that in some ways it’s like counterintuitive. But the sadness and closeness to death makes us appreciate the joy and the happiness moment so much more.

Highlights of the conversation with Dr. Karen Fine

Z: So, Karen, this book is a memoir of your life as a veterinarian, which seems to be both rewarding and difficult. What do you most want people to know about what it’s like being a vet?

K: I guess you know there’s a wonderful campaign going on now in Australia and it’s one of the things they’re saying is we’re people too, or we’re only human I think is one of the phrases. And veterinarians have a increased risk of suicide, which I was surprised to find out and because I think I denied to myself the difficulties of the job.

And there are many and I think people assume that one of the hardest thing is doing euthanasias and that certainly is very hard.

But I would also put up there giving people bad news is very difficult. That is probably one of the more challenging things to me. And also having these quality of life discussions where the person is conflicted. Is it time or, you know, do we have a little longer? Is there anything else we can try? You know, that, that sort of thing.

So I feel like I see a lot of human suffering. I see some animal suffering, but I see a lot of human suffering in those situations especially.

So I think that’s one thing I would say I want people to know about veterinarians is that it is difficult for us for many reasons. And we’re also trying to fit this all into a day where we may have a new puppy appointment next and we may be backed up and we have a client in the waiting room.

And we didn’t expect to diagnose this particular animal with something serious. You know, it just happens during the course of a regular appointment. So that also can be difficult, sometimes we know and sometimes the person bringing the animal in knows, but they don’t always know.

So I think just to kind of give your veterinarian some benefit of the doubt if they’re running behind that kind of thing. Because veterinarians get a lot of negative press on social media and a lot of it is cost related.

You know, my vet won’t fix my animal for free. Or, you know, people feel, they feel guilty and sometimes that has to come out somewhere and it might come out at the veteran veterinarian or the staff or the clinic or whatever.

So I think that’s one part of the book. It wasn’t the main reason I wrote the book, but part of the book I wanted to be sort of the Secret Lives of Veterinarians.

Z: Yeah, yeah. And it’s very helpful for that. I think as a non vet reading it. That’s very interesting. And one of the other themes in the book is of how you were influenced by your grandfather, your Opa, who was a doctor. So can you tell us about his influence?

K: Sure, sure. He was just such a wonderful, gentle, patient man. And it was really a calling for him to be a doctor. I don’t think he ever thought about doing anything else. 

And he would do house calls and that really was the, you know, where I had always heard of that and maybe had that in the back of my head that he really knew his patients so well from seeing them in their homes and he would see them in his office well, but he really knew who they were. They weren’t just numbers to him, they were truly individuals and he treated them as such.

And that just was a really huge influence on me, the fact that he did home visits and how he was so committed to helping keep people healthy.

Z: Yeah. And so in your book, you also write about your practice of visiting clients in their homes. So I wondered what you prefer about the home visits compared to when people bring their pet to the clinic. 

K: Yeah, that’s a great question. There are many differences. And full disclosure, I don’t do house calls anymore. I stopped during COVID and I had been doing house calls for 25 years, so I kind of thought, well, you know, this is a good time to stop. And I was writing more, so that seemed to be taking more of my time.

But one big thing is that I didn’t have a technician or support staff person to come with me. Some house call vets do. I did not. When I looked into the insurance, it seemed prohibitive. So, you know, I just sort of thought, okay, I’m just going to keep doing this by myself.

So I really relied on the pet parent to help me, and I had to be very patient. And sometimes I had to say, we’re just not going to get this blood draw today.

I had to rely on food rewards and, you know, try different things. Okay, if it’s not working in this room, let’s go in a different room. Maybe he’ll do better on the sofa than in the kitchen or something like that.

I definitely got to know my clients pretty well, being in their homes. I did a lot of appointments, especially cats would be in people’s bedrooms, so I’d be looking at the cat, which was sleeping on their bed, you know, so I’d be in their bedroom or I’d be in their kitchen or a lot of times with cats.

Also, I’d be in their bathroom because I’d tell people to leave the cat in the bathroom so that they couldn’t run away and hide when they smelled me. And the cats would recognize me.

So it took longer. And I was kind of glad to take my time. I didn’t feel as rushed and pressured as I did in a clinic setting. But now, you know, working more in a clinic setting, I see many of my old housecall clients and patients there. So that’s wonderful.

But it is nice to have the staff there to help with certain things. And especially as I get older, it’s harder and harder to get off the floor once I’m down on the floor with an animal.

So Say, down on someone’s bathroom floor with their cat. That just started kind of getting old. So there’s definitely pros and cons.

Z: Yes. And you also use Western veterinary medicine as well as acupuncture and Chinese medicine, which you write about in the book. So I wondered if you could tell us something about that and why you like to use these different approaches.

K: Sure. And at this point, I’ve been doing what’s called integrative medicine, using both Western and Eastern medicine longer than I practiced using just Western medicine. So I’m very used to using both. And it’s a whole different way of diagnosing traditional Chinese medicine or TCM.

So I really enjoy using that. And sometimes when Western medicine doesn’t have either anything or much to offer, or say that it’s cost prohibitive, whatever Western medicine has to offer. Sometimes, for instance, with cancer, I can look at the animal and say, okay, well, we’re gonna come at it from this other approach and see if we can get that animal to have some quality of life for longer than we thought they could.

So that’s what I really enjoy about that. It’s just a different way of looking at the animal.

Z: That’s good to know. Thank you.

So when there’s more than one pet in the home, sometimes the ones that are left can grieve the loss of one of their animal companions. So how do you think people can help their pets to deal with that kind of grief?

K: Yeah, I think kind of recognizing that they’re going to be grieving also. And I don’t think animals are as confused as people sometimes think, because I think when there is an illness in a pet, in the household, the other animals know probably better than we do that that other pet is sick.

Their sense of smell and their intuition, I think, is just so much stronger. So they really recognize that even if they weren’t able to see the body, I think that they recognize that their. Their friend, their housemate, their family member was very, very sick.

And I think trying to, you know, keep to some sort of a routine, it might be establishing a new one. It might be sticking somewhat to the old routine to give them that comfort and then taking some time out of the day to spend with them.

And a lot of times people have told me when there are multiple animals that there’s a whole sort of restructuring of the social order. You know, that one animal that may have been more quiet and in the background is now sort of coming to the forefront or whatever. 

In some ways I would say it’s a more profound change for the animal, especially if they live in the home and they don’t go out because we’re probably going out to work or we’re working from home or whatever we’re doing.

But our home is sort of their whole life, so it’s a huge change for them. So just expecting them to be kind of off and then trying to help them with maybe more walks, more toys, more attention, those sorts of things.

The interview highlights have been lightly edited for style and content.

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