Last week, the Massachusetts Senate voted 38–0 to pass the PETS Act. It bans the sale of dogs, cats, and rabbits in pet stores, strengthens cruelty protections, and ends breed-based discrimination in housing and insurance. It's the most significant animal welfare legislation the state has passed in years, and it passed without a single dissenting vote.

I'm glad it happened. But it also made me think about something I haven't been able to stop thinking about since my cat Meeko died last year.

When Meeko died, I had no idea what to do. The vet handed me a pamphlet for a cremation service and that was basically it. Communal or private. Pick one. A few days later I got a small tin of ashes in the mail and drove home to an apartment that was way too quiet. That was the entire process.

There was no place to go. No ceremony. No public space designed to hold that kind of loss. I looked, and there's genuinely nothing in Massachusetts. 351 cities and towns, and not one of them has a dedicated, permanent, publicly accessible memorial space for pets. Not one.

I don't think that's because people don't care. It's more like pet death just falls through every crack. Animal welfare law covers the living. Zoning doesn't anticipate memorials for animals. Health regs handle disposal but not dignity. So you end up with this gap, not intentional, just structural, between how much these animals meant and how little exists for when they're gone.

The PETS Act is proof that when the issue is clear, Massachusetts can move fast and move together. Puppy mills are indefensible. Breed discrimination is irrational. 38–0 because the moral logic was obvious.

But I keep coming back to the question one step past it: if we agree these animals deserve protection during their lives, what about at the end? Not necessarily a law. Maybe just a place.

That's what I've been working on. Rainbow Meadow is a pet memorial sanctuary I'm planning for Central Massachusetts. Not a cemetery with headstones in rows. More like an actual landscape designed around the idea that losing a pet is a real loss and it deserves a real place. I'm reviewing 65 Central MA towns right now trying to find the right ground.

It's early. The project is still in formation. But the principle underneath it is pretty simple: if the bond is real (and 38 senators just voted to say it is) then the end of that bond deserves more than a pamphlet and a tin in the mail.