Hey everyone, this is a pretty solemn post for my first. Unfortunately I had to put my piggy to sleep today and I'm not handling it well at all.
I feel such a massive void. I used to have her and Oreo together, but when Oreo had passed away I didn't get another guinea pig. Snickers passed away after six beautiful years. I miss her terribly already.
I don't know how to cope with this because I don't have another guinea pig to seek comfort with.
Hi and welcome
BIG HUGS
I am so sorry that you have lost your special friend at a good age, which is testament in itself to your love and good care. No matter how many piggies/pets you have or have had, each bond is unique and even a room full of other piggies can feel empty without a beloved face. With no piggies at all, it is really eerily quiet after so many years.
However, I assume what you are grappling with is the emotional void you are finding yourself in?
It is actual not unusual to feel very empty and devoid of emotion in the wake of a traumatic loss. I do the same for the first days; in my case it is something I know I have inherited from my dad. It is just not the most common way and the one we are socially wired to expect but it is by not a rare instinctive trauma response.
Personally, I see it as an instinctive trauma protection mechanism that your soul is kind of developing this protective skin that allows you to absorb the news in your own time without your emotions getting in the way and that will dissolve once you are ready to deal with them. It is not because you don't feel enough but because the opposite is true: you feel too much and it would overwhelm you. The pain will come in its due time and you will still go through the full grieving process.
This is just one of the several ways of coping with with the feeling of being drowned by your emotions. You instinctively block them out and dissociate yourself until you are ready. There is no 'good' or 'bad' about it - it is just how we are individually built and what our individual general trauma response is.
Grieving comes in many different forms and is a much more complex process that can take you to some very weird and unexpected places. How we react is part genetic - ranging from the individual response that is not rarely inherited to more widespread human wiring in reflecting everything back onto yourself in the form of intense feelings of guilt or failure to common social expectations you and others put onto yourself but it is also to a good deal determined by the actual circumstances of our loss. A traumatic experience or the loss coming close on the heels of another not yet finished grieving process can also shape how and how strongly you react. And not least it is down to the individual bond and its closeness.
Please don't see your 'void' as a negative but as a protective reaction because you quite obviously love and care very deeply. There is nothing wrong with it and nothing wrong with the special bond you have shared with Snickers.
You may find this link here helpful to put your own experience into a bit more of an overall perspective in terms of the grieving process which is so much more varied than you would expect:
Human Bereavement: Grieving, Processing and Support Links for Guinea Pig Owners and Their Children
because we love them so very much it hurts so deeply and as you say for little ones they fill our lives so the emptiness is more obvious. You have been through an extremely emotional day so please take your time. Your love for both of them is clear in your words and they will be with you forever just sadly not here on Earth but they are reunited over The Rainbow Bridge and will be watching over you until you meet again 
