Love is forever…One woman’s journey with grief

It’s different this time, and then again it’s not.  The “why” questions are different, because it wasn’t a surprise.  We knew it was coming, but even when you do, it doesn’t matter when it actually happens.  Because until it does, some small part of you is still hoping for a miracle, even when the rest of you knows it’s not coming.  The “why” for me this time is “Why did I have to make the call?  Why didn’t she just go?”  Because who wants to take responsibility for that?  How do you get your mind around the thought that you should purposely end the life of someone you love?  The two concepts are antithetical.  How do you understand that sometimes mercy is doing a thing that is anathema to what we understand as love and caring?  How do you accept that this thing that tears you up inside, the decision to set a beloved soul free from a body that had given up, was what was best for her?  There are some dark, horrifying, painful definitions of “best” in this world.

There is no shock this time; just deep and immediate sadness, and the ache of missing someone who brightened my life and my world every day in her little furry way.  And I am only too familiar with that.  I know what’s coming, which leaves me mostly in a state of calm dread.  The feelings of grief don’t surprise me; the absent-mindedness and forgetfulness don’t surprise me; the wishing I could have done more for her doesn’t surprise me; the bursting into tears at the slightest provocation, and their transition into wracking sobs, doesn’t surprise me; the emptiness and numbness doesn’t surprise me; the lack of desire to do anything that I usually do to amuse myself doesn’t surprise me; when the crazy thoughts come, like how I shouldn’t go out, because I need to be home when she comes to the back door and barks at me to let her in, it doesn’t surprise me.    

I know this land pretty well by now.  I’ve been traveling it for nine months, and I know I hadn’t reached the border yet.  So it is not difficult to slide right back into what I had only recently been able to start pulling myself out of.  That is to say, it’s not difficult to get there; it’s plenty difficult to be there.

I have control of a sort this time.  I knew she was sick, and wasn’t blindsided like I was with A.  I was there at the end.  I got to say goodbye, to tell her I loved her, to apologize to her, to kiss her, and to hold her as she took her last breath, and then after.  I have all the pictures.  I have the house filled with memories.  I have all her worldly possessions, such as they are.  I have contact with everyone who loved her, too, and I have their sympathies.  I am in control of the arrangements and rituals.  I have everything I was denied, to one extent or another, when A died and that was so hard on me, that I thought made the grief worse than it otherwise would’ve been.  I am not hostage to anyone else’s expectations, sense of entitlement, thoughtlessness, issues, or charity in sharing information and time.  And it is as I’d come to suspect, and have now had confirmed:  it doesn’t matter.  The amount of comfort that those things bring is one less salty tear in an ocean of sadness.  

And they bring their own pain.  I wanted to be a part of the arrangements, but I could barely make out the check at the crematorium for her; I had the foresight to make out the one to the vet, except for the amount, prior to his arrival.  I put away the dog grooming kit we bought for her before he got there, too.  I knew from experience that once she was gone I wouldn’t be able to move anything, change anything.  Her pill bottles will stay on the counter.  I won’t be ready to put them away for awhile.  I can’t just box up all evidence of her and put it away.  I don’t want to clean her out of my life.

The only comfort I have, if you can call it that, is recalling her rasping, ragged breaths and the misery and exhaustion written all over her sweet face, and knowing that she is at peace now.  That she can rest and not hurt anymore.  No one should have to struggle for every breath, and for me to have let her keep doing that for another week for my own selfishness to keep her here as long as possible…well, I just couldn’t do that to her.  The vet said that it probably would’ve only been a few more days, and it just would’ve been increasingly worse for her.  It was bad enough.  He said it was the right thing to do.  I know it was; but it still feels wrong.