dog

02/26/2015

People Aren’t Interchangeable (and Neither Are Their Pets)

Loved ones can’t be replaced. So please don’t suggest otherwise.

Loved ones can't be replaced, so don't suggest otherwise.

An empty blanket, an empty collar, and an empty ring: Loved ones can’t be replaced, so don’t suggest otherwise.

When people (or pets) expire, mourners can’t scoop up “bargain-priced offspring” from the children’s department; they won’t rush to the store and click a collar around a “brand new best friend” package in the pet aisle; they shouldn’t be driven to the mall for sniffing and squeezing current models in order to select a “ripe new spouse” from the potential mates display window. (At least, for most people it doesn’t work that way…)

Forgive me, please, if it sounds as if I’m making light of the seriousness of death. My intent is to point out the ridiculous assumptions made by well-meaning people who treat the bereaved in this foolish way.

For example, the first variation I heard on “You’re young. You can marry again” was less than 48 hours after my husband’s death. It was an (arguably misguided) attempt to assure me I need not feel lifelong devastation and solitude. But deep as I was in that personal place of raw, recent loss,  life as I knew it had already immersed me in devastation and loneliness.

I could no more have “replaced” my late husband while thus submerged (nor contemplated the idea of it) than I could have inhaled deeply from the bottom of a full swimming pool.

For those who mourn the death of a child, there’s nothing assuring in the agony-increasing comments of those who try to “comfort” them by promises of possible future children. Doing so ignores the life-altering, soul-searing loss of THAT precious, beloved child.

Pet owners face their own grief at the passing of beloved companions. Well-meaning friends might suggest it’s “only a pet” or “you can always get another one,” but the bonds between pet owners and their furry (or feathered or scaly) friends are as unique — and can run as deep as — friendships (and deeper than some kinships) between members of the same species.

More helpful than such “reassurances” of suggested “replacements” are acknowledgements of the loss. Offer comments like:

  • He was such a ____ [kind, thoughtful, funny, interesting…] soul. I’ll miss him, too.
  • I’m so sorry about the death of your ____ [child, parent, friend, sibling…]. I know you’re hurting.
  • Fluffy was a good ____ [cat, dog, hamster, sugar glider…]. She’ll be missed.

In time, grieving parents might have another child; bereaved animal lovers might adopt other pets; mourning widows (or widowers) might date and perhaps even marry again. But they might not. There may be reasons they cannot, reasons that are no one’s business but their own.

In the distant future, even if the mourning parent welcomes another child, even if the grieving owner takes in another pet, even if the bereaved widow(er) finds a second soul mate, each newly loved one finds his or her OWN place within the healing heart once broken by the death of the deceased.

Remember: Beloved souls aren’t interchangeable — even within species. You can’t remove one from a person’s life and simply plop another into the deceased one’s place.

12/06/2013

On Grief and Recovery: Holiday on the Drive and Stepping Back into Community Tradition

For as many years as we’ve lived in our neighborhood, its main throughway has hosted an annual Holiday on the Drive at the beginning of every December. Last night, after a six-year absence, I returned. (I can’t recall the reason we didn’t attend six years ago, but I’m all too aware of why I stayed away since then — until last night.)

As in years past, no cars hurried north or south. Instead, the street filled with merchant booths and food carts, church outreach tables and school sports boosters, moonwalk castles and live performers. Seasonal lights and decor shone in competition with the brightness of little faces queuing up at the park gazebo to whisper wishes in a certain red-and-white clad, elderly bearded gentleman’s ear. Families and couples strolled, pushing strollers and trailing leashes; teens in twos and threes roamed; babes (and dogs) in arms reached for things they saw (and smelled). Holiday music flowed from speakers and shop doors; horse hooves clip-pe-ty-clopped ahead of a laden carriage; dishes and glassware clinked as waiters called out orders; silvery peals of laughter — especially from the children — tied all the lovely din together.

I saw no holiday sweaters this year in the balmy (73 degrees Fahrenheit) evening air. Even if we’d had a bitter, humid cold snap, like the last time I attended with my husband, the warmth of community camaraderie would have kept me glowing. It, like its predecessors, was a happy, forward-looking event.

And that is why, until last night, I couldn’t face it during the years since my husband died.

It’s easy for most people to understand why we didn’t go while my husband was so ill, even if they didn’t comprehend the nature of his malady. After all, illness is illness, and if you’re too sick to do a thing you shouldn’t be pressured into it. People (for the most part) “get” that. They’d not shake their heads at a feverish person for choosing not to hike in either arid deserts or snowy mountains.

Some friends and neighbors understood why I didn’t — couldn’t — go that first year. Less than three months into widowhood, I was still in shock.

What those outside a family’s grief may not “get” is that grief makes you heartsick.

While I was “fevered” with actively grieving my husband’s loss, I wasn’t capable of stepping into that warm, familiar, comfortable climate of tradition — not without  him. But now, heading into my fourth Christmas season as a widow, the fever has broken, the acute breaks are mending, and I finally felt ready to step back into tradition, albeit stepping at a different pace now.

I kept thinking, as I walked along last night, there was something else I wanted to do, something I ought to do — besides share the night with my husband. At home hours later, I remembered I’d wanted to take a picture. But like many tasks along my widowed journey, I forgot.

Next year I’ll remember to pull out my phone and snap a picture. Maybe I’ll even bring my dog.

11/15/2013

A Rude Awakening by Dog and Grief

This week I had a rude awakening– a literal rude awakening — because of  widowhood’s impact on one area of my life.

The dog whined — loudly — at 4:10 a.m. (I’d finally slipped into sleep after 12:30.) I wasn’t thrilled.

I told her it wasn’t time to get up. “Go back to bed,” I grumbled. Unfortunately, she ignored the cushy doggy bed beside mine.

My doggy woke me at 4:10 a.m., but she had a good reason.

My doggy woke me at 4:10 a.m., but she had a good reason.

I screamed when 50 pounds of unwashed mutt landed on the bed above my pillow — startling her back onto the ground and me into no-more-sleep mode.

“Maybe she really, really needs to go out,” I thought. On the way to the back door she wove between my legs — more like a cat than a dog — nearly tripping me several times.

Halfway there she blocked me from going farther. (Again, I was not thrilled.) Within seconds, the smoke alarm directly over my head chirped its shrill low battery alert, sending her into more frenzied circles around my legs.

“O-oh. That’s why you got me up. Okay, girl. I get it now.”

I let her outside to do what she needed to do, climbed a chair, and pulled down the chirping device and its housemates. Then I retrieved the batteries I’d  purchased a couple of months earlier just for these alarms.

A few minutes later the dog was back inside and the smoke alarms all had fresh batteries.

(Stay with me. There really is a point to how this relates to grief, grieving, and recovery!)

My literal “rude awakening” happened at 4:10 a.m., but the greater, figurative “rude awakening” followed as I reflected on what brought me to the top of the chair in the wee hours. In one sense I “lost” my husband twice — first to the mental illness that took his mind and then to the … whatever-it-was … that took his life.

Before he became ill, I taught emergency preparedness seminars  (emphasizing  hurricane readiness) at civic and private functions throughout our area. The woman who always, always, always urged participants to change their smoke alarm batteries when they changed their clocks for Daylight Savings Time forgot. (*See below.)

That I remembered to buy 9-volt batteries shows I’m “moving forward” again.

That I forgot to install them (after preaching preparedness for years!) shows how slow the grief recovery process can be.

That my dog reminded me of the task shows she is priceless, no matter how annoying at that hour.

(*Use and replace the foods and medicines in your emergency kit twice a year, too.)