One Last Toodle

Two searing points of pain today, and as usual I am pouring them out here. I slept better, I was less weepy, I started going about my day with the ever present loneliness, but I'm relatively "ok" - suddenly pain will grip my heart and leave me almost doubled over. Why does grief affect us like this? It's universal: all the "shoulda coulda wouldas" as they say, but it's much more than a cliche: I live through my days in a kind of altered state - he was the love of my life and the joy of my days, but I didn't do such and such, or I missed this, all based on "Oh God, if I could just have him back I'd be so much better". I may be a very harsh critic of myself but I know this endless cycling of regret is pretty much universal to the bereaved. I know it gets better, but right now, it consumes my mind and heart, and it takes so much energy to get it under control. I do the work and then an hour later, it comes back, often in a different form.

Today, it's two things; one small and one big, both equally agonizing.

 

One: I am doing dishes and look up the long driveway that goes to the road, and I have a flash of Alex leading Danny out to the truck for that last drive. He would have been wearing his "little" - I called everything about Danny, including Danny himself, "little"  - which is just kind of something.... you'd have to know Danny to really get - his "littleness".  Anyway -  I can see Dan walking up to the truck with that funny, jaunty little walk of his, still there at 14 1/2, and how he'd be wondering what the Hell is THIS now, you got my pee fixed, where are we going? He'd know his Mom would be following soon, as I always did. But I am haunted by this, the image of his last walk, so trusting and such a good boy always -  and today, as I gaze up at the sun just cresting over the horizon, my heart explodes with the thought: I could have TRIED to walk him a bit the last couple of months.    He so enjoyed even a little sniff around, but he loved it much more if it was with me; Alex often said he felt Danny was torn between wanting his walk and feeling strange about me not being there (when my back was completely out). I stopped walking him after my fractures last August; I couldnt' even get around the house without help for about 6 weeks so I don't beat myself up for that. But the last couple of months; it was a mild winter, and I am somewhat better to the point I can walk a bit, but I didn't. And when I look into my heart I know why; I had a diagnosis of severe osteoporosis last summer and as yet am not medicated, so a fall could mean a hip fracture, and months in hospital. Worst case scenario for sure, the idea of being separated from Dan at the end of his life is even worse than the way it went down. I was absolutely terrified of that scenario and...even though Dan was not as bad a puller as he used to be...even though I have cleats and a staff and would just have gone slowly...I was still unwilling to take the risk. But God in Heaven how I wish, after all out years of walking together! what I wouldn't give for a clear memory of one last time - even a toodle up the driveway and over to the new house next door, and back.

So that is gut punch number one today. I exorcised it a bit by writing it here - after this I will light his candle and talk to him a while.The mantra is always the same - "I love you with all my heart and I was trying to do the best I could. I didn't take you to the vet to die - I WAS TRYING TO SAVE YOU."

He knows my circumstances, the ones I talk about (health, overwork) as well as the ones I don't. 

 

He knew my heart.
And then, on to doing as much of my dayjob as I can right now.

The second thing that kicks me in the gut needs a separate post. It's about.....me working too much, about my experience of January, about how I live my daily life. It's... big. It carries within it the seeds of a transformation that would be a fitting gift from Danny, as so many things in my life were gifts from him.

Today, Rabbit - I wish I'd  taken the risk and gone for even a few walks over the last few months, over the winter. It was my pain and fear that held me back. In my heart, in my soul, we will always be who we were before time and circumstance wore us both down; and my love for you will never waver, or diminish, even when this terrible raw grief starts to subside.  As I said to you several times a day right to the end...You're my baby.

And you always will be.