Pain vs Suffering - and what can be done

 1 pm on Saturday and here's what I've done today; baked raspberry pecan muffins, made a grainbake for Korky,  talked to a new Friend on FB, watered the plants, read a bunch of Tolkien. I watched a couple of Cottagecore videos on youtube and started going through a drawer in my personal room, that holds some art I want framed, a few books I meant to read at some point, an offering plate I forgot I had, and the whole, entire OBOD course.  It's that last one I am digging into. Right now wouldn't have seemed like a great time for deep spiritual work, other than related to grieving, but turns out, actually, it is. Despite my grief - because of my grief....I'm once again working the Bardic grade. I know this is right, because, well, I learned it from Megan Devine.

Backtrack; looking over this blog I counted 7 entries since Danny died, that I started and didn't post because they were just too personal. This might seem odd given the personal nature of what I have actually shared, but honestly my rants about self reproach and how I wish I'd bought more Littles and so on are the tip of the iceberg. I have been mired in all the things I did wrong or failed to do - and while this seems to be a pretty standard pattern for those of us in deep grief, that doesn't help much. It's still horrible and it doesn't really do me any good to write it all out here, and then move right on to the next bout of anger at myself.

Dwelling on regrets is adding to my suffering, not supporting me through my pain.

So I think I will just start to share some Danny things here, memories, - celebrations of his cuteness, his "Littleness" and stories that I cherish, while I work through the anguish aspects with my books and journal. The Devine book is proving to be most helpful; I LOVE her repeated assurance that the searing pain of grief is not a pathology to be fixed, but a natural state to be lived through. The suffering we add onto that pain can and should be minimized; she has us start to learn our patterns  and how to differentiate the inescapable pain from the avoidable suffering, by writing down the things that help us cope and the things that hurt more (I am on day one of this exercise; as of yesterday here is the Exercise fastened to my fridge. Today I added Tolkien and OBOD and muffins to things that help, if only by offering distraction.)

                                      Nothing up there yesterday. :)




The reality of grief is this:


"Grief tears apart the world one has known. Its powerful winds careen through the self like a tornado, shaking it to pieces. The wild thing that true, deep grief is, cannot be tamed by touch or walled off by words.We become experiencers of grief, expeditionaries of ending, explorers of loss, engaged witnesses who must– if we are to travel through the territory and find the other side – let grief have its way with us. And grief . . . it is pervasive and insistent and relentless. When it finds us, it enters every part of the self, every aspect of our lives. It fills up the senses. The life that existed before,carefully built throughout the years, shatters into a thousand sharp fragments. We then live in the ruins that loss has made of us, and we grieve. Every day, we grieve."

Stephen Harrod Buhner

 

Yes, indeed.
So I start out now, looking for ways to support myself through this pain and looking to identify things I do that pour salt in the gaping wound that is Danny's absence.  And I find that sharing stories and images of sweet remembrance is a better thing for me than rehashing how I worked too much, how I canceled the Barkbox (he had lost all interest and the treats are awful) and I was just not 100% perfect at all times.

I loved him with all my heart and that never wavered.

Here are some treasured images of Danny trying to comfort my darling Lila as she lay dying. Lila never took to Dan, never stopped mourning Luke, but that didn't bother Danny. He was a little Being of Love from the very start, and eventually, in her last days of life, Lila drew some comfort from him. 

More sweet images and memories to follow. He was my everything.

77 Days Without Him

  Well, when you put it like that...

On my FB Page a while ago, sometime this week, I juxtaposed the days I have been without Danny with the days I lived with him. ...5,217 with...73 without. It's not that I need to be reminded how short a time it's been, but that sometimes, others around me do. The notion "it's almost 3 months, maybe you need professional help" is pervasive. And truly I do get that, given how dismissive we are as a culture, of any loss - let alone that of a  "mere dog" (said firmly tongue in cheek). So the idea I am still basically in shock, in Stage One, am completely existentially bereft (to use a phrase I read just now, that feels perfect) seems...excessive, to some.  Whereas for me, in my own lived reality, 77 days is nothing; it's so early, I am still so disoriented and lonely and depressed. And that, for me, is as it should be, as is  to be expected in a situation such as mine. 

Not to say that anyone who grieves a shorter time or less all-consumingly is "wrong", or loves less -  this isn't a competition!! just that your story is not my story, and what is appropriate for one may not be for another  - and this is the very heart of grief, of response to loss, of the Mystery of Grace that love brings us and the stark suffering that the death of the loved one brings. We do not all have the same relationships, we are not all the same individuals, and the experience of loss is unique to each one - at the same time it does share some commonalities. In my own journey, I try to process what is unique to Dan and me, and read about, reach out to, and connect with the experiences of others, the true common ground of the bereaved. Today, 11 weeks to the day since I lost him, I am struck with this one image, that pierces my whole being with pain, but that needs to be felt, heard, integrated and experienced, no matter how appalling it is, how it cuts me to the core and how, as of right now anyway, I have no antidote for it, not even a wound dressing or soporific to get me through the night.

All his life long, all our days together, Danny gazed at me with such love, SUCH devotion, as I never knew what I might have done to be worthy of it. He was trustworthy offleash always, because he could not get too far away from Mom (there was that one time, but only one in thousands of walks and he came back pretty fast). He would look to me always on walks, and even out in the yard, even in his advanced old age, he would look up from whatever he was sniffing or digging and just radiate love, beam it from his whole being at me. I have never experienced anything so powerful and so unfailing, so consistent in my life, from human or  other being..and I have had love!  I know Luke and Lila adored me, but Luke was understated and reserved, Lila a clown to the core of her being - Danny, so expressive and so needing of me and so, so sweet. There was something in his innocence, his...Young Soul, that was always reaching out to me, the reason he was never really "naughty", but just a wee boy, the reason I prefaced everything about him with "little" - his little dinner, his little beds and toys, his harness which was simply called, his Little. He was my baby.

This image is perfect. Although I didn't really catch "The Look" on film very many times,  it was sent my way every day. This is a very young (10 months old) version, an image of him that says it all to me.

 I look in the mirror and see the face it was aimed at, and think, well Old Girl, you must be worth something after all, that he loved you THAT MUCH. I know, I know - low self esteem, much? there is some reality as well as a touch of sarcasm there - I know I have value; intellectually, I know I am a good person and have tried all my life to be better (whatever that means to you, it has very specific meanings for me). But the level of unfailing love and need that Danny felt for me, was profound and life-changing, and never, ever taken for granted. Just a  few days before he died I saw it from afar, as he was straining to pass urine out back and looked up to see me in the window - sheer love and joy spread over his face and he trotted back to me, dripping blood, seemingly oblivious.
Because his Mom was there. His rock, his provider, his nurturer, his Person.

And this is where the pain enters, this pain that sears through me was I write these words - ELEVEN WHOLE WEEKS later, this pain that has laid to waste everything I thought mattered (work, goals, house decor, not other animals) and chokes me with its vehemence - because the very last thing I saw before he began to struggle for air, fall over, gasping on the floor, was this look of terror and desperation on his face as he was led from the back of the clinic to the waiting room where I was expecting to hear...different news..gather my boy up, take him home. A look of total panic.  A panic that spread through me and left me unable to do anything other than call for help, and then agree to let him go. To blindly repeat "I love you so much" as he lost consciousness. That look, as he sought refuge in the one place that had all his life been safety, solace, and love, ended on the last day with me being able to  provide only panic of my own and a swift, panic-driven end to his precious life.

SO far from the way I had envisioned it, these past couple of years as we traversed "the Long Goodbye" of his senior years, and I tried to imagine how I would stand it - the call to the vet, the waiting for the vet, his possible anxiety when the vet arrived...but still, it would be here at home, a little sedative, his head in my lap. All my love around him in the place he loved best.  ... but of course, that's not what happened. Very far indeed, for what happened, to this brightest light of my whole life.

And, you know, I pour this out in the hope I can exorcise a little of it, but I also aim to completely "get" the lesson,  find whatever meaning  can going forward -  so that the last terrible hour - swift though it was, it has scarred me deeply - can serve as a catalyst for some change, growth in me. Much as that feels like rationalization.

Here is why it happened that way.

Very simply put - I was trying to save him. That is a phrase I utter a dozen times a day or more - when I speak to him across the Great Divide, when I try to justify myself, when I look for a place of self forgiveness...that never comes. "Danny" I say over and over" "I was trying to save you".

I really was, 11 weeks ago today, trying to save him. Speaking in the strongest Love-language that I know - that of the Mother and Warrior - I took my boy in for a test that caused him pain and panic, and resulted in his death, because he had blocked up three times in three weeks, was passing huge blood clots, and I simply had to know what was causing it and what we needed to do next.

Next.

I expected Baytril or other antibiotic along with his Zeniquin; I expected a possible crisis but if it happened, he was in a vet clinic. It all happened so fast, and with the information he had advanced bladder cancer,spread to the spleen, and GOLPP, it flashed through my whole spirit that taking him home meant potential pain, suffering, an even worse end...so this was inevitable and had to be done fast. I let him go. I still don't recall everything, I still flashback with huge anxiety. But the "next" I was envisioning was nothing like the next that happened.

Even as I write these words I have flashbacks - not of that awful hour, but of so much glory - Dan and me on our sunfilled daily forest hikes; Dan running around (the zoomies!) in our  field out back; that time we walked on a new trail and I wound up ankle deep in poison ivy; that time we drove way down Parent looking for elder and found viburnum! he was as excited as I was...the huge mullein haul we found all poisoned the day right after I harvested it...the many times I had to leave him in the car for a few seconds and dash into la Foret or the Bakery- hoping no one would find me rude that I simply couldn't chat.Oh and all the stair-kisses, so many many times a day and he never failed to turn around and kiss me smack on the lips(or that general direction).  SO many flashbacks of happiness. Not a total absence of regrets, but the joy and goodness outweighed the bad, always.

And then that last day.

I berate myself because he died in panic. But the alternative was, for me to let him go without that test, the ultrasound, and that would have meant euthanizing a still-bright eyed, hungry, slightly naughty old man whom I THOUGHT had severe bacterial prostatitis. In no universe anywhere was that going to happen. And although I may think now, it might have been best, with the information I had then it was unthinkable. So, the bottom line truly is, 11 weeks ago today (we'd have been sitting in the clinic waiting for the ultrasound tech to arrive) I was on the front lines for my boy, seeking answers, help,  relief, more time. Doing the very best I knew how to do. And he had an end I cannot shake, but an end to a life filled with unwavering love and a couple more years than many of his breed ever see. He was going to die shortly no matter what I did and while that little face haunts me, I cannot let that one last  frightened look erase and invalidate the years and years of joy.

I am very far from the human being I wish to be, but I fought to the end for Dan, and if I'd done it differently there would be another set of regrets - did I let him go too soon? If I'd brought him home for what Alex pithily calls "a Sarah McLachlan farewell"  I don't know how I'd have summoned to will to do it, given how normal he seemed at home. Waiting a few hours too long might have meant a much more horrific passing if he went into crisis here at home.
And so on.

So Dan - my baby rabbit, my monkman, my heart - wherever you are, whatever happens to souls of such ultimate goodness in the vast Mystery beyond - I can only say what I always do (beside, I love you, I miss you, thank you for loving me, and 'you're my baby')...and that's this; I was trying to save you.

When I started writing this I had a set of goals in mind - to write out all the things I can take away from it - what to learn - how it can enrich me going forward...etc etc. Spiritual Self Help and all that. But as I wrote it became so clear to me - I did what I did because of who I am, who you are to me, faced with the same situation I would do it again, likely. When I look back over the years there is plenty I'd do differently and that's another story, entry, chapter in the book.But the terrible haunting of that day - even down to me being so steeled in the car, not making a fuss, because I was in fear and worry and didn't want to convey that - it was all just me doing what I needed to do for you. I wish I had  not disassociated, I wish I had been able to get on the floor, I wish I had asked for some time alone o the table before they bagged you. In no way was that last day anything close to what I'd have asked for. But I understand myself better and I will try to forgive myself for not being perfect. In my heart, that is what you always deserved. The best...which I was not, but there is one thing I can say without hesitation, today and always. 

I love you with all my heart and being, and that will never lessen in any way as time passes.
You're my baby...and you always will be.

Carrying This Pain

  Grief journey Day 73 - that's 73 days alone after 5, 215 with Dan. So yes, I am *still* mired in pain, loneliness, loss, yearning and, to some people unfathomably - self reproach. Even as I work through that last bit, the rest is unrelenting and omnipresent. Everywhere I go in here, his ghost is with me...the chair he sat in all his life, the herbs I gave him, basically forever - the pine chest in my office that holds his toys, winter coat, bowl - the excruciatingly empty spot on the sofa beside where we slept.  He is everywhere here and it hurts me all day and night, without respite. Even when I am relatively "ok" - when a client case or a cat issue (Tatyana is now unwell) or even a good tv series has distracted me from the loss of my anam cara, I am in pain. Like the sign says....

 

 

I walk into the bathroom and he is not following me. I go to put on a ring and I remember how long I looked for that green amber ring - was it 2012? he would have been right by my side while I searched on etsy. Yesterday I read through a Druid blog I enjoy, but became obsessed with each month - what were Dan and I doing? So I wound up looking through every day of 2013, a pretty good year overall. Again, overcome with longing for the past, for the days my back was better, for our beautiful free and magical days. For him, always, always - for him.

Squinting in the Summer Solstice morning, 2013 -  I was out back in rapture. I love how clear his angel is here. And Frank couldn't actually care less about any of it.

Out by the creek, in his little Chilly Dogs coat. I remember that day so vividly, he had a blast.  February 2013


Day by day, I learn to live with this absence, with this pain....just now, I took my tea outside to sit with Zeke, who at 16 and totally paralyzed in the hind end, enjoys lying out back after a long hard winter inside. I heard a lawnmower and thought - that's the first spring lawn mower I have heard without my Dan, since 2006.

Fifteen years.

Every sound, smell, every play of light on water, every first bite of summer fruit - everything that is  "new" (eg experienced now without him beside me) is a strange, pain-saturated, disorienting experience. He was that much a part of me.

I know the gratitude will overtake the grief, someday, or so I am told; that the  endless searing pain of his absence will soften into a dull ache, and then morph into a cherished memory, a gift that lives in my heart - but it seems so far off and impossible now as I gaze up at a hawk circling the sky, as I did every spring since  that first one, so long ago - but, for the first time, alone.

And the world today, with all its pain and sorrow, hope and promise, is reduced to a single bird in an anguished blue sky, and one woman alone, her heart in a million pieces, wanting and wanting the one thing that can never be.

I love you Dan - so so much, I love you. Forever and always.... me and you, and you and me.

April is the Cruelest Month....

 ....breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

These oft-quoted lines resonate deeply right now as  we move into Spring here in the Hills, that season of magic and wonder that Danny and I loved so much - April and May, our two "most special-ist" months. Often the long winter and sensitive nature of Ridgebacks meant we did little walking in the winter - we'd get out, but for a perfunctory half hour (or less, if he starting gazing pleadingly at me and holding up a paw). Winter would be filled with hearty food and long cuddles, but eventually got boring for us both, and April - APRIL! was really just the best thing ever. Even before things got warmed up and green, we'd be out there, traipsing through the fields and woodlands, free at last! Some of my very best memories are from April and May - before the heat and bugs, after the long harsh freeze.

So this first April of Danny's absence is especially painful and cruel.

I spent most of yesterday crying as I worked on cases. I was too depressed to do anything but get my work done and go to bed.
Today, so far, is lighter, but in this journey I am on, that can change anytime. I grab these few hours here and there of relative  "okayness' with both hands, and hang on for dear life.  This weekend, I'm marking some papers, and ordering the supplies to start my "Dan Was Here" project. The beauty of weekends is I can, really, do whatever I feel like. If I'm in despair I can lose myself in a tv series. If I feel moderately lighter, I can do some work. Always, I can bake.

But the reality of grief is that for many of us, "firsts are the worsts' and April/May for me, will be unabashedly brutal. The sunshine, the motherwort and nettle shoots, the buds on birch and lilac, wrench my heart in a million pieces.

I put together some images from Danny's Aprils - a bit horrified there are years with no pictures at all from this month, but I can also understand why - in April 2019, for example, I was in and out of hospital with a suspected heart issue.  One of a million regrets: I should have taken more pics. But, here is a selection of what I do have. And next month, I will do May. I have lots and lots of May.


                                                                 APRIL 2007

View of the house from up the back hill, April 2007

Doesn't he look thoughtful and mature, for just 8 months old? I am reminded that his contemplative  sitting and surveying the world, started very young.

 

The sweet and somewhat penetrating gaze - that would be followed by an outburst of total craziness. I love this shot of him, April 2007.



                                                           APRIL 2010
(All my pics from 2008 and 9 are missing, they were erased from my old pc, to my eternal dismay)

Not many specifically in April, 2010 -  but one of my alltime favorites. The angel on his chest, his beautiful face. 3 years and 8 months.

                                                              APRIL 2011

In so many pics I look at these days, he seems a bit...wistful. But  this may well be just retrospect; he was nicknamed "Happy Danny" for a reason, and was really just sniffing the wind here on our daily walk/sit spot.

Another "Mr. Serious" profile - I love that bump on his nose so, so much. This was up at Dietrich's farm where I was boarding Dakota. He just adored those hikes when we had access up there.
As did I.



                                                                 APRIL 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love these images, I recall that particular early April day so so well. Dan and I had a specific set of walks we took, regularly - up the back hill, and from there we had several options - or we would go down a local road and off a variety of trails - lastly, there was the area behind the Rupert Community Centre, and SOMETIMES, we'd do a leash walk down Kennedy Road. I tried to vary it up for him - he seemed to love them all, the leash walk being his least favorite.  But on this one day, we went somewhere totally unique for us, and he had so much fun. I didn't go there much as it was a farmer's land and I wasn't sure how cool it would be. But we were bursting with energy that year and there weren't enough places on earth for me and Dan, Dan and me. <3

APRIL 2013

                                                        Monkey Rabbit on his Hill.


                                                              APRIL 2014

I know, I know - this picture is awful! He's "behind bars" and  - that look! Well, the reality is, I was on the other side of the garden, the part that was not fenced, and I had to leave him for a few minutes. He could still see me, but this was unacceptable anyway. After I went out to do my gardening - 20 minutes? We would both howl, literally howl like wolves when I came back in. So, morose as he looks here, it's a memory I cherish. It was hard for us to even be separated within eye range, for a short time.  

The Blue Eyed Grass of April - such a magical, sacred memory for me. First it just ringed the Silver Maple so dear to my heart, then it spread all the way down to the Faerie Corner,circling the apple and the small struggling hawthorn I cherished so much. ... its appearance every spring filled my heart with joy.




                                                         APRIL 2015

 This was a year with some pain - the loss of my two best-loved friends - one to a series of misunderstandings and perhaps unaddressed anger on his part, the other to treachery and duplicity that just broke my heart. But it was still the last truly good year in Rupert - aside from Alex's serious illness in December -  2016 we were turfed out, and that was just unbearable to me at that time.
        All that said -  I had Dan - and Dan always made everything ok for me.

I love the jaunty little trot, tail up, ears back. His walk delighted me so much.

The Sit. I have so many pics of this, when we'd take a break and he'd just sit beside me, watching, thinking - being Danny.

                                      Me, happy, just to be alive and out there in the fields, with him.


                                                             APRIL 2016

This was the year Danny turned 10. Although he had been healthy all his life, minor issues only, he was very white faced. Still incredibly puppyish - he was a Young Soul! but people thought he was in his dotage if they just saw his face. Bugged me, I admit, to hear that - as it turned out, he had almost 5  more years..
In 2016, the worst possible news happened - we were to be turned out of our home of 11 years, a home filled with 2000 books, with my animals, with a dedicated Temple, filled with my life. A home that represented the greatest stability I had ever known, and on land I felt spiritually embedded in, body and soul and ancestrally. When  I look back, there were blessings in the eviction - that area is profoundly unhealthy, the house is right on the road, the house itself just riddled with mold. It is better we moved, actually,  for the animals and ultimately for me. But at the time it was almost the death of me. We did not move till the following summer  I fought it in court - but the free and easy, magical days Dan and I shared in Rupert were very badly impacted. 

There are no pictures from April 2016 or 17 - in 16 I was in total shock and fear - in 17, in and out of court. I have other Danny pics from both years, but our previously joyful Aprils, nothing at all.


                                                      APRIL 2018

We had finally found Owlhaven (our current home) in July 2017, and so April 2018 was our  first spring here. Danny was still very lively, turning 12 in August - he'd take off down the hill out back if something stirred him, which led to our unlovely but functional fence - he relished walks, he was active and seemed unfazed by the move. I have hilarious videos of him that year, tearing up toys and never indicating at all that he was 12! But, 2018 was also the year we got the news he had mild/moderate heart disease. He didn't do well with the meds, so I put him on a  barrage of herbs and supplements - he accepted all with his usual good cheer. I however, had begin to worry.
 

Digging around in the  woods behind our house.

                                                       Chin scratch sitting out back

                                                             His beautiful profile <3

                                                             APRIL 2019

No pictures from March to June, as I was in and out of hospitals and drs offices with a possible heart issue, that turned out not to be (thankfully) but was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.
By June, we were having our circle walks again. His heart was still stable, but as he approached 13, he was getting slower.                                       In September, I herniated a disc in the lower back and was laid up to the end of the year. It was a tough time for me, but Dan was stable...and always beside me.


                                                         APRIL 2020

So hard to write this one, as it was the last spring of his precious life. And in April, I only took a few shots of him asking for  cookies - all of which have these funny glowy eyes. :(

We were walking in April - around the circle only, 20 minutes, but twice a day.
He was tired afterwards, but he loved the sniffing so much. Pics from later in the year show him digging and digging, sniffing and sniffing. All these dog smells! were so new to him.

April, 2020.  He had started to pass blood in February, but an Xray showed no stones (after a urinalysis showed no infection) and his prostate was enlarged. Given that the Xray just traumatized him, and he seemed to respond to the herbal protocol, I did not go forward with an ultrasound.
Things would have been different if I had, but one way or another, we were approaching the end.

I admit, I prayed so hard for one last (good)  April.    The one I am now staring down, alone.

They tell me gratitude will replace this soul crushing grief someday.
I will wait for that. 

                  ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

We are, and always will be

 This morning, in the silence and strangeness of my daily life now, I stood at the kitchen window and gazed up at the sunlight streaming through the trees -  stood in my grief and solitude and felt something rush through me, so powerfully and assuringly.  I stood there soaking it in, listening, and the words came to me

"You and I, in the sacred dimension, remain.

In the Light, we remain, and in the darkness too.
In the hope, we remain, and in the fear we are One still.
In all the love, we remain, and all the pain of separation - we remain.

In the gratitude and the grief, we remain.

In all the years shared, every hour of every night and day, seemingly vanished but never lost or forgotten, we remain.

In the Time Behind we call memory, in the Time Ahead we call the future, in the fleeting Mystery of the Present Moment - we remain.

We remain, and will always be......One."

 

This came through me and brought an incredible elevation of my Spirit,  an altered state characterized by much peace, which lasted throughout the morning and on, throughout the day.

As I navigate this life altering loss, "manage" my grief, "process" it and try to do all the right things to "move forward", the gift of this experience is overwhelming in its comfort, hope and peace. It has left me with a prayer to speak to the sky, when I stand in the forest, seemingly alone, remembering.

                                              We remain, and always will be, One.

January, Reframing, and the Power of Clarity

  Just yesterday I found a picture in my website, of me at the Blair Animal Hospital, with a very baby-Danny, at one of our puppy kindergarten classes - me so much younger, him a wee tyke in his puppy vest..first, it reminded me that I was able to actually smile only a couple of months after losing Luke (and that was a terrible tragedy, at just 2 weeks past his 8th birthday, zero warning). But next, my self-blaming PTSD brain fired off a horrible self incrimination - AS IF I NEED TO HURT MORE - which went something like this:

"yes, there he is, so sweet and adoring and darling, little did he know he would die on a cold vet clinic floor , unable to breathe, and without me even able to hold him".

 I walked around with that thought searing into my gut for a few hours. This flagellation finds me wherever it can, and always ends up the same; I let him down at the end.  We traversed this beautiful life, he saved me from so much, we had such joy but OH NO - evil terrible ME went and let him die in a way that neither of us could have anticipated and was certainly, far from what I hoped for.

But all the evaluation I am doing suggests this is PTSD talking, tapping into some deep roots of selfdoubt and unworthiness that just seizes me when it can. So, sorry - no - I choose today to look at that image and see some thing else.

"yes, there he is, and he will be gifted with an extraordinary lifespan for his breed, at least 2 1/2 years past the expectation - ALL of which will be characterized by being the most loved little being on earth, by total devotion from his human, always regular schedules, always excellent food, vet care as needed and many happy walks around the forest, free as a bird. Yes, he will become ill at the end of his life and have a bad last day (with a few confusing weeks beforehand but mostly pretty good even at the end, as he was throwing boots around and bugging me for food till that last awful trip). But even then, his human who adores him will be doing what she can to try and find answers, to prolong his life. This little boy will be so loved and forever missed. A pretty good forecast ahead, if only all little boys had the same sort of future".

And there you have it - a simple gesture of consciousness, and look at the difference.
I felt this physically, when I did the reframing work...the release, the lightness, a tangled cloud of darkness ejected from my being.
Later on I learned that several of the other puppies in that class - purebreds all - had died before their 2nd birthday.

These PTSD-driven challenges come up for me all the time now, sadly. A larger example is the whole concept of...January.

January was to be the last full month that Danny and I spent together - of course, I did not know that as we set out to start the New Year.  For the duration of the month, I worked harder at my day job than possibly ever before in my life; I am egregiously behind on several projects, many of them money makers and several, I have invested a lot of money into (herbalism courses,  two in the $3000.00 range each). I had become so overwhelmed with all the backlog, that I'd almost given up - my partner's health crash, then my own, our need to move in 2016, on and on  - I began to feel like it was all pointless, I could literally work 24/7 and never be caught up. But then, over Christmas, I saw how it could be done - I made a yearlong plan of attack, a larger five year plan, and - most challenging of all - I cleared, organized and filed 6 large cardboard boxes of notes, half written articles, client files and so on from my office.

I started 2021 ready to move ahead and get to my goals, at last. This was a move on behalf of us all - my health and sanity, of course, but also on income, short and long term, thus the security of everyone. I set aside several hours in the morning to focus on course completion (the ones I am taking) work on curriculum (the courses I teach) and anything else that needs doing, such as adding client material (I send handouts to each client, on their dogs conditions, on cooking, supplementation etc and have been working to expand them for over a year)..and then, very strict client hours. Weekends were for marketing (newsletter, blog)and marking assignments. The ultimate goal is more time for me/more passive income from courses, so I can take a lower client load and focus on writing my book...start having weekends again to enjoy a bit of life and not just work incessantly.

All good - my life had become very chaotic and the reduction in stress for me, the completion of multiple tasks - badly needed. I felt focused and proud of myself. The actual work I do flows easily for me, but all the massive extra stuff - marketing, organization, replying to inquiries - does not.  And a chronic state of overwhelm is not a good thing for anybody.

And so it was that even as Danny lay on his bed beside me dying of cancer, our last month of 170 months, I got up at 6, made coffee, listened to video classes while tidying up, stood here doing clients all morning and then after lunch, lay down (and did client work) all afternoon, often  getting back up and standing here doing email replies etc all through suppertime, noticing him playing with boots and cat beds but not joining in, because I had to work...work...and work some more.

The night before he died, he got up at 2:30 and I got up with him. I had noted him straining to pass urine around 7 pm, had emailed my vet who set up an ultrasound at 11 the next day. Throughout the night, he went outside several times and could not pass anything. There was literally nothing I could do but wait till my vet got up and see if he could meet us at the clinic early - I was BESIDE myself, all night long, but guess what? I stood here beside him and did a dog diet. Because I had fallen behind schedule and there was nothing else to do but stand here frantic, or pace... so I...did a dog diet. I checked email every ten minutes, I let Dan try to sleep...and, I worked.

Somewhere around 7, the vet emailed and we were out the door. By that time Danny was showing signs of real distress. But he slept on the way to the clinic and accepted the catheter unflinchingly - amazing. Of course, he felt better afterwards, and we drove home to wait for the 11 am appt. I remember I was unsure about feeding him, in case he aspirated during the procedure - he hadn't had breakfast and would have been hungry. I just gave him one of his mushroom cookies, and we went back, for the ultrasound. During the procedure he developed breathing problems, collapsed after they brought him out to me, and when I found out that he had advanced cancer and given the TYPE of cancer (painful and difficult to treat) I decided to let him go...to stop his pain and distress.

 The bright eyed old man who was badgering me for food at 10 am, was dead by noon.
So there it is - my guilt about January. I had met so many personal goals, had started to feel like I could actually manage both the client load and the backlog, was feeling stronger about my work than I have in years. That's what I did in January, I focused on WORK. On things I had been dragging behind me for years. Instead of spending that time in sacred space and communion with my boy. I...worked.

I have hated myself so much for this, SO much,  but I have to clarify (this blog is a healing journey for me and I know pretty much nobody reads it, but it is healing all the same)....there is a reframing potential here as well. One that may help me in my babysteps forward, at least release me from a torrent of guilt that is, truly, not called for and so painful.

#1. This first point is probably the most important,  and carries some powerful messages for me, going forward as well.
I stood here working because I did not believe that Danny was going to die so soon.I had been in full throttle anticipatory grief for three years, since his heart disease diagnosis, and then subsequent bad reaction to the meds. I had become completely focused on prolonging his life and was privately SURE we would see his 15th, and maybe even 16th birthday. After his urine improved 90% post antibiotic (a brief respite in late January) I was sure we were on the right track. I was SURE it was not cancer and that we would get him on Doxepin for the GOLPP and I'd amp up his  natural support and we'd buy a second air condition for the summer (heat is hard on GOLPP dogs) and we were  going to have time. Insanely, I emailed my vet about possibly neutering him,  a few weeks before he died. I was sure all this blood was bacterial prostatitis and hypertrophy and we.would.beat it.

That's why I stood here working and trying to make our future better, because I still believed WE HAD ONE.

Not such a terrible thing, after all?





#2.  Further to the point above,  Alex always says that if I HAD known this was cancer, I'd have been a basket case all month and it was probably preferable that I had my strong belief we would be ok a while longer. Even thought I was terrified of the ultrasound, I figured that if he had a respiratory episode, he was at a vet clinic and they would bring him out. Which we would have done, had he not been full of cancer.

This is one of those things they call "coulda shoulda woulda" and it's just very common in bereaved people. No matter what I had done or how much earlier I had known, the outcome was going to be the same.
He was 14 1/2....every day was a gift.

#3. All through the crazy-working January, I made time for Daniel always, as I always did. Our little rituals were not changed, save for the odd late dinner. He had his breakfast routine (mushroom cookies, livers, a little muscle meat, sometimes kibble) and then we had lunch (poached salmon or sardines, alternated, two egg yolks, cooked to his liking, canned tripe, buttered toast, sometimes cheese slices) and then we lay down on the sofa and he slept while I worked. Dinner time I tried my best to get a brown rice/meat mixture into him, as he had stopped eating veggies altogether and was constipated. Often I'd resort to sprinkling still more organ meat on top to entice. Often, he would eat some, and then get up at 3 am and eat more.
Bedtime, he had his Old Mother Hubbard cookies. Often he would pick at food at dinner and then get up at 3 wanting to eat. That was, of course, ok too. <3

Anytime he peed all over the place, which at the end was pretty much nightly, I just cleaned it up; I was constitutionally incapable of getting even slightly annoyed with him, and besides, it's not like he could help it. (that feels like patting myself on the back for basic decency, but still).

I continued to research everything I could about bacterial prostatitis, about GOLPP, trying to find more and maybe better ways to cope with  his issues. He was never not a priority -  despite the working. If I didn't have to work so much I would have spent more time actively with him - but he was so old, he had only short bursts of energy anyway and I was pretty much always aware and present for those....despite the workload.

He was safe, he was loved, he was so well cared for. It's just a reflection of the level of love I have for him I only wish it had been more.

So here's my reframing of the January guilt.

Danny, my love. You know I have had so many struggles over the years, and that by the last  month of your life I had worked through many of them. It was time for me to get fully on track workwise and clear up everything dragging behind me, time to tackle the next phase of my journey.  I believed we had more time - I was worried 24/7 about you but I stayed determined to help us both - me to grow stronger by getting in control of my chaos, and me stronger meant more ability to help you. My goals were longterm, to be sure - and on one level of course I know you would be gone. But me being ok is part of your legacy - all that I overcame and accomplished in my life this past 14 years, was made possible because of you. You and I are a Mystery of love and grace that most people will never fathom, but that's ok. You know I stood here working so I could cope better with ALL THAT HAS BEEN PUT ON ME - and you know my love for you never wavered. If I could have you back I would, as the song says, give up everything I own...everything.   But since that is the one thing I cannot have, I strive to be ok, to help other dogs and their humans, to give meaning to our legacy - YOUR legacy. I am so sorry for the abrupt and frightening last few hours - but I was TRYING TO SAVE YOU. And, given how we were and will always be to each other, maybe the fact it was fast is a hidden grace. I feel as if we had to be ripped apart, as neither of us would let go. So at least it was quick and at least you had me with you. Given your GOLPP, it could have been just SO much worse.  I will try my best not to feel bad about every minor thing, I will focus on how much I loved you and how incredibly unique your life turned out to be, all the joy we had and all the love and transformation you gave me -  and not on faulting myself, as Alex would say "for breathing". 

I love you, I love you, I love you. And nothing will ever change that. I promise.

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