Another Thursday, and More Lessons from my Love

 It's so hard to believe we are close to Christmas, and in just two months Danny will have been gone from my life for a whole year.
Much of it has been a blur as I tried to manage the most terrible grief, my back pain, depression, work and then my joyful but incredibly demanding  puppy Gabriel.

The last few days, probably a confluence of factors, I've been really down and sad. But even through that haze, I feel insights coming through that are so important for me to integrate, and to share. I just wanted to take a few minutes and jot them both down here today.

1) Celebrate NOW.

2) It's not betrayal to do better

2) I can share love and it doesn't diminish Dan and me.

1) Sounds obvious to the point of cliche, but some things drive the point home so poignantly. I'm not doing much Christmas this year, but not ignoring it either - I did purchase a Swarovski Christmas Star from 2006, the year Dan was born and came into my life. We're getting a small - 4 ft - artificial tree, the first I've ever had, and I'm going to put it up even in future years when it's safe to do my full tree, and make it a memorial tree, starting with Dan. It may become a Danny tree and then a second small tree will cover all my other lost loves, I don't know. But the point is, as I was buying Dan's star I kept thinking, why do we wait till someone is gone, to memorialize? I mean, that's not the right word - celebrate, maybe? Buying the stars from years past is expensive and requires some hunting - I got 2006 at a steal, for 80$, some were listed at 300! but pragmatics aside, why not celebrate now? Although it hurt me to do so, I bought a 2021 star for the first year of Gabriel. (It hurt because I never did this with Dan, and I feel enormous guilt for all the love I feel towards Gabe, anything he gets Dan never had. I know this will ease in time).

To sum up - I have a table in one room of my house, with framed pictures of Danny, several photo books, various rabbits, a memorial plaque, candles etc -  I'm working on several projects like a silver pendant in the shape of his chest angel, and painting stones (an artist I am not)..all kinds of things SINCE HE DIED. And some of that is appropriate of course, but some, like Christmas ornaments, can and should be incorporated into the here and now with the ones we love who are with us.
That may sound absurdly obvious to many but it wasn't to me. I get so caught up in survival - right now we are in a frighteningly slow phase and I still have to prioritize top quality food, a good coat, toys etc for Gabie - that I forget to do small, celebratory but meaningful things like a Gabe's first Christmas" ornament - or a framed pic of him on the wall NOW, not to wait till he's gone and then plaster the house with them.

2) Doing better with Gabe- this hits me all the time every day. I was preparing Gabe's breakfast this morning, and remembered how, when Danny was this age, I so often put down a bowl of (good) kibble for his breakfast, I was so out of it in the mornings ( a side effect of my beer habit n those days, which I have completely given up years ago). Dan was never neglected in any way, God forbid, and he had home made food throughout his life,  at the end he had all home made, the last 3 years I made it fresh every day, too. And I not only balanced it to NRC values, I geared it always to his preferences. But I felt guilt this morning to the point of tears, dishing up home made  meatloaf and a few supplements for Gabe's breakfast. Anything I feel I "do better" now hurts me so much. I will just have to find some way through this one. It is a daily companion....no amount of rationalizing, of intellectual understanding, helps it much at all.

I remind myself - this is not betrayal, it is growth, it is carrying forth the legacy.

3. I am gradually getting better with this. I remind myself that all the years I had my Dan, I also loved all the cats, Korky, and all the other dogs here - my darling Lila, in the beginning, and then two RR rescues, Tina and Amara.  It has always felt to me like I can love other creatures, but also that all the love in the universe pales in comparison to how much I love Dan. I so often feel I have betrayed him by getting a pup - and, excruciatingly, when I am in the midst of a big "love-in" with Gabe, (he's such a cuddle bug) I feel these waves of guilt hit me, like "oh yeah, you loved Dan to the ends of the earth and 5 months after his death you just replaced him". I mean, I KNOW that isn't true, but yet I do it. What is it on me that makes this happen? Survivor guilt? I leaned about that phenomenon after my brother died....PTSD? Likely both?

I'm not really going anywhere with this post, just  thinking out loud and hoping something might resonate wit others struggling with longterm grief. Every day is still a challenge and I feel - I KNOW, there is so much still to "process". And it gets harder as time passes and people around you think your grief is pathological, it's gone on too long, you are wallowing etc. Nothing so isolating and  difficult as all that. Our grief is what it is and yes, it can be complicated and tied to other issues, and yes it can take years. What I do - one of the things I do, anyway - is write here and get clarity.  I try to celebrate Gabie NOW, although I am so tired and in need fo a rest, I do make a conscious effort every day to celebrate his beautiful presence in my life. I struggle with feeling like I would have been a better Mom to Danny if I "knew then what I know now", even as I recognize how loved he always was. Lastly, loving again does not crap all over the years I had with Dan. I got this puppy to help me survive and that is exactly what he has done - helped me, at the same time I owe HIM all the love and care and focus Danny got and I strive to deliver it. Gabe is not a mistake or a replacement, he is my sweetie, my companion and my helper. There is not one iota of my love for Dan displaced by his presence in my life.

Not...one.

I started this post in December and just completed it now, April 18th. Not much has changed. Gabe is bigger, settling a bit and I am soldiering on through my many health and other challenges. I miss and mourn Danny evry day, as I face the second spring without him - which in fact, feels like the first spring,as last year I was deep in shock and living in some kind fo an altered state.

Occasionally these days I get clarity about WHY this is all so devastating - why meaning, beyond the loss of my dog, which is hard enough - and sometimes I get glimmers of healing, at least what to do if I ever had the time. I suppose I am moving forward.But it remains a long journey and very draining.

My heart is fully with everyone out there who is going through the same. And especially those whom the world simply does not understand.

A Ritual of Cleansing

 Today I opened this blog for the first time in a long while. At the very top, I saw three consecutive attempts to post - my first Christmas without Dan, a reflection on not waiting till someone you love is gone, to do things that celebrate their life,and another, just outpouring of sadness, after I found a line about how "Gabriel was sent by Daniel"...three attempts to write something, all ended with tears and depression. I carry my grief with me every day, I guess I've felt like I don't really need to open up this blog and pour more fuel on the fire of sadness and regret.

But today I am posting this, and maybe will even go back and add the others. Nobody, save for a loving inner circle ever reads this blog, so it's more for my own memories and processing, but that counts too. I'm not writing here about how the loss of one funny little sweetheart of a dog haunts and hurts me, to gain some kind of wide audience. It's for me - and for him - and anyone who happens upon it that may relate. I totally get that my writing may make others very sad as well. But I need to post this - for Danny, for my own soul, for everyone who has lost a living being they loved beyond words.

 I have been washing one of Danny's harnesses today - an old one, ill-fitting, but that I cannot part with for many reasons. He wore it for many years, and while I made attempts to buy him a new one, I was uneasy buying online back then, I had almost no money, and what if the one I bought wasn't a good fit? Better to stick with the ill-fitting one he has (and doesn't seem to mind). He really only needed a new one to go into town with, and we rarely did that. His harnesses were always referred to as his "littles" - everything about Danny was little - so it's weird to even write about his "harness". He had his littles, and for many years, he wore this grey one. All through his mature years - from maybe ...3? to when we left Rupert just before he turned 11, he wore this thing. I didn't even put it on him correctly. But, it was his Little and the sight of it hanging on his empty chair, fills me with pain and longing.

 

 

And then, last week,  I recently realized, it smells bloody awful.

I did wash that thing - I mean, dozens of times in the years when he was wearing it.But honestly, I didn't often wash HIM - a point that brings me much pain when I think about it these days. Washing him was like so many things I didn't do - or to be more accurate, gave up trying to do - because he hated it so much. I recall a few adventures in Dan-washing back at the house - I'd bring multiple large basins of warm water out back, and soap and towels, and tether Monk to the fence - 2 hours later, covered in water and usually with some kind of injury (me) he'd be clean but I'd be exhausted, and I hated stressing him so much. This was the period where I was washing Jasmine almost daily as she was totally incontinent - urine and feces - and would often have diarrhea in the night, the diaper didn't hold it, and then - since she had advanced CCD and paced all night) the whole downstairs had to be mopped as well. I'd be washing HER and the bedding and the floor half the day (Alex was in Saskatchewan). So yes, I didn't wash my Rabbit enough, and he got a little stinky, and seeing as I'm his Mom and all, I really didn't mind.

But the Little - well it does smell. And not smell of HIM - his sweet, warm, puppydog aroma I loved so much - but of stale fur oil and  country- dog -who-walks- an-hour -every-day (at least) offleash and may just get into stuff when Mom is bent over some strange little woodland plant or other. I have to wash it - there is no choice - if it is to hang on the back of his chair in my office - I simply have to wash his Little.

The problem is - this. It is covered in his fur - one of the last items I have that is (his winter coat notwithstanding) and washing it, crazy as this sounds, feels like washing away more of him - as if he hasn't already been gone almost 14 months, as if every single day his absence is not palpable, heart rending, omnipresent. But I just have to do it, and let go of the stink and the bit of fur and the desperate hanging on that I do. So today, this is it - a day "off" (such as I ever actually get one) and I am filling my rabbit bowl with scented soap and well water,  soaking and rinsing and adding rose oil until the damn ill-fitting stinky old Little smells as sweet and sacred as my memories of my boy. As my love for him that death cannot touch...as the lilacs in May at our home in the country. And for some reason this act just breaks me in pieces,  and brings everything about the end back in such acute detail, I cannot wait to get it done.

Danny's fur lined Little, soaking in a rabbit bowl with cedar and a crystal from our Holy Place. 

I wrote this poem today and it says it all, for me. The pain, the love, the memories that burn and sear more than they comfort and uplift.
So far, anyway.

 

Bring me a basin

of Shadow and gold

A bowl made of memory

This water to hold

A bowl full of sorrow, of tears and of joy

To wash away bits of

my beautiful boy

 

To wash away memory

To wash away pain

Till my own days are over

And we meet again

 

Oh bring me some cedar, a stone from the ground

that we walked over daily

A woman, a hound

and here I will stand, with your Spirit so near

As I wash away sorrow, regret and all fear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

November

.

                            My sweetheart, snaps from Novembers gone by.

                Loved with a love beyond all feeling, Missed with a grief beyond all tears.

Puppy kindergarten, Nov 2006

We were listening to Tapestry (well, I was) and I shot a video of him refusing to look at me. Cherished.

He was four here, still loved first snow.

     Several shots from 2011, he LOVED  that big rock and always jumped up on it every single time we   walked that trail, even in the snow. <3 Happiest days of my life, bar none.

                                           First November at the new place

                                    Oh that little babyface he did, and the ears....2017

 2018.....He looks kind of miserable but he LOVED that grinch, courtesy of the Bark Box. (we had given up trying to trim nails at this pint, with his heart diagnosis and how over the top he got about trims)
At this point, 12 and three months, I could see some changes, we were getting more bloodwork, and he often looked  unwell in pics, but would explode into normal Danny behaviour once the camera was gone. I adjusted and re-adjusted his diet...and walked twice a day, albeit shorter ones. I look back and wonder if he was really sad, having left all our joyful days of freedom behind. But he never seemed very happy when I took him back to the old trails, he looked forward to  his short, leashed walks around here seemingly much more.

A lot more of this  (above)  by November 2019. He was 13 and three months and seemed tired a lot. A few months later he would start passing blood in his urine,intermittently, and we did Xrays, urinalysis etc but no ultrasound as the thinking was, it was prostate. Really, it was the first signs of his cancer. I just kept him warm and comfy and well fed and entertained in short bursts. On the occasions he'd get up and be his "old self" - throw a catbed, rip up a cardboard box, empty a garbage basket - my heart both sang with joy and ached with foreshadowing. I knew we were nearing the end, but I was managing my grief by focusing on fighting for him.

There are no pics from November 2020, his last: by then we knew he had GOLPP on top of the heart disease and he was passing bloody urine daily, sometimes with clots. I was in no mood for pictures, also a month after finding out my "lumbar sprain" is actually four vertebral fractures due to severe osteoporosis. It was a terribly hard time. I don't know what altered state I was in that pulled me through Christmas, but I did it - presents, meals, the tree. Maybe that's how I got through the inevitability of losing Danny.  And he stayed stable for me, with his  severe blood and blockages starting in January, and his final day in early February.

 Danny, my Rabbit, I love and miss you so.The joy you brought me will last forever...even as  this sorrow will as well.

Samhain, 2021

 This Samhain - last night/today, is my first without my Dan in 15 years. We had 15 of them together and now, I walk forward without his physical presence beside me, not now nor ever again.
That said, he is strongly here in spirit, when I call. And yesterday/ last night - I called.

I am in a strange place, spiritually. It's a lot to go into, and I'm sure many are dealing with the same - loss, depression, despair for the world, broken hearted, fearful  - some have the kind of faith that pulls them through these Dark Nights - others like myself, kind of have to do it on our own. I've neglected a lot of what I consider my spiritual practise, these past few years since I became the sole breadwinner, experienced severe health issues, and watched my darling heart Danny weaken and die.  I realized recently the time spent in spiritual practise, in Inner work, in offerings and meditation, in sacred art and reading - in the forest! is not time I can just cut out of my life to answer a few dozen more emails, squeeze in time to mark assignments, help set up a new site or blog. After doing my client work and caring for my animals, it's next on the list. And already I feel...supported and stronger. I decided to do something yesterday and today, although I don't feel up to ritual, I honoured my ancestors and reached out to my sweetheart, I cooked (applesauce,Gabe's meatloaf shared with Dan, soul cakes as always and Nikiah Seed's intriguing spicy chocolate cake.). I sained the house, lit candles for my ancestors of blood and place, and  journaled.

I also cut down some mugwort (my stand out back is just incredible  - new shoots and leaves all the time) and harvested some rosemary, to make bundles, with the cedar I brought form Rupert, last visit. Today I will take them to the cemetery, where I plan to visit the ancestors buried there, in Rupert - going back four generations as far as I can track them - my great great grandparents buried near the sacred place I lived for 12 years. I will just leave a few on the graves of the people who lived here so many years ago, as I bless them and thank them for my life. Nothing more, not yet - although my work healing ancestral pain has a long way to go, it's so important to move cautiously.

Danny in about....2011? At a favorite Sit Spot of mine while I was doing the Kamana work. The Rupert Union Cemetery is in the far right corner, where several generations of my maternal grandmother's family are buried.

My great great grandparent's grave, in Rupert- apparently James' mother is buried here as well, she is down on record as having died here - but I cannot locate her grave as yet.

I have resumed my ancestral and animism studies with Daniel Foor, and allotted specific times daily to make offerings, to tend my shrines, to read and relax.

And yes, with a seven month old puppy who would give the fabled Marley a run for the money, plus a more-than-fulltime job,  this isn't easy. This morning while I made coffee, Gabriel started pulling the new mattress apart - he has already ripped my big splurge - new flannel sheets for the bigger bed - to shreds, again in the morning when I was too groggy to keep up with him. But, like taking real weekends, not fake ones where I still answer emails all day, has made a difference for me and I have seen the power of making space for my spiritual/emotional needs as well. I'll be keeping this up.



Talking to Dan - more...formally? than I usually do, was powerful - agonizing, but filled with so much love. I decided, too, that I'd take out his Little (my name for his harness) and wash it -  that was very hard, as it was covered with his fur, and I didn't want to lose that - but it was also a bit stinky, and I want to keep his little pine box of special things smelling sweet, so I washed it. The pain just engulfed me the whole time, and I sang The Lost Words Blessing as I did it. ..and after I had, I saw that some of his fur had remained.
 

Yesterday and today have been strange, powerful, and I'm  just grateful I still have the strength to do some baking, some ritual, on top of all the work. Gabe is beside me and so very loving - but as I said to a friend the other day, even if I had my health suddenly back, enough money to retire, and all the world's problems were solved in a flash - I'd be deep in grief, because I have lost Dan. All the good things in my life, which I cherish, and am so deeply grateful for - do not change the reality of loss.  And that's what love is - traveling this life together, with our loved ones, and then staying connected and conscious after we lose them. Grief is powerful; and omnipresent, and complicated - it will take as long as it takes.  

                 

                  Clean harness and one of his Rabbit toys, on the wooden box filled with memories.

              Blessings and love to all of you walking this Path of Pain; my heart is with you.

 

The Things We Long to Do and Don't

 This morning I am particularly sick with sorrow, and I know why; it's autumn, my first without Danny;  I'm doing some Ancestral Work (which always takes me back to Rupert, which I never really left) and, I played that Justin Hayward song, which breaks my heart in a million pieces as it expresses my sadness and loss so eloquently.

This is the journey, I know it is. I have to live through the pain. I have to allow the jumble of emotions to coexist (Gabriel  became very excited at the sound of coyotes earlier, ran around making little grunting noises and looking so so serious, and then decided the safest place for him was to sit on my foot, as Danny always did. It was...adorable). Then for some reason the cascade of sorrow descended - I had done the dishes, tackled a bit of the email, made my morning offerings and lit the candles, and then there it was. Now that I think of it, I suspect the trigger was a sweet image one of my herbal colleagues posted, of a huge chair he had purchased, to share with his dog. He and the dog looked so happy in it.  The thing is, I had always planned to buy something like that for Dan, at the end, so he could sleep with me. So we could have a wee cuddle outside of bedtime, where he really liked to sprawl, or crawl under the covers to snuggle, which would have been a really, really bad idea with GOLPP (they must not get overheated). In my Danny Folder, I have many images like this:

..which I planned to buy for his final days. Sure,  many are expensive, but I was looking for simple comfort and hey, I spent half my income on food, supplements, vets etc anyway. 
So why didn't  I get this thing?

Or the "better Bark Box" - there is a Canadian company that includes more natural treats, I stopped the Bark Box because we never used the treats and the boys stopped caring about the squeaky toys.
I didn't get the better version, because, well, I knew he was going to die.

And I didn't get the Big Chair thing because I am always scrambling to make ends meet, I'm tired, have to fight disorganization daily (hourly) and so on.
I mean, Dan already had a ton of toys, he slept on the sofa beside me - and let's not forget, the only reason he wasn't in bed beside me at the end was, I fractured 4 vertebra and have to have a special mattress and my bed elevated WAY too high for him. If he'd jumped off he'd have surely hurt himself.

I was trying to take care of him, me, the cats, everything. While battling the pain that is called Anticipatory Grief and the insufferable misery that is called Regret.
I try to cut myself some slack and remember all the things I did do. But I'm hard wired to berate myself, find fault. It's been a lifelong battle to feel even marginally "ok", and now with the trauma of Dan's death, and my health challenges, all the old crap comes flooding back - great the way that happens, isn't it.

So I find a thousand things I wanted to do, planned to do, longed to do, but didn't. And then I have to walk myself through the reasons why - some valid and sensible, like trying to work all the time and pay for everything - others represent stuff I need to look into....some magical thinking, for example, and managing my anxiety/depression with shopping.

I look at Gabriel and think, I'm going to make sure I don't make the same mistakes.

But then I feel guilty.

Every day is a struggle. But I'm walking the walk here, trying to do it all as always, with some more grace extended to myself.
I loved Danny with all my heart and I was a pretty good Mom, even without the chair thing and the new Bark Box.

I hope the hurt eases up soon.
And that I have the strength to make the real changes I need to for this journey ahead.

Octobers

 This is my first October in 16 years without Dan.
I brought him home in late October, 2006. Last October, 2020, marked 15 together. I feel like it was all a dream, most of the time.
Looking at our pictures help; here are a few of my faves from  Octobers through the years.

                                                            All from October 2006

                                                               October 2007

                             With Tina and me, at a St. Francis Day outing - October 2009

                                            Two profiles, in his chair, October 2010

2011, the year he was 5 and his muzzle started to turn white. Bottom pic is on a roadtrip to look at 300 acres of wild land for sale, alas no accommodation...but here we have the famous Danny Squint

                             Up at Eddie's land, one of my favorite pics of him - 2012

                        Blending in with the fall colours on one of our most beloved rambles, 2013

 

 

                                          2014, in his chair, watching me clean

                                    2016, he was 10, and very white, but still very fit, active,healthy
                                                     Our last October in Rupert

2017, in his weird harness, at the new house. He palpably disliked these woods or at least, felt ill at ease in them, but he adored walking onleash around the circle, sniffing the other dogs who had passed by. I never would have imagined.

 

                                                                          2018

                                                          How sweet he was, always....


                                     
  And that's it for Octobers - no pics from 2019 (I was unable to stand up!)   or  his last October, 2020.
                                Oh Dan. I love you and miss you so much.

35 Weeks without you

  Today marks 35 weeks since Danny left me so abruptly, and in such soul-shattering pain. While the initial shock and extreme pain has eased, I am by no means back to any sort of normal. I am working - I have a puppy (can't bring myself to write much about him yet, but he is beautiful, loving and helps me so so much) I have 4 old, amazing cats and a tyrant of a parrot; I am surrounded by an oak forest and my herbalism/spiritual practise are strong within me. My health is both bad (fractured spine) and good (no diabetes,  no overt heart disease, all blood values good etc). I strive to be a better human, mostly every day I do (I slack off on weekends and just do self care) and I still feel a glimmer of hope for myself and, more insanely, humanity. I look forward to tv at night with my partner; I can walk Gabriel 20-30 minutes once or even twice a day now. Awaiting medical help I have a better pain management protocol in place, and I do mostly all the natural stuff - D3, K2, multi-min, herbs, olive oil, flax,  legumes and and and and and (scones, too, nobody's perfect).

Despite the troubles ahead for the world, the challenges of aging, and  deep regret over my mistakes in my fifties, I feel love, wonder, hope and even occasional joy, at the miracle of life, at the sweetness of the puppy, the incredible humour of my bird (greets me with "Hello, Psycho "- and worse - and that's just the start of the day) I am so grateful for the tenderness and wisdom of my cats, this house full of books and herbs and all the collected and loved little things of my life so far. My partner and I could not be more opposite in our ways, but we also cannot be without each other, so we have it more or less worked out (we won't talk about dog training here).

And, still, Dan's absence is everywhere "over everything like the sky" as C.S. Lewis put it.

Still, I cry every day, talk to him every day, light his candle, feel the strangeness of being without him (me and Dan and Dan and me!) and often, watching Gabriel, I go back to the first years, before Lila died and Dan and I became truly a bonded, hyper-attached pair... (2007 -8) and marvel at how much we think we know about dogs, when in fact there is always a part that is so mysterious and Other. When I remember those years - Lila's last illness and surgery and eventual death...my father's death... my opening up to herbalism in a whole new way...my embracing of solitude...I stop and look at Danny's pictures and wonder - how was all this for you? He seems happy - crazy -  full of life! and he was so well loved, cared for - fed... but his experiences, while I strive to understand them, are his own... there  are many times I catch myself, in retrospect, projecting aspects of myself onto him. When I see Gabriel these days, I keep that sense of mystery, of his Other-ness, front and centre. More on that when I am able to write about Gabe.

Still, I was never apart from Daniel, and whatever mistakes I made, whatever human arrogance made me think I knew him entirely, however much I regret certain things that last year, his sudden vanishing  and all that he and I were and did together - gone! there remains a palpable presence -  his sweet face gazing out at me from pictures - in frames, on the fridge, everywhere...the emptiness of the backyard...and the eerie aura of loss and love in the room where I keep his ashes....along with an increasing amount of  focus on my own healing, and of course, new puppy, my work and so on.
Up until fairly recently, that absence, that pain, was constant and unrelenting. It is, a little softer now, if still pervasive.

Maybe this is how it goes. I admit, after my brother died I was basically drunk for a year. I don't remember a lot. I remember after 3 months, being asked if I was "still taking it hard"....I recall the books I bought and a few very extraordinary experiences that made me feel sure John was somewhere, still, in spirit. And almost a year after John's death, I was Given the house in Rupert, which took me into the distracting chaos of a move and then...all the transformations and experiences that followed.

John is still with me, always but in such a less acute way....the pain is there, but I have learned to live with his absence, as much as anyone ever does. Perhaps that will be how Danny and will I shift too, from an omnipresent pain (I no longer drink, so nothing is ever buried) to a powerful presence of grace beside me; his spiritual presence, bringing growth and love, as he did in his physical being. Right now, the pain is forefront, as is the remorse, but I am trying to focus on the mistakes I feel I made and rectify them - so that this pain will translate to something meaningful, lasting.

And today, as always on Thursdays, I am feeling it deeply, reliving that morning, and thinking of the  beautiful Gift that I had all those years, how much he gave me in life and left me with - and feeling gratitude through the tears.

This image seems to capture what I think of as Dan's Otherness - his Mystery, that same mystery all creatures embody, even as they live with and love us, even as we try to see them, and give them our love, however imperfectly...if not always exactly what it is they need the most.

I love you Danny. With all my heart - always, and forever.