Hi friends.
I hope you have had a wonderful week, though I know for a lot of you that hasn’t been the case. For whatever reason there seems to have been an uptick in those passing this last week or so; dearest friends & loved ones, beloved furry companions, staples of communities, & sudden shifting tides that have led to difficult decisions & great heartache across the board. If you find yourself in any of those categories I first want to offer you me deepest, most sincere condolences. I also want to shed some light on what you can expect going & hopefully bring a little peace your way through shared experience & understanding.
If you weren’t aware, back in May I lost my almost decade & a half companion Harvey & while yes, he was “just a dog,” he was so much more than that to me & to most of the people that had the pleasure of knowing him. I have no children other than those who bare fur & walk on all fours. That’s not a dig at saying my (non-existent) human children are very bizarre, I’m simply saying that all I have, paternally, are the animals that I have adopted over the years. I’m not going to turn this blog into a statement about how people should or shouldn’t be able to grieve their pets, but a lot of recent research shows that those of us who have strong, almost familial connections to our pets, mourn them in an identical way to how you would mourn the loss of a family member. Harvey was my boy, he was with me for over thirteen years of my life & he was, for a long time, who I looked forward to coming home to at the end of the day. So his loss ripped me apart, it shattered me to the core, & forced me to rebuild a life without him in it.
I’m not going to sit here & lie to you or belittle you. It’s hard, it’s impossibly hard, the grief that lingers like fog & settles into your bones like lead. You will have days where it is debilitating, but you will also have days where the sun shines through the blinds & melancholy & hope replace the anguish & despair. But with all things challenging in life you must face it head on & take it one step at a time.
There will be a time, when the wound of loss is fresh, where you will seemingly forget a time when your eyes were not floodgates constantly on the verge of spilling over. Then too will come a day when you can’t remember the last time you felt that way, when you can’t remember the last time you cried. You will be visited in your dreams & reach for them in your sleep & wake up with a tear soaked pillow & a yearning that can never be satiated. There will be times when a certain song, sound, smell, phrasing, sight will hit you in just the right way & you’ll find yourself back in the thick of it all. Even I still find myself here once in a blue moon all of these months later, but it does get easier & the triggers get fewer & farther between & at some point melancholy takes over the bitter sadness & all you will find is sweet longing & remembrance.
There’s a quote that I use often because of just how perfectly stated it is. It can be found in the Disney+ Show “WandaVision” at a point where one character, Vision, finds another, Wanda, sitting in the room ruminating on the death of her brother. In my mind Wanda becomes apologetic for her expression of grief & Vision delivers the beautiful line "what is grief if not love persevering?” That’s a line I think about often & as someone who often deals in lyrics or creative writing, is ultimately one that I wish I had thought of. Though as of now it definitely would’ve reached a wider audience on Disney+ than me.
We seldom think of grief this way. My perception of it has always been a dark, navy/grayish cloud of despair that sticks to the skin & sinks into the marrow. Almost like some dark force whose job it is to chain you to the depths. I think recently that idea has changed for me. We like to quantify grief in stages. First you hit the one, then the other, then the other three. And while a part of me thinks to an extent that is true in terms of the overarching experience, I think we dip in & out of each of the five stages intermittently & at times randomly. You see, if we look at grief from the perspective of love’s perseverance it becomes something entirely different, it becomes an immensely beautiful, deeply human experience.
Those who do not grieve are whose who have not known love. They have not felt its entirely. individually unique hold on their heart to then know what it is to suddenly have to live without it. They do not see the way in which our memory replays each of the moments, begging us to find what is irreplaceably lost. They do not understand the vacuum of space that feels ripped from your chest because they have not felt that level of DNA melding, intertwining love. Be so glad for that. Know that your sadness can only come from one who has been loved.
My advise to you is to feel these moments. Live in these memories savoring the shimmeringly perfect details & embrace the pain & the detriment that comes with them because these moments will fade. The intensity at which you feel their loss will fade & so too will the sharp edges of those bold, flashing memories. Grieve as you are told to love, wholeheartedly & know that you don’t owe anyone your tears or your smiles. You are allowed to be as “put together” as you need to be, or to not be. Feel what you need to feel because that is the only way to experience grief for what it is, without allowing it to compress down & fester & become this thing that sours your soul or the memory of those who you have lost. Be vulnerable, be bold, claim time for yourself & feel. You will get through it & you will find that those memories that bring you pain will, over time, fill you to the core with that feeling of love that I know right now you feel you have lost. I would also advise you that those you have lost would want you to continue living your life & to not let the delicate balance between succumbing & healing shift too far into the former.
My thoughts & love go out to you all. I understand that no words that I say or no sentiments that I extend will be enough to repair what has been broken, that is entirely up to you.
As always, much love to you all,
-C