grief / joy

2017 November

Grief/Joy

Recently I reread a post to our now defunct travel blog, in which I memorialized Greyla, who had been our 'final' dog and also our travel companion. She left us in November 2014, eleven months after my Daddy died. Daddy was diagnosed with stage 4 non-small cell lung cancer in February 2013. We left Florida, and returned to Pittsburgh, in order to spend time with him. During our stay in the only campground open in winter in the Pittsburgh area, our then nearly 14 year old dog, began to present symptoms which lead to her having major surgery just a couple of weeks before her birthday. At the time, I told God that I could not handle losing both my Dad and my dog in the same year. 

Seemed like God decided otherwise. My Dad passed away in January, 2014. We had Greyla with us until November, 2014. Both gone in the same year, granted eleven months apart, but still… I supposed that God decided eleven months was enough space for healing. It really wasn’t.

All of this has resurfaced in the past couple of days. I have begun to revisit the cumulative grief, and to a lesser degree, the joy, that we experience when we open our hearts and allow ourselves to love.

The catalyst for the current examination of joy, and grief results from our current experience as foster parents to a lovely, sweet, gentle, 12 year old black Lab, named Coco.

Coco was taken to the Beaver County Humane Society by the son of her previous owner, with the request that she be euthanized. The shelter staff explained that they could not, in good conscience, euthanize her simply based on her age, but offered to take her into the shelter, and try to place her, if they would sign Coco over. 

Coco’s entrance into our lives and hearts came a couple of weeks later.

Ray and I often do cat transports for Beaver County Humane Society, and also happen to be friends with the veterinarian currently working at BCHS. Those two things worked together to effectively draw us into the world of fostering, which we had never even considered prior to August.

Before Coco came into our lives, I had been adamant that I was done as a dog parent. I had loved Blue, Jake, Baxter, Katie, and Greyla. I had cried tears of loss with each of them, but especially with Blue, and Jake, and Greyla. I had changed. I now appreciated having a clean house. I was so certain that dogs were part of my past, and not of my future, that we adopted a bonded pair of kitties. "Yes!" I declared,"Cats are so much easier than dogs." And I enumerated all the ways in which that was so. 

Yet, when we sat in the visitation room, at the shelter, in August, with Coco, she began to worm her way into my heart, stink and all! Jump ahead, from our initial meeting with Coco, on August 16, to the day we brought her home, on August 19, to how we have fallen in love with her, to very recently, when we became worried about her health. 

A few weeks ago I began to notice that Coco’s breath was getting very stinky. My concern was that she might be developing a renal issue, although her fluid intake and output remained consistent. Then last weekend, I noted that her water was tinged pink after she had been drinking. I tried to examine her mouth, using a flashlight, but couldn’t really notice anything wrong with any of her teeth, the roof of her mouth, or her gums. But then, I am not a veterinary medical professional. So, I contacted the one person I could access easily at the BCHS, via messenger on Facebook. She, in turn, contacted the medical person from the shelter. 

Then later, during business hours, I was at the shelter for a transport, and spoke with one of the technicians, who said that there would be no Vet available until Tuesday, since the shelter is closed for business on Sunday and Monday, and this was Saturday afternoon. I said that I understood, and that I would’ve texted the Vet personally, but really didn’t want to impinge  on our friendship, especially since it didn’t seem to be life threatening, and the amount of pinkness left behind in her water seemed to be lessening. Of course, her breath was still atrocious! But, it kind of was beginning to match her general metabolic stench, for which we have not yet found a cure.

Weird, huh? Coco is old, and stinky, but we love her! She is simply a sweet, gentle, amazingly non-reactive, dog. She is sweet with our kitties, and with our next door neighbor’s kitties, as well. When we are out walking, and dogs bark at her, she never reacts. She is the most "chill" dog we have ever known. She is very predictable in her day to day habits. She eats what we give her. She takes her medication, her supplements, and anything else we offer her, without any drama, or problem. She actually prefers when I place the paste-like probiotic she takes, in the palm of my hand, and allow her to lick it off, rather than placing it in a syringe and squirting it into her mouth. She never has attempted to get on any of the furniture, or the bed. She dislikes being too warm, and often opts to lay directly on the tile floor, instead of on the rug, or on her bed. She barks only when she is needful to go outside to pee or poop, and then it is generally one, sad, plaintive "wooof". She is simply, a good dog. And I love her! And, she loves me. She usually will follow me to whichever room I am in, and when I go into the bathroom, she stares at the shut door, until I once again emerge. 

So, grief and joy… currently the grief is because we will, in all probability, lose Coco sometime within the next 2-3 months. She has an infected, cancerous growth under her tongue. I can, today, type that without immediately being reduced to a sobbing mess. She is on antibiotics to try and get the infection under control. So far, her appetite is not affected, nor is her ability to chew. She does not exhibit signs of pain. So, the plan is to offer palliative care, observe and treat any pain development, or appetite issues, and help her to feel loved, cared for, and comfortable, until the end of her days. The joy currently comes from remembering how sad and forlorn she looked in the kennel at the shelter, and knowing that she has been happy here, with us. The joy comes from waking up in the middle of the night, and hearing her snoring on her bed, in the corner of our room. Joy comes from simple things, like taking her for walks around the neighborhood, watching her scarf up her kibble and bone broth, seeing her stroll to the kitchen after our walk, because she knows that’s where the treats are, and she knows that she gets a treat when we get home. Today, joy came from watching her catch 6 hulless popcorns in a row with missing. Joy comes from knowing that she has known love in our home. 

But, grief and joy come and go, and not always in balance.

Hearing the diagnosis on Tuesday afternoon was a gut punch! And it opened unexpected flood gates to past grief. But, I am blessed to have a good friend who offered support, and insight. I am also blessed to have a "pollyanna" husband, who even in the midst of this circumstance, which affects him too, was able to find good. It is a hard situation, but we have been through hard events before, and come through, so I have faith that we will ultimately be OK. 

In the meantime, we will walk our sweet old girl, brush her, give her treats and medicine, put bone broth on her food, cook her brown rice because she likes it, let her sleep where she wants, listen to the sound of her snoring, help her to live a happy, loved rest of her life, and be grateful that we brought her into our home, our lives and and our hearts!    

    

Loss and Balance

LOSS and BALANCE

A friend and her friend's posts on FaceBook recently got me thinking about how we deal with loss, especially as it impacts us with regard to our pets and animals we love.  So, if some of this seems familiar, you may have read it on FaceBook.

My friend has a flock of chickens and loves them each individually.  More times than she would like recently she has found herself in the unenviable position of having to cull a sick hatchling. She has also had to have some very sick chickens put down. All of this is very painful and has her questioning her "toughness".  She has gotten some wonderful support from people who love her, but none of that makes it any easier when she finds herself in an untenable position. 

It got me to wondering about how we cope with the loss of beloved animals in our lives.  Do we toughen up?  Do we simply learn to accept the grieving process?  Do we actually become "better" at grieving?  Lacking a scientific study, although I'm sure there are some available, I decided to look inward to how I've survived the death of four dogs of my own, a cat of ours, and the loss of several dogs belonging to others with whom I bonded in some special way.

I have found it extremely difficult to achieve that balance of toughness and the total abandonment to love my critters and still survive their deaths. 

When my first dog, Blue died I was in shock for a month and then came the tears and pain. She had been the first dog Raymond and I had together and she traveled everywhere with us. She was 14 when she began to exhibit serious health issues and died not long after being diagnosed with both a liver tumor and renal failure. I worked in a Veterinary Clinic at the time and because of demands at work and the Christmas holiday season, I buried my feelings for the first month.  Then, I found myself at a Veterinary Convention at a seminar on "The Human-Animal Bond and Grief".  The speaker was excellent, but half way through her presentation, I had a total emotional collapse and found it difficult to stop sobbing. Though we also had two other dogs at the time, Jake and Baxter, I couldn't shake the feeling that I had somehow let Blue down.  Jake was more honest to his emotions. Blue had been 3 when we added Jake to our family.  She was less than impressed, but he idolized her.  She eventually learned to tolerate Jake, but for him, Blue was always the leader and his buddy. When she died, Jake was present and circled her body, sniffing her and licking. He then went into what I can only describe as a depressive period.  He lost interest in food and toys; spent many hours sleeping; spent less time with his dog friends in play activities. After three months we began visiting shelters because it was clear that Jake "needed" a black dog to help him get over Blue.  That was when we adopted Katie.

When Jake died, I was inconsolable and still cry because I miss him. He was my heart dog. He lived with us from puppyhood until leukemia took him from us in 1999. He was 14 when he died. He was "my dog", although he was lovely to everyone he ever met,  human, canine, feline and rodent. I learned many lessons from Jake, both in his life and in his death. I learned that I can be loved unconditionally by a creature with paws and fur and forgiven when I mess up. But, the pain of losing him caused me to harden my heart a little.  Just a few weeks after Jake's death, my husband was turning 50 and expressed the wish for " a black female Lab". As fate would have it clients at the Vet Hospital where I worked had a litter and there were several black females. Thus, Greyla came to live with us, as "my husband's dog", as I was quick to point out to EVERYONE! I just couldn't open myself up to love her with total abandon. It was too soon after Jake. It has taken me nearly 11 years to recognize the fact that she is, in fact, my dog. Not that she and Raymond don't have a special bond, but down deep, she's really Mommy's girl.   

Baxter was a rescue and lived with us for six years and though I was comforted by the fact that he was well loved in those six years, losing him was painful. He came to us as an answer to my desire for a third dog.  We had Blue and Jake who were thirteen and ten, respectively when Baxter arrived. He was six. He was so happy to have a home and yard and people who took him everywhere they went, that he was thrilled to be low man on the doggie totem pole. And though he finally got his weight up into a normal range for a Lab, he always thought he was a lap dog, which was fine with me. It was very hard to lose him when he was 12 due to a brain tumor. He had quirks which we were never able to correct or even understand, but he was a love. We were almost always a three dog household when Baxter was with us, so maybe that insulated me somewhat from some of the pain I felt at losing Blue and Jake. Or maybe I had already begun to close myself off. I do know that when Baxter died, and we were suddenly a two dog household, it didn't enter my heart or mind to add another. We had our two black girls, that was enough.

In January 2009, we sent Katie across the bridge to reunite with Jake, Baxter and her many doggie friends who had preceded her in death. With Katie, I found that I had walled away a portion of myself as protection, so that when she died, I realized how detached I had been from her, emotionally. I loved her, but I never fully let her into my heart, in spite of the fact that she lived with us for over 12 years and, as with our other dogs, she had traveled everywhere  with us. It was only in letting her go that I realized how much she and I both missed. Perhaps that's when I began to really let Greyla in more completely. 

We have also had a cat. When you work in a Vet Clinic, it seems inevitable that even if you are not a self professed "cat person", you will end up being charged with the welfare of a cat sooner or later. The cat that became ours was a three week old abandoned kitten. Since the placeI worked at was only open in the evening and on week ends, it was determined that I should take the kitten home with me, since we had no other cats and wouldn't have to worry about isolating her.  My plan was to wean her and find her a good home.  Then, I brought her home. My husband fell in love! My oldest dog, Blue, attempted to nurse the kitten! My other dog, Jake, guarded the entrance to the sunporch where we kept her litter box and basket!  Spike became part of the family for the next ten years. She died in an unfortunate accident while we were away on vacation.  And I shed no tears for Spike when she died, which is sad and embarrassing to admit. Am I that hard-hearted?

I have shed tears for cats, though, as well as for rats (the pet variety) and loads of dogs whom I have known in one capacity or another, and some that I have never met, but have only read about.  And I have shed tears for my friend who loves her chickens, gives them all names and finds herself dying a little when she must make hard decisions about the flock.

It has been suggested that perhaps we learn some balance in our loving-grieving cycle as we go through life. It has taken me a long time to really let Greyla into my heart, as I have previously mentioned. But, at least I finally have. Though I fear when her time comes I will again be inconsolable. 

Balance? I can't seem to find it.