It was a normal Tuesday morning. I was getting ready for work. I let Odin outside, walked away to make my coffee, and when I came back, he was still standing at the door. Something wasn't right.
When he finally moved, his body was severely hunched over. Every movement seemed to hurt him. I had never seen my dog in pain like that. Suddenly, the coffee didn't matter. Work didn't matter. Makeup certainly didn't matter. I threw on whatever I could find, grabbed his collar and leash, helped my 120-pound baby into the truck as carefully as I could, and drove him to the vet.
I got him to the vet, and the young woman proceeded with the intake and asked if we could get his weight. He was shaking. I said no, he's hurting. All I could think about was where the damn vet was. I was gripping his leash...The young woman escorted us to the room to wait for the vet. Odin kept shaking, and the vet showed up and ran through what they needed to do. They finally took him in for testing.
I walked back out carrying his collar and leash, but without him. I barely made it to my truck. I sat behind the steering wheel and broke. Not a graceful tear rolling down my cheek. I cried. I gripped the steering wheel. My body hunched forward almost as if I could feel his pain in my own body. My mouth was dry. My stomach hurt. My eyes were swollen.
And suddenly, this wasn't only about Odin. I was back somewhere I knew. "Please. I can't lose him. I'm not ready to do this again." "GOD PLEASE! Give me a damn break!" Five years. I've been trying for five fucking years to move forward, to rebuild from heartache, my life, my work; my entire world has been stripped from me." And underneath all of the pain I was feeling in that moment, was a thought... I hadn't realized this feeling still knew how to find me.
"I cannot survive losing someone I love again."
Sometimes the Present Touches an Old Wound...
That is the strange thing about grief. It doesn't always announce itself. Sometimes it arrives in the middle of a crisis. Sometimes it finds you while you're looking at something beautiful. Sometimes it's a song, a smell, a hospital room, an empty chair, a phone call, or an ordinary Tuesday morning that suddenly isn't ordinary anymore. The present touches something from before, and for a moment your body doesn't seem to know the difference.
Sitting in that truck, I wasn't only a woman worried about her dog. Part of me was back inside another devastating day. When my husband Malcolm died, the family and animals I loved were impacted by his choices. It changed my understanding of how quickly a normal day can become the day that divides your life into before and after. And sitting outside that veterinary office with Odin's empty leash beside me, that old fear came rushing back.
See? Nothing stays.
That story didn't begin with Odin. It didn't even begin with Malcolm. Some of it reaches all the way back to childhood, when people leaving taught a much younger version of me to wonder whether their leaving had something to do with me. Over time, loss can begin collecting evidence for a story it wants you to believe: People leave. Things fall apart. Everything you build eventually breaks. Why keep opening yourself to love if love can be taken away?
Five years ago, I might have believed every word. I don't anymore.
Grief Returning Doesn't Mean You're Going Backward
When I finally drove home, I threw Odin's leash on the table. Friends were texting me, checking on us. I answered some messages, but eventually I didn't want to talk anymore.
I went outside and sat underneath my pergola. It has become one of those places where I naturally return when I need to hear myself again. I drank some water. I prayed. Please let him be okay.
Then I got up and started walking around my yard. My garden needed tending, so I began pruning. Dead leaves. Dead branches. Debris. Things that needed clearing away. For about 45 minutes, I let my hands do the work and connect me to that place of surrender. I walked, clipped, pulled, and cleaned. I wasn't trying to avoid what I felt. Gardening has always helped clear my mind. My hands had something to do while the rest of me waited for an answer I couldn't control.
Eventually I went upstairs and lay down. I couldn't sleep. So I breathed. And somewhere inside all that waiting, I began to understand something the woman I was five years ago couldn't have understood yet; grief can return without taking me backward.
Feeling grief again does not erase the healing that happened between then and now. It doesn't mean I failed. It doesn't mean I'm back at the beginning. And it doesn't mean I have to surrender my present life to something painful from my past. Grief can visit me without becoming where I live.
I Would Still Choose Love...
Eventually the veterinarian called. Odin's spine looked fine. There didn't appear to be a serious gastric problem. They couldn't find anything catastrophic. My giant dog was heavily medicated, possibly dealing with a sprain, and apparently carrying an impressive amount of gas.
After hours of imagining every terrible possibility, I laughed and cried. Nearly $800 to discover that this enormous creature might essentially be painfully gassy. And I have never been happier to pay a veterinary bill.
When I picked him up, he was ridiculously drugged and disoriented. I got him into the truck, brought him home, made sure he had water, and watched him settle into his bed. Eventually, I settled into mine. We both went to sleep around seven that evening. Exhausted. Safe. Still here.
And somewhere between the fear and the relief, another truth became clearer to me. Loving someone means accepting that I cannot guarantee how long I get to have them. That is true of a husband. A friend. A parent. A child. An animal. A relationship. A season in our lives where nothing is working. Nothing about loving gives us ownership over time.
For years, part of me believed that perhaps the safest response to loss was to grip tighter. Or maybe not open quite so much the next time. But I don't believe that anymore.
If loving something deeply means that losing it may someday hurt deeply, I would still choose the love. I would love another dog. I would love another man. I would open my heart again. In a heartbeat.
Because the blessing isn't that I found some way to guarantee that nothing I love will ever leave. The blessing is that I loved. Fully. And grief doesn't get to convince me that loving was the mistake.
A Sacred Reflection
When grief surprises you, before deciding that you've gone backward, ask yourself: What happened in my present that touched something from my past?
Then ask, "What old story is this grief trying to make true again?"
Maybe yours sounds like...Everyone leaves. I'm alone. I can't survive this. Nothing good lasts. I shouldn't have trusted again.
You don't have to argue with the story immediately. Notice it. Let yourself feel what came up. And when you're ready, ask one more question: Is this still true about the person I am today?
A Small Ritual. Return to Now...
Find something that gently brings your body back into the present. Go outside. Walk. Breathe. Water something. Tend your garden. Sit somewhere that makes you feel grounded. Hold a warm cup in your hands. Write down what you're afraid of.
You don't have to force yourself to feel better. Simply remind yourself... This is now. That was then. I am allowed to feel what this awakened without living there again.
Grief may always know how to find me. There will probably be other ordinary Tuesdays. Other moments when my body remembers before my mind understands why. But I know something now that I didn't know five years ago.
Grief showing up does not mean my life has stopped moving forward. And knowing that love may someday become grief will never convince me that I shouldn't love.
I will. Again and again.
Because in the end, it's about the love.
