Grappling with Goodbye

The last week has been tough for me and I've been struggling to figure out why.

I didn't think it was the impending fall, although I dread it.

For a while I thought it was the fact that my birthday is coming up in a few days, but it's not like my son normally remembered and sent a card I wouldn't get this year, or called, although there was always the off chance he might. I know every "special" day will be burdened with an extra dose of grief, so there is a chance that's been contributing to my sudden spells of weeping.

It took a Facebook message Saturday morning about my long-term rescue dog Pedro for me to say "Ah ha."

A teenager who just started volunteering to work with rescue dogs and help out around the kennel -- something I and the rescues need tremendously -- said it was too quiet without Pedro.

Suddenly I realized that was probably the reason for my way too frequent bouts of crying this week.

Pedro is gone. Moved on to the next phase of his life. Hundreds of miles away where he's greeting someone else with his questioning bark, giving his kisses to someone else, looking into someone else's eyes to see if he can love and trust them. Going to adoption fairs and living in a home and looking for his forever family in ways he couldn't do while staying with me.

And I'm broken hearted.

Of course, your first question is likely to be "Well, why didn't you keep him?"

It's a fair question because I loved him and he loved me and he is a totally awesome dog that I trusted with dogs of all sizes and my grandchildren.

But there was a sticking point -- I have a nine-year-old Labrador retriever who detested him. I have a prior commitment to Rebel and it broke Rebel's heart for me to have another large male dog in my life. I could see it in his eyes and the way he carried himself when I had Pedro out for a walk. Occasionally he'd snap and I'd be struggling to separate two large dogs locked in combat and someone would wind up hurt -- usually Rebel. I had dealt with trying to keep and separate two small dogs who for some reason beyond comprehension other than their basic similarity hated one another. One dog wound up with the short end of the stick and died before her time as a result. I couldn't do that to Pedro or Rebel.

It wasn't fair to my still struggling emotions, but to be fair to Pedro I had to give him up when the opportunity came along.

I know he'll be fine because Pedro is beautiful and loving and young and has overcome abuse and neglect and learned to let all that go. He's also never really known life as a pet, since he went from bad to the vet's office to kenneled with me. So his life is only going to get better and I know he'll be happy.

But I had to say goodbye and it hurts.

Pedro came to me in early October a year ago. He was a frightening dog to take on when he emerged from the back of a rescuer's vehicle, lunging against the leash and ready to fight any dog who got close. He was probably 60 pounds of underweight bulldog mix who didn't know a whole lot of good in his life. He was heartworm positive, had spent his whole life tied out and occasionally beat up by other male dogs, and was food and dog aggressive. He also didn't like to be confined and had scaled a six-foot dog lot at a previous residence.

Enter me and several weeks -- make that months -- of tough love. There was too much dog to get by with babying. We had to have respect first and that meant tough rules to be followed. Even at that he managed one dog fight in the kennel and I got bit when I reached to move his food bowl after I thought all those issues were behind us. Of course, he immediately knew he'd done wrong, released my hand and dropped to his belly, and I knew I'd done wrong as well to too quickly forget who he used to be. We adopted a very regimented feeding routine and, if necessary, I could remind him and touch his bowl, but we both recognized the line.

There were times I wanted to strangle him, and then there were tremendous breakthroughs. He learned to play first with Willie, my male Jack Russell terrier who is probably as lost without him as I am. Then female dogs of any size, and finally males. He learned to walk on a leash, going from a prong collar to a chain collar and finally just his vinyl, without dragging me down the road. He learned not to nip at a small finger or knock down little bodies, instead eagerly pressing forward for love, or dodging them. I trusted him with Yorkie puppies, a 100-lb. Akita, my little Es who would sneak into the kennel to pet him in his cage or stand near a wall as he raced by in a wild game. He learned to drop when I yelled "NO!" even if a particularly obnoxious guest was pushing every button trying to start a fight. He was treated for heartworm and finally tested negative.

When visitors came he was overeager, jumping on them in excitement, wanting more love, more affection. With me he was well behaved, standing gently on my shoulders to look in my eyes, lying across my lap to have his stomach rubbed, giving me a guilty look when he was caught destroying something he knew he shouldn't have.

When Ethan died, he had gone to stay at the vet's for boarding because we had planned a weekend trip out of town. He stayed away a week and the rescue group asked if I needed more time. I told them I needed him and something to do.

So for more than a year, Pedro has been my project. They told me time and again I saved him, and I know there were times I looked at him and wondered why I could save him and not my own son; why I could reach him with love and discipline, when my son couldn't respond to the same to beat addiction and live his life. There were times I held Pedro and cried into his fur because in some ways he became my atonement for Ethan, my canine troubled son. I dreamed of him finding a home before Christmas, of him finally achieving his potential and the happiness he deserved because both of us had worked so hard to put his past behind him.

When the rescue group called and told me he had a foster in New York, I cried. I cried several times during our goodbye walk the morning he left -- an hour long trek to the river with the neighborhood dogs. I cried as I sat on the ground and loved on him one final time.

Then, once I saw pictures of Pedro at an adoption even in New York that same weekend, I thought I was OK because he was, but I wasn't really.

Every time I go outside, I miss his questioning bark. His doggy ears would hear the door or my car, and I'd yell a "Hello, Pedro," whatever I was doing. When I go to the kennel, there's no big white dog eager to come out and play and be loved. There's not 70-plus-lbs. of packaged energy needing a walk or a game.

There's no surrogate for my son any more, even if I didn't realize it until today. Even if I had gone so far as saying it was like sending a child off to college and waiting to hear how they were doing. Even if I know that several of the dogs I keep have become surrogates for children moved away or gone like my son. I had not really recognized how strongly Pedro had played that role for me.

I'm glad he's gone and living his life, just as I would have been if he had been Ethan. I want him to be happy and healthy and loved and I hope I'll be able to keep up with his progress, at least for a while. I hope that he doesn't leave a new hole in my heart to join the gaping wound left by Ethan's death. I'm glad I could save him, even if I couldn't save Ethan. I wish it could have been the other way. Because I'll get over Pedro in time, but I'll never get over Ethan.

And I think I've learned that I may always struggle with goodbye.

We Were Never Meant to Live Here Forever

"Aren't you afraid to die?"

Not too long ago I was out to dinner with two friends who have become close as a result of our grief journeys and they looked at my little Miata and posed that question.

I answered, "No," without a second thought. "If I were killed driving this thing, right up until the last few seconds, I'd be about as happy as I've ever been, so I don't worry about it."

Since losing Ethan, I look at death differently. It's not that I'm suicidal or don't enjoy living, but I look at death as a step, not an end. It's a change from this plane of existence to another where what we are is different, but who we are is much the same, although unhampered by the pangs of life, the bonds of our physical being, the ache of physical hardship and addiction.

I know as a Christian, I should have looked at death this way for a long time. In fact, it's a wonder Christians strong in their belief aren't ready to check out immediately and skip the whole bit of trying to live like Jesus. Life is hard. Living like Jesus, with an unwavering moral compass and a love for everyone we encounter, is even harder.

Yet we cling to life, even when we're hurting, and fear moving on to something unfamiliar. We're right to do so. It's a gift to be enjoyed as long as it's ours. We should get up each morning with a prayer of thanksgiving for the day, asking that we live it as we should -- although I'd be the first to admit that I generally don't do either of those things. Instead I wake wishing I'd slept a bit longer, that the alarm clock wasn't blaring at 5:15 a.m., or my carpal tunnel setting my hands on fire at whatever time shy of 7. Anything after 7, well then I wake up thankful for close to 8 hours of sleep!

I take the gift of life for granted, even though I know that physically it's not an endless gift. I've said goodbye to family, friends and pets whose time has run out. I've mourned their passing, even when I've been assured that they've gone to a better place. I've never been willing to think about joining them.

Then on Dec. 15 I got the call that my son was dead. Although his addiction had pulled him out of my life so thoroughly that even now I cannot miss him except in an abstract sense because he'd been gone in so many ways for so long, still there's a hole in my heart just from knowing that I won't see him again. I've been angry and sad for eight months now, and I still am.

But at the same time, I've learned something.

Ethan was afraid of life, although he'd never admit it. Every addict is. Even before addiction takes over, they need a buffer to face life, some way to separate themselves from dealing with something -- anything from physical pain to feeling like they don't fit in. They try drugs or alcohol or food or porn or a whole list of what we consider vices to cope, and then whatever fuels their addiction consumes their life.

Ethan couldn't live straight, taking the good, the bad and the ugly that life dishes out every day. But he could die. He could get high and feel a bit out of breath and stretch out and just slip away without a lot of drama or attention. When it came right down to it, it was as easy as letting go of all the things, good and bad, that had held him or driven him for 23 years.

If he could do it, then I darn sure can.

Many times "This Life" from The Afters has brought me to tears, while at the same time brought me peace. "We can't own it, we just get to hold it for a while. This life. We can't keep it or save it for another time. This life... We were never meant to stay. We don't have to be afraid of what is waiting on the other side...."

This week a woman at our church died after a long fight waiting for a liver transplant. The church had gathered to pray for her. She left behind a family not unlike my own -- a husband, grown children, and a church family who cared for her. She wasn't elderly. We didn't feel it was her time. Yet it was.

While she leaves mourners, people aching in her absence with their arms empty and their hearts broken, she's never felt better. The pain, the mental anguish, the struggle is over. Just as it was for Ethan.

Death isn't the enemy that we make it out to be.

Of course, I say that from a distance. I'm not fighting for my life. But I believe that the lesson I've learned from losing Ethan means that while I will fight to live, should the need arise, I won't fear death. While I won't rush into its darkness, or even its light if that's how the transition appears, I'll go without fear to the presence of my maker and those gone before.

I still mourn for the loss of my son, the seemingly untimely loss of others. But my perspective on this loss has changed. It's not they who have lost a life, it is us who have lost a presence.

The only way a life is lost is if we do not choose to go on living the life we're given to its fullest -- however long it lasts.

A Dead Fawn on the Lawn

I woke up this morning with a mental picture of the moment the doctor handed me my newborn son.

The wonder that after a dark-haired little girl who looked so much like her father, I had produced an unexpected son who looked instead like me with light hair and blue eyes. I was thunderstruck in that I had no idea how to be a little boy's mother, and realized even then that his father would be no help.

Then I was fully awake with the realization yet again that my beautiful boy is gone. Before I even threw back the covers, I had to pray and admit once again that I don't understand why this is how our lives had to be.

I turned on the coffee pot, fed the cat, and once coffee was made went to the front porch to enjoy it and wake up in the quiet, cool air, and hopefully regain my equilibrium for the day.

That wasn't to be.

In the center of the front yard was a dead fawn, a gaping wound of red meat, delicate legs splayed, the spots in its back letting me know without going any closer what I had to deal with.

Thanks, dogs.

Even before I went out to clean up the carcass, I knew it was roadkill. My dogs are too well fed and lazy to actually hunt and kill any real prey, and fawns are generally safe despite the tremendous number of deer in my neighborhood. When I got near with a garbage bag in hand, I wasn't disappointed to find the tiny back legs shattered with bones protruding through the skin. I wrestled the surprisingly heavy little body into the bag, discovering that the dogs had hid the worst of the wounds in their placement, and removed it from my yard.

But my memories and the fawn were linked. My emptiness and lack of understanding had found a soul mate in a doe sleeping alone somewhere. My morning was ruined.

I carried the bad feeling with me to church where I clutched a tissue and tried to avoid looking like a raccoon, although I didn't realize for a while that the two had been linked and that I was crying for Ethan and for a baby deer that I would have been willing to eat had it grown.

I was sad for another mother I met a few days ago who was in the same place I was in December, struggling to adjust to the reality that her troubled son had been found dead. I never knew her son, never met her before, but I know I was the only person in the room that understood exactly what she felt.

We're bound together in heartache and a loneliness in our hearts that we will never get over or come to terms with. Our loss is so senseless, so beyond our comprehension, so life shattering that even while we go on we know we'll never be back to who we were before.

Right now, the lonely doe is part of our misery, but I envy her.

Her life is short, even if she survives traffic and hunter's guns.

Her memory is even shorter. She won't look at other fawns and think of her own. She won't stand alone in a meadow and miss the flicking tail of her fawn as it nurses in the evening air.

Next year she'll have another baby, and it will replace the one that was torn from her side as though the dead deer on my lawn had never existed.

For her the circle of life will go on.

For me, it's the circle of grief bottoming out one more time in a process that I expect to repeat itself for the rest of my life.