a first post back & all i have to hand you is
cloudy thoughts on sorrow. what a week it has been.
berwyn is not my dog but his passing is still
sorrow. it reminds me of my own little puppy who called it a day in september
of last year. it was awful.
berwyn was diagnosed with lymphoma about a month
ago. his glands started swelling one day, no other indicators. the doctors said
2-3 months if left untreated, maybe longer with steroids.
they were wrong.
he's known the last week. he knew and i knew, and so
did everyone else. there was no pretending. just lots of loving. lots of lying
on floors with a sick beautiful puppy who was still full of love.
thursday night his nodes were bigger than they'd
ever been. friday morning around 4am, he tried to jump in my bed but he missed.
i woke up & and carried that sweet little furry human into the bed. for the
first time all week, he wanted to be near. his heavy breathing gave away his
fears. so i held him and prayed and told him how loved he was. after a few
minutes of settling into the coming sadness, i prayed again and texted brianna,
who was asleep down stairs. i don't ever wake people up in the early hours, but
this time was appropriate. she sat with her sweet boy & worked through what
the day would look like. her sister eventually came in and we tried to figure
out who would be where. it was time to let berwyn go.
in general, heaven means very little to me. it has
never been something I've cared about and for me, it doesn't do much for my
framework. I've been studying Christianity for 8 years now, tons of different
eschatology options, arguments, all of it. what is at the end of life? what
difference does it make. but then there are dogs. dogs make me believe in
heaven. i love humans and care so terribly much about humans. but as far as
rewards at the end of it all? meh. but dogs? there better be a rewards at the
end of it for such faithful little companions. the world seems unpalatable if
berwyn isn't running around a giant green field somewhere.
before i left for my internship, i laid on the
ground with berwyn with all the tenderness of sorrow that i had left. he knew.
i kissed his tiny little forehead and said goodbye. my boss gave me permission
to leave when i needed to so as soon as bri texted me, i started towards the
clinic.
i knew when the drip started and i knew i
wouldn't make it in time. it didn't matter. i had already loved berwyn as much as i had
in me. i walked him and sat on the curb with him when he got sick the first
time. i threw a ball around with him. i played within his limits at the end. i
fed him in the mornings before i left. i stopped doing homework to play with
his red bone. i followed him on the carpet when he moved away. i curled up with
him to sleep. i loved that tiny little noodle. so when bri texted me that it
was done, there was no regret about not leaving earlier. and knowing that she
had the space and privacy to grieve over her dog was important.
the weather on the drive back was crap. gray and
foggy and rainy. the perfect mixtape for loss. i read the text and felt the
grief crawling into my chest. and instead of fighting it off, i helped make a
little pallet and said 'you are welcome here, stay as long as you need to.'
i thought of cassie last year and the sudden absence of your most
responsive companion. i think my dog taught me about moving through sadness.
she would sense it & just sit with me. no barking, no playing, no moving.
just sitting and letting the silence find the porous pockets in your bones. i
don't often feel lonely, whether its the companionship of friends and family or
my own insistence at including noise in my life. but when my mom called me and
told me about cassie, i came home to a raucous silence. it was the most violently loneliness I've experienced. to walk through the house and not hear the tiny clicks of little paws. that is where i understood sorrow the best.
so this past weekend, without a 30lb heater curled into the bed, i heard a loud silence. i felt the absence of a tiny human (not actually a human) who interrupted most of my homework. i missed the beautiful brown eyes and even the startling barking when i stranger would think about walking past the door, never mind cross the line of vision. i miss those beautiful things and i feel the grief in it.
today is new and old. full and a little less robust. today lacks a certain furry companion to ward off my demons. and my academic bear traps. i raise you the fury heard in ben howard rewrites, and the grief of noah gundersen. i miss you little berwyn. i miss you a lot.
