spring showers…
I postponed this post for a couple of reasons. For one, suffering the loss of a family pet suddenly and tragically. It stopped a lot of my planning and writing in its tracks as I tried to further navigate my emotions in all of this. Secondly, I re-read and re-read what I had written and decidedly told myself, “This was not the goal of your writing”. It was filled with overtones of preaching and anger in the wake of handling my addiction to entertainment - which was the original topic of March’s post.
I think, in hindsight, March was a revelation; but in the middle of all my anger and grief, it felt like a cruel spiral. I had gotten into the swing of crafting, writing, and engaging in my local community. I had even started to plan some much-needed trips for my husband and me which were intended to be filled with celebration and disconnection from all things electronic. But the first day of spring came in mid-March along with a string of texts from my dad about our lab, Cooper, going into emergency surgery. I screamed at my phone and called Ricky to tell him we had to head to my parents as fast as possible. But within an hour or two of those texts, he was gone. Helplessly and on a cold operating table, no less.
It was unfair to have him ripped away from us because of one stranger's actions. I think every day about how I would like to bring some kind of justice to that man - or at least his truck - to feel his death was vindicated. That, if anything, he passed so that this man could feel my full wrath and learn from his mistake. But that isn’t the story of why. Sometimes the reason why is just because. Because someone drove too fast through a quiet neighborhood because the street lamp by the house was out, and because my sweet boy was a little too hidden by the dark. Not for any other grander reason. It just happens sometimes.
The people we lose reside in this liminal space while we grieve - not yet gone, but certainly not here. You walk through the same places you remember the person you love and see their old indentions in the places they like to sit. You walk through the same places you remember the person you love and see their old indentions in the places they like to sit. You swear that when you come down that driveway they will be peaking their head around the corner or that they will be in their usual spot inside the house, but there is no such relief.
Returning home most recently I had a few moments to myself to think about all of this. I remember the sun, the strong cool breeze, and the lake reflecting like shinning glinting stones across the surface. My two dogs romped around the large tall grass playing with one another, and I could just see Copper waiting at the top of the hill sunning and waiting for the other two to join. He was there, but not. I closed my eyes and felt the strongest breeze whoosh past me. The sound dampened my hearing for a moment, and when it had passed, the dancing of the trees and rustling of the leaves played the most beautiful spring song. It was in that briefest of moments I knew he was saying goodbye.
The people we love are forces. Their personalities and stories paint pictures that stay with the people who love them. Cooper was a gentle force. I remember him as strong and sweet, soft and kind. As a puppy, he was excited and nervous carefully waiting to perform the right command. At full size, he weighed in at a whopping 90 pounds - huge, and a little chubby. But he was my baby. Our baby. So happy to see you, so timid when waiting for a treat, and quietly watching over us from the shade of his bushes. And in that briefest gust of wind, I felt him become larger than life. His spirit with the trees and the wind now. Free as a bird, loving us from the stars. His spirit uncontained from his physical form - a force of nature.
I will still continue to grieve him, but I will also know he is off running like he never could before. He is where I cannot reach, but the joy I feel outside reminds me he is always with me now. Not bound to one place at a point in time, but all around. His gentleness follows me through the trails on the early spring wind wherever I may be. I hope I can be as tender as his little spirit one day. Maybe with time.
The grief is not gone, and I am even crying as I relive this moment again just a month later, but what I can say is that processing grief is one of the hardest repeating lessons anyone has to go through. We live to love others and then they are taken from us at any point in time, from the most beautiful of spring days to the dead of cold winter nights. Grief is cyclical and ever returning because life is full of love. Oh, and how lucky are we to get to love?
The birds are singing outside my window now, and the sun is shining. I know today is a day Cooper would have loved. I’ll spend my afternoon with my two dogs and a good book on a porch he would have loved, waiting for a breeze to roll by - waiting to feel him again. Even in my grief, even in my joy, I know he loved us just as much as we did him, even now.