This isn’t going to be a post you necessarily want to read.
Because this isn’t a post I necessarily want to write.
But all of my writing stems from emotional experience, and if there’s one thing I’m experiencing tonight… it’s raw emotion.
People say that grief is love with nowhere to go, and I’ve never felt that more acutely than when I’m laying on the carpet next to my dog’s bed, cradling her in my arms and begging her not to go.
Not yet.
She’s fine, by the way. Right now, anyway. But that’s the thing about anticipatory grief—the inevitability of it all will hit you out of nowhere, sink you to your knees, make you want to hold on just a little tighter, for just another moment more. We’re all getting older—parents, siblings, friends, pets—and though I know we’re eternal souls, we have this one precious life as this one precious someone. I’ve always been aware of this, and it’s why I’ve always focused on the blessings and gratitude of life versus the loss.
But oh, there has been loss. And I’m not prepared for another.
Maybe that’s the folly of the human ego—thinking you could ever be prepared. Maybe that’s the folly of human nature that forgets this is the cycle of life.
Grief is love with nowhere to go..
The thing is, I don’t know where the love would go when the time comes—not a love as big as this, anyway. Not all the love I hold inside for everyone and everything that’s dear. What do you do with it? How do you hold it all in? Maybe this is why the heart aches when we lose something or someone we care about.
Because we’re trying desperately to figure out what to do with it all.
We want just one more day, hour, moment to hold them in that love again…
Like a keepsake, the love is all we have left.
I’ve lost a lot of somethings and someones in my life. Some have moved on and some have passed on. It all feels the same.
A few years ago, I lost my last surviving grandparent. I’ve lost beloved animals—dogs and rabbits and my first cat, Mikey. A few months ago, I lost one of my childhood friends.
I’ve grown apart from people I once called best friends—people I once called for everything. I’ve felt the devastation of a breakup that was like a death and divorce all rolled into one. I’ve moved away from a house that was a sanctuary of healing among four walls that held my dreams.
I’ve even had to let go of some of those dreams—dreams that surprised me, that formed as quickly as love itself. Dreams that wrapped their way around my heart like a child wraps its little hand around your fingers. Dreams that I trusted, that I believed in. Letting go of those dreams felt a lot like letting go of love itself.
Grief is love with nowhere to go…
Five years ago, I experienced the hardest loss of my life. I know it pales in comparison to what other people experience, but I can’t begin to tell you what he meant to me—my constant companion, my soulmate, my baby.
My dog, Riley.
Before you go and roll your eyes at my descriptions of a dog, here’s something you should know: A dog isn’t just a dog. Not when your heart is open, not when you see and feel the soul of things. Not when you have a connection like this.
I was fresh out of college and volunteering at a local animal shelter—just to be around dogs, I promised my best friend and roommate. We had two cats living in our two-bedroom apartment, and she wasn’t fond of dogs at the time. I swear, I wasn’t intending on adopting.
Seems the Universe always has other plans.
For weeks, I walked the dogs at the animal shelter—bringing them outside into the play yard to get some sunshine and some exercise. I can’t remember what month it was, but it was colder out, and the ground was bare—just dirt where the grass should have been. I took a golden retriever for a quick walk, then debated if I had enough time to take another.
I remember passing by a cage that housed a ten-month-old beagle/basset named Rocky—not my usual dog of choice. I grew up with labs; I loved the big dogs. But there he sat, looking at me with imploring brown eyes.
My heart was taken before I was even aware of it…
As soon as we were in the play yard, he became another dog. He romped around excitedly, grabbing sticks and throwing them up into the air. I laughed in delight and crouched in front of him, and he immediately ran into my arms for snuggles. “You’re all riled up!” I exclaimed. His tail wagged, and he raced around the small enclosure again in a game of fetch. In that instant, I felt the now-familiar spark of intuition that I will always trust and follow.
“Your name is Riley,” my heart whispered. “And you’re coming home with me.”
My friend didn’t need convincing—at least, not after I begged her to come to the shelter with me. One look at the two of us, and she knew we would be adding a new member to our apartment family.
I’ll never be able to put into words what Riley meant to me—what he still means to me. I’m a writer. I should be sharing poetry and describing our days together—the way he would lounge across the back of the couch to peer out the window, or how he would snuggle beside me until he thought I was asleep, then hop down to his own bed. But the truth is, all of those memories are locked away in my heart now—the story of a girl and her dog and every lived moment they had together.
It would be impossible to recount what each one means, anyway, except to say that he was always there, and I couldn’t have asked for a greater gift. He was there when I bought my first house—I’ll never forget the sound of his nails tapping on the hardwood floors when he ran to greet me. He was there when I was sick and unable to get out of bed, spending hours beside me as I slept or cried into his fur from the pain. He was there in comfort when my heart broke, when I faced disappointment, when I felt lost and alone in the world.
Riley always brought me back.
And he was there on one of the hardest nights of my life.
He was the reason I stayed.
I’ve always said that I may have rescued Riley, but he saved me.
When Riley was 8, a few months after my cat, Mikey, passed away, I adopted Moxie. I had been scrolling PetFinder “out of curiosity” and kept landing on a cute, beagle-looking puppy. There was my intuition again, nudging me to reach out to the rescue. A few days later, they came to the house for a visit, and we let the two play in the backyard.
“Do you want to adopt her?” The woman asked me.
I couldn’t stop grinning. Of course, I did.
As the woman was leaving, she handed me some of Moxie’s things—her folder of paperwork, a stuffed moose, and a sandwich bag of treats with the word “Oompaloompa” scrawled across it.
“Wait a minute, what’s this?” I stopped the woman.
“That was her name before I fostered her,” the woman laughed. “I changed it to Moxie. You can change it again, if you want.”
No. Moxie was perfect. But Oompaloompa is what my brothers called me growing up. I couldn’t help but smile at this sign that Moxie was meant to be mine, and I was meant to be hers.
Riley was like the grumpy older sibling that Moxie loved to torment; she gave both of us a run for our money. I once told a friend the story of how she grabbed a pen from my desk and managed to get blue ink all over her.
“You really do have a toddler…” my friend replied.
I did. But she was the best thing for me as I continued to recover from illness, and she was the best thing for Riley. She brought new life to both of us, and suddenly it was the three of us—my constant companions. My beloveds. Our own little family until my own little human family joined us.
When Riley passed at the age of 14, I tried to be strong for Moxie. We went on adventures in the creek and for long walks around the neighborhood and on car rides to get ice cream. She was grieving just as much as I was—I could tell she felt his absence just as much as I did. But then one day, she grabbed her ball and wanted to play, and I knew healing had begun.
It’s been five years since then. So much has changed. We’re not in that house anymore, and in many ways it’s just me and Moxie and a new addition—my beloved cat, Sunny, who was born on the fourth of July, a few weeks before Riley passed. I feel for Sunny the same way I did for Riley, the same I did for Moxie. He and I have a bond I can’t explain—least of which because he was the greatest gift someone I love had ever given me.
Sometimes I think Riley’s passing was making way for more love, but I wonder how that could be true when in my heart I still feel the emptiness of life without him—a life where I’d give anything for him to still be here, still be with me.
Grief is love with nowhere to go…
Moxie’s getting older. I see it in her fur, in her eyes, in her movements. I see it tonight, as I’m laying beside her on the carpet while she’s struggling to get comfortable in her bed.
She’ll be twelve in November.
”Just give me a few more years,” I beg her as I stroke her fur and press kisses on her forehead. “Please, just wait a little while longer for me.”
A partner. A family member. A pet. A home. A job. A dream.
We love. And so we inevitably grieve.
It’s the insufferable paradox of being human.
