But why?

It’s been just more than a week since Ding left us; a week and two days and a couple of hours actually. Since then I’ve talked to so many people about how I feel; about the overbearing sadness that comes with this loss. Interestingly, everyone I spoke to was right there with me. So why do we do it? If it hurts so damn much to lose a pet why do we have them and why do we keep getting them?

One of my issues is that I feel like if I’m not sad every second of every day then I’m no longer honoring Ding and all she means to me but is that really true? Would Ding want me to be sullen all the time? I don’t think so. I think she’d want me to live life even more knowing how bad loss feels shouldn’t I want to celebrate the life I have and the lives of the other two dogs? I know this is the right thing but I can’t stop myself from this feeling that I need to mourn her loss every single second of my day.

I worry that I’ll forget her. I do. I worry that I’ll forget the details of her and her life. Will I remember the little things a week from now? A month? A year? I don’t want to forget her; I don’t want to forget a single minute of her time with me but I can already feel those details slipping away.

Dammit. I don’t want to forget anything about her. I don’t want to forget that sometimes the “saddle” marking on her back looked like a heart if she curled up a certain way. I don’t want to forget the first night I brought her home back in April of 2001. I was single then and lived in my little tiny first house. I thought this adorable dog would be so thrilled to have free reign to be on any furniture she wanted because she was my girlie and could do what she wanted. I put her new doggy bed in my bedroom with me and patted the bed for her to jump up. She jumped up for a minute, let me pet her soft ears then jumped down and dragged her new dog bed out of the bedroom, through the kitchen, through the living room and planted herself next to the front door where she proceeded to hunker down for the night in protective mode.

I don’t want to forget when we moved to this house and she got out of the yard but didn’t cross the street because someone had taught her not to cross streets so she was wandering the neighborhood as long as there was no street-crossing going on. My husband (then boyfriend) was the one who left the gate open and he knew if he couldn’t get her back safely he’d do best to pack his stuff and skip town. Lucky for him he got her back safely.

I don’t want to forget all the years she started out the night on the dog bed in our bedroom and then once we were safe and sound she’d quietly make her way downstairs to keep her guard by the door.
All the times she contentedly would roll onto her back and spend hours and hours in that position. I think it was because she was so safe and happy and content with her life, I need to believe that. Sadly, after the stroke almost two years ago she was no longer able to roll over that way and snooze away the hours in her favorite position. She never complained though. Nope, not my Ding girlie.
How much have I already forgotten? Too much.

I dreamt about her Monday night. One week ago was the last night she spent on planet earth…one week later all I had was her in my dreams.

The dream was so beautiful, so HAPPY that I was sad to wake up. I was so damn disappointed when I woke up and realized it was just a dream.

In the dream I was going up to bed and Ding was on the stair landing, I was surprised to see her, especially on the stair landing because she couldn’t do stairs since she had that damn stroke so I knew in my dream that she was all better, she was whole again. I bent over and rubbed her super soft ears and she looked up at me. I told her that I loved her so much and she made her happy grunting sound (we used to call it her piggy grunts) and put her head back down. Then in the dream my husband came up to bed and I looked up to see him and Ding was on the dog bed in the bedroom just like old times, my husband looked at me and said, “Did you see her? She’s HERE isn’t she? Did you pet her? I did”. In the dream as I lay back down I was actually waking up for the day, I looked over to the dog bed but it was empty.

Was she here with us? I sure hope so. Maybe it was just her way of comforting us and saying “good-bye” and letting us know that she really IS okay, she IS whole again and not broken with cancer and neurological issues.

I don’t want to forget her, ever.

But I’m human, how do I make this happen?

How does my feeble human brain keep all those memories safe and alive when she isn’t anymore? I don’t know the answer but I hope I can figure it out. I’m open to suggestions folks.

Dogs make us more human

Ding died this past Tuesday. Ding was my first ever dog. She was the one living being I wanted more than anything else in the world. My earliest memory is of wanting a dog. I got Ding in April of 2001. She was about 10 months old, maybe older, who knows she was a rescue and there wasn’t a lot of info about her. And yes I did have a lot of years with her, I know that, she was a dog and they just don’t live all that long (certainly not long enough).

I’ve gone through a lot of emotions this week (obviously). We have two other dogs that still needed to be fed and cared for so as attractive as it seemed to curl up in a fetal position with Ding’s collar and cry until there was nothing left; that wasn’t an option.

I asked myself why we have pets if we know we have to face this in the end. I mean there was a moment when I looked at the other two and thought, “I’ll RE-HOME THEM! I’ll never have to see them sick or dying, they’ll just go away…” That’s ridiculous. There’s no chance that could happen.

The many, many horrible animal abuse stories we see every damn day on Facebook and in the news ran through my head. Now that my husband and I had held my beloved Ding as she left this world it really made me wonder what kind of creature could abuse an animal when we stood there together as our hearts broke with our loss. It made abuse so much worse to me because it de-humanized the abusers for me; completely and totally removed their humanity in my eyes.

And then I knew that dogs (and cats), our pets make us more human. They bring out all our emotions and still stand by us. They make us feel things to the core of our beings in ways that other humans just can’t.

Ding made me laugh and cry, she made me angry sometimes and sometimes she just listened as I poured out my anger after a frustrating day. She never complained. She was beautiful, she had the softest ears. She caught Frisbees, I loved that.

Interestingly though, I don’t know anyone that can say anything different about THEIR pet(s). Each animal has their own distinct personality but they also all share what they give back to us; the ability to stretch fully into being human.

I never wanted to see the day come when Ding would leave me. Never; and now that she’s gone the past several days have seemed fuzzy, surreal, I don’t have many clear memories of each day. My brain is playing tricks on me to try to protect my shattered heart but the fact remains that she most certainly has left this world.

My husband has said that he thought a few times he’s heard her bark in the night and thought he caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye, so have I, she’s there you know, she’s just at the fringe of “being”.

I’ve done breed specific rescue since 2008 or 2009, I don’t even remember anymore, it’s just that thing I do. It’s that place where I’ve made a whole “other” set of friends who “get” me in a new and different way. It’s that place where we can celebrate our successes and mourn our losses together. Ding even brought me this area of my life. She got me to this group, to this place, to these fine and wonderful people. And doing rescue makes me more human. Doing rescue has helped me define my own boundaries while also pushing a little at my comfort zone. I’ve learned how not to over promise and how to honestly deliver what I do promise. Funny that all my years in the corporate world never taught me these simple truths I learned doing rescue. We can’t save them all no matter how much we want to; and we definitely want to.

Since Ding’s loss I’ve been treated so warmly by so many people. My co-workers have been amazing, my boss sat with me on my first day back in the office and shared my grief, my friends far and wide have said kind, wonderful things, hell, the folks I know only through the bar where I hang out, literally my neighborhood watering hole, all sat around last night sharing their own stories, people I normally only argue politics with or debate the jukebox choices were now telling me about their pets and the losses and the joys they experienced. Wow. Strangers were even eager to share and as my heart broke more and more it also soared with the value of what dogs, pets, bring to our lives. There is just no comparison.

It’s truly astonishing that so many have been so willing to give a hug and share their own stories, it’s made them more human to me. What an amazing gift a 40-pound dog has given me. How does anyone ever re-pay something like that?

My house feels empty with just the two blue dogs here. They don’t bark as much, they barely bark at all which is so strange, so QUIET but they are who they are, they each have their own personalities and also their own grief, a grief they can’t even tell me about so where I get to see friends and share hugs and tell the story of my sadness these two other dogs have each other to communicate with and us to stand by them unquestioningly. And stand by them we will, as they too grow old, as they change into old dogs, we’ll be right here with them and we’ll be more human for having them in our lives.

My friends have told me that I’ll never stop missing Ding but that the hurt will change over time. It’s amazing to know that all these people in my life who have lost pets still feel that loss years later, if that isn’t humanizing then what is? And here we are, caring for them, walking them, playing with them, and loving them. Mostly loving them.

Ding girlie, I’ll miss you every single day and I’m grateful for the person you’ve helped me to be; the imperfect human I am was made just a bit better because you were with me for all those years. I’ll never say good-bye because you’ll always be a part of me.