The absence of you…

Hello lovely humans,

It has been just shy of a week since my last post. It has almost been a week since my girl ceased breathing. She died. She left this world and the void in my life is gaping.

I wept on a train platform watching my beloved Rolo die over FaceTime. One of my dearest friends holding her on her floor and caressing her. I wept. I soaked through my mask. I cried so hard it felt like the earth would shatter into a million little pieces and I would disappear. I went to my second last day of my masters with the heavy heart knowing the possibility I might not see her alive again. I felt torn and regret, guilt and shame. But I needed to go I had presentations. I pleaded with her to hold on for just 2 more days. But truest to herself she went when she was ready.

I had spoken to the vet the day before, before your procedure about CPR. No I didn’t want someone to compress your ribs to the point of breaking to bring you back just for me, see I was learning to let go, just slowly. I knew you would not come back in a way that would make you “better”, alive is not always better. I knew this. I struggled the whole day when you were at the vet. I just wanted to be with you. This whole life and working thing really can get in the way of dying.

I feel mixed up with complex emotions and feelings. I feel a lot of guilt for going to class, but also I tell myself, perhaps she wanted me to go. She waited until I was gone, one of her parting gifts being teaching me to let go. I was trying my girl, I was, I promise. But it was so damned hard. The almost 40 lb little spicy meatball that had punctuated our lives for the last 11 years was drifting away. I knew it and you knew it. The night before was terrible. You had a thoracentesis done to drain the fluid that had accumulated in your abdomen. It was my Hail Mary to help you feel a little relief. I didn’t want for you to suffer. The night before you died, I think you did a little. You were uncomfortable and couldn’t sleep, you kept shifting and trying to sleep standing up. Like so many people do with heart failure. It feels wrong and cruel to call what happened to you heart failure, your heart never failed, at least your love didn’t. You cuddled with me that night, settling for short stretches of time.Your head on my legs where it belonged. If only your meds would help quicker I kept thinking. I have seen this all before. I still couldn’t let the reality of it all set in. I wasn’t ready. I was learning to let go.

Her other parting gift, was teaching me to be vulnerable and rely upon others. I have said before I am not great at asking for help. I will be there in a heartbeat for those I love in any and all ways I know how but asking for the same is not my strength. I am learning. She knew that. I often looked to her for comfort, to quell my tears and hold my secrets, when she is gone now who do I turn to? My ache for my dog may seem trivial to some, she was not just a dog to me, not now and not ever before. She was another piece of me from the day we got her. She chose me and I chose her. She is a part of me and I of her. My grief feels magnificent and huge right now. It feels profound. I will not apologize and I will not shrink my grief or loss for others to feel more comfortable. Frankly, I do not care if you don’t get it. This feels like the right size for the love we had.

I walked around my house the other night because I couldn’t sleep without the white noise of her snoring and the weight of her head resting on my leg. The house was so quiet, too quiet. I looked for something, anything that carried her scent. I cried because I couldn’t find anything, it was but another loss. I played in her bed in the office and cried. Then when I was finally tired enough I pulled myself to bed. It feels different without Rollie girl in it. My mornings lack the routine of waking up with her and giving/receiving cuddles, her smells, the little taps, the big stretches, the slow roll to the kitchen to get her food. Her meds and meal prep and taking her out. I take pregnant pauses each morning now where she once was. All my calls are quieter without her rumble in the background. It is all different and the world still seems to move regardless. It feels criminal. I am learning.

I am not sure how to end this, I wish I had wise words or some solace but I will keep going, grieving and missing you. Carrying on in your absence, feels impossible yet here we are. I am learning.

Until Next time…xo.