Out of the Blue: experiential articles on resilience

Joanie Peters - freelance photographer, sixties child, black coffee

Our Dear Dog

June 17, 2010

What to do the day after you end the life of your dog?  What does resilience look like when you are grieving your pet?  It seems like a silly word if you think of it as simply bouncing back to where you were before.  I don’t want to bounce back but I can’t help but try and rebuild this new reality and resilience is always my touchstone when I’m suffering. 

Sadie was the quintessential Golden Retriever.  Gentle, sweet and an ever-present source of unconditional love.  She touched the lives of many people beyond our family and they too are feeling this loss.

There is this strange thing about grieving where you are able to stay in the present.  The “to do” lists mean nothing and time just stops for a while.  I know life will kick into gear again soon but for now I am resting in the present, honouring all that she gave us.  As I try to find stable ground on which to stand I can’t help but explore the idea of form and formless, body and spirit.

I have no doubt that we made the right decision.  Her body was worn out. It was time for her form to be released from pain and discomfort.  But here’s the thing, Sadie was no less gentle and sweet than the day she came into our lives 14 ½ years ago and when you decide to end the life of her body you feel as though you are also ending the presence of that gentleness and sweetness in your life and that is what feels so sad because I will miss that part of her hugely. I just can’t believe that we have the ability to extinguish the vibrations of gentleness and sweetness that existed within her form. We could destroy what she was but not who she was.

Somewhere in all this is the glimmer of understanding the impermanence of form and the eternalness of the formless, the littleness of body and the hugeness of spirit.  Gentleness and love are eternal and cannot cease to exist.  We have been blessed for almost 15 years with the presence of who she was in our home. Gentleness, sweetness and unconditional love existed before, during and after Sadie’s life.  It is in the air so to speak, taking form wherever it is allowed in. 

I thought I’d feel better once I’d written this all down but the truth is I don’t – yet.  I guess it’s still too soon.