Grief is our Companion

Love’s as warm as tears,

Love is tears:

Pressure within the brain,

Tension at the throat,

Deluge, weeks of rain,

Haystacks afloat,

Featureless seas between

Hedges, where once was green.

C.S. Lewis
(Love's as warm as tears, stanza one)

We made the sad decision this week to have Raven, our much-loved dog, euthanized. She was doing well for fourteen years of age but had significant weight loss over the past month with a sharp decline in mobility. Our vet gave us some medication to make her last few days more comfortable but in truth, the medication gave us a little more time to selfishly delay the inevitable. She was bright and alert with a good appetite, making it harder to let her go. I confess that I have shed more tears and grieved more for pets than for many humans. Our pets are wholly dependent on us and love us unreservedly in return. Relationships with people, particularly adults, can be far more complex!

Losses add up as we get older and grief becomes a permanent part of our psyche. Nearly everyone in the generation before me is gone as well as several relatives, friends and acquaintances in my own generation. Age robs us of familiar routines and gradually reduces our physical strength, influence and the ability to care for ourselves. This sounds hopelessly depressing and some people withdraw completely in the face of such loss. But grief can help us appreciate the present fully, knowing how quickly things can change. We must live with grief as a companion that does not displace our wisdom, honesty, curiosity, optimism, generosity and joy. Grief doesn't go away but it doesn't have to define us.

I had a lovely elderly patient who kept a picture of her husband on top of her hospital overbed table. He died decades earlier but she kept his memory and his loss in front of her every day. She was also optimistic, thankful for a good life, appreciative of her living family members, interested in current events and the lives of other people and a keen reader of books. She worked with me on improving her mobility so she could go home, accepting her limitations but pushing herself to be her best 98-year-old self. She demonstrated how a lifetime of love, loss, faith and perseverance builds a character with fruits of wisdom, grace and compassion.

Grieving a pet dog seems like an extravagance in a world where we find so much human suffering. I am reminded of the parable told by the prophet Nathan when he confronted King David about his sin in 2 Samuel 12. He described a lamb that was a much-loved pet in a home.

"The poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb he had bought. He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him."

That is a perfect description of how we share life with our pets. 

Will we have room in our hearts to love yet another dog? Undoubtedly, when the time is right.