I almost trashed this post. It’s an old one, recalling the pain of a loss that has healed over time. I wasn’t sure it was relevant anymore. But there’s something about the experience of grief — and of healing — that prompted me to go ahead and post it.

This is for my dear friends, Stacy and Jerry, each of whom lost someone they loved in the past week. And for my cousins, Cindy, Tom, and Penny, and their father, Herb, who so recently said goodbye to my Aunt Bert. Your loved ones are with you.

I know. 

——

Some time ago, I had to drop a “specimen” off at the veterinarian — retesting Bodhi after a bout of giardia — and just inside the door was a sweet, ancient dog, at the very end of her leash, focusing all of her energy on balancing on her stick-thin legs. She had the most beautiful pale blue eyes, so I asked her mom if it was all right if I said hello, bending to stroke the frail head and murmur to the old girl how beautiful she was.

“She loves attention,” the woman said simply, but something in her voice made me look up — just in time to see that lone tear make its way down her cheek.

And I knew:

I knew from what depths of her being she had to dredge those few words.

I knew the effort required to choke them past the constriction in her throat.

I knew the full, bitter taste in her mouth as she struggled to shape it around these everyday words — ones she would never say again about this old, weak dog waiting for that last appointment.

I’d forced similar words through my own teeth about my Sachi, as my friends came to say goodbye the night before I released her soul. I’d choked on them as I’d walked my old Coyote so painfully slowly — at whatever pace she could manage — up and down our street, greeted by neighbors who loved and patted and fussed over her on her way to crossing. I battled tears, as this woman was now doing, and lost.

I gently kissed the old dog between her blue eyes before rising to wrap her mom in my arms. I stood there a few moments while this loving human emptied out her grief onto my shoulders, and I whispered to her that her sweet little girl would always be with her, beside her.

Because I know that, too.