Letting Go of My Boxer

It is with great sadness that I post this ad for the sale of my Boxer, Dewey . . .

This is the beginning line of an ad I just placed on our local classified service, KSL.com. I am very sad about this because I absolutely love our dog. He is wonderful with children and everyone he has encountered. The problem is that I am on the road so often that I rarely have the opportunity to care for and walk him. As you most likely know, we have five kids, one of whom is still in diapers (which means his poop has to be cleaned up by Katie), another child who still asks for help wiping while on the toilet, and a dog who doesn’t know how to use the toilet. Katie says she had too much poop in her life before we purchased Dewey, but now it’s out of control.

I think that letting go will be difficult for me. I do have some experience with letting go—my maternal grandparents passed away when I was about 15. I discussed my Grandpa in a prior post. Suffice it to say that I had a close relationship with my grandparents and was extremely sad to lose them. Now I’m going to lose my dog, and will likely soon lose another person with whom I am extremely close, my wife’s mom. This post is not a “woe is me” column, but I just wanted to discuss the difficulties that come with letting go of something or someone we love.

Letting go can come in many forms—the death of a relative or close friend, the death or loss of a pet, moving, or changing jobs. Every one of these events have something in common: losing or changing the dynamics of a relationship we have previously enjoyed with a living, breathing thing we have come to develop a close, lasting bone.

As they say, time is the healer of all wounds. I don’t think time ever completely heals all wounds. My mom still tears up because she misses her parents, parents who have lost children to death still cry because they deeply miss their child. With a child, especially, there is always that curiosity of what they would have become, or as Kenny Chesney sings, “Who you’d be today.” I have other friends and acquaintances who lost their child not to death but to traumatic circumstances that completely changed the course of the child’s life.

In all cases, the question is how do we deal with it? The psychologists say we go through the five or so stages of grief—denial, anger, something, something, acceptance. They are the experts and definitely know more about this process than do I. Going through this process always takes time and we can sometimes go back and forth between the different stages.

Once we get to acceptance, I believe we become better, stronger, more resilient individuals. As discussed in a previous post, we discover what we are capable of in these challenging situations. Some people never make it to acceptance and discover that they have a challenge accepting drastic change. Other people move through the stages in a matter of minutes.

I don’t think that the quick process will be the case with me when we sell the dog. I also don’t think it will be the case with my wife when she loses her mom. It seems that no matter how well we prepare for an inevitable event in our life, it still is difficult to adjust and accept that the vent has happened. The first time I come home wanting to greet the dog and he won’t be there. The first time Katie wants to call her mom to tell her how frustrating I am or something cute the kids have done. The first time Katie’s father comes home to an empty home after the friends and family have left and he is all alone with his thoughts.

Enough about the things that cause grief and how it might hit us. I want to discuss our role as friends and acquaintances of the grieving individuals. I currently do not know what it feels like to go through the death of a parent, a spouse’s parent, or a spouse. I have some idea of the feeling of loss that comes from losing a pet, but not a pet as close as Dewey. Similarly, many of our friends who have been there to comfort Katie haven’t had the experience of losing a parent. There are also many friends and acquaintances who have been through this exact experience. In all cases, Katie especially has appreciated the kind words and the shoulders that have been used to cry on. The interesting thing is that many of our acquaintances who we didn’t otherwise know, but have experienced losing a parent, have gone out of their way to speak with Katie and to comfort, support, and empathize with her. There seems to be a bonding experience between individuals with shared experiences.

Katie has also been there for her siblings and father to grieve with them and to also buoy up their spirits. Many times, the person experiencing the traumatic experience is a source of strength to others around them. What causes this? I would venture to guess that it is hope. Hope to see their loved one again after they pass, hope to remember, laugh at, and relish the many wonderful experiences shared together with their loved one. Indeed, I believe we all have hope for a tomorrow that will be better than today as we go through the grieving process. However, we must also be prepared for a tomorrow that is worse than today as we go through the grieving process. The key is to accept the fact that we are having a bad day and to rely on others to help us through it. There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with grieving and having difficult days.

I hope this post hasn’t come off as crass or self-serving or shallow because of my mention of the dog. Rather, I want to reach out a caring hand to those who are grieving for any reason, to ask for others to reach out a caring hand to my wife as she goes through her grieving process, and to thank those who have so unselfishly served and helped her since her mother was diagnosed with cancer. Don’t get me wrong, though—MANY, MANY people have reached out and I appreciate them immensely. I am convinced, however, that Katie will have ample reason to grieve over the next several weeks and months.

Thank you again for slogging through these posts. For some reason I get great satisfaction in knowing others red this blog and I hope you enjoy the thoughts that are shared.