My mom & Poppy lost their beloved cat Calvin Tuesday night. This is for them.
We all know how this story ends, yet death, as inevitable as we try to forget it is, surprises the shit out of us when it takes someone we love.
A pet.
A parent.
A sibling.
A close friend.
Pain is pain—because love is love, is love, is love, is love, is love, is love. (To quote Lin-Manuel Miranda’s brilliant sonnet.)
But I believe that the risk of a broken heart is far outweighed by the innumerable rewards and blessings that love bestows.
Maybe you needed to hear this today. I did.
Carry on,
xox
“Grief; it covers you with the weight of a wet blanket and smothers all other emotions, most especially joy”
~J. Bertolus
Here I sit, internally pummeled by the ebb and flow of grief.
It was just a dog, I tell myself, as the terribly underutilized rational part of my brain gets its chance to craft a reason and attempt to soothe me.
Doesn’t matter, moans my heart.
I loved her with all I had. I loved her without boundaries, deeper and wider and bigger than I could have ever thought possible.
She was my baby –– That thought just makes me cry longer and louder.
The rational brain, not used to seeing me like this, ups it’s game, taking a different tack—
You knew how this story would end, it reasons. Everybody dies, that’s the exit strategy we all agreed upon.
You’re right, I answer begrudgingly.
She was old and sick and you could sense the end was near… That’s funny, my rational brain doesn’t usually acknowledge intuition. It was clearly pulling out all the stops.
So why the sadness and the tears? It continued. The question actually had an air of sincerity –– my brain searching, seeking a viable answer.
Love…it’s about love. When you love someone or something with ALL your heart and soul…well, the pain of its loss is equal in measure.
I could feel it contemplating, reasoning –– love sounded dangerous.
Then why love at all? When you know it will end this way, with so much pain –– why risk it?
How do I explain? Deep breath.
Because without that love, without opening your heart that much, each time more, then more, then more again –– life is colorless, black and white, and in my opinion not worth living. The reward is worth the risk.
So…I’ll cry and I’ll feel bad for a while and time will carry me through this; and when I’m on the other side of grief I won’t forget her, I could never do that. It will just start to hurt a little less each day until her memory makes me…smile.
Then I will have forgotten the pain enough to love without borders, ignoring all reason.
All the while knowing how this ends…
xox
