Category Archives: Love

Friday Gratitude (on Saturday)

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This post is a mashup of The Little Bliss List and Joy Jam, and as such is meant to celebrate: the little things that brought me hope and happiness this week, the sweet stuff of life, those small gifts that brought me joy this week. By sharing them, I not only make public my gratitude, but maybe also help you notice your own good stuff and send some positive energy out into the world.

the sky over our front porch this morning

1. Dexter is home! After yesterday’s big scare and a night spent at the emergency vets, and lots of panic and anxiety with very little sleeping or eating for the people, the boy is back home where he belongs. I had no idea how much I really missed him until he bounded out, as happy to see us as we were him, sneezing bloody snot all over Eric’s white tshirt.

Seeing us and coming home and seeing Sam are about as excited as he’ll get, and his nose only bled a few drops, but that was it, and he ate some food and drank some, and basically seems himself, so I think for now, we are going to be okay. The thing I was the most worried about was that the happy, mostly healthy dog I took in to the vet yesterday would be a dog I’d never get to see again, but there he was, here he is.

We are to keep him on the sedative for the next three days, keep him quiet and calm, and hopefully the biopsy site will heal up–just in time for us to get the biopsy results. No matter what, I’m really okay with it (as much as you can be okay with losing someone you love with your whole heart)–I will be super sad and hate to see my dogs suffer, but I know he’s had a happy life, is so loved, and I am lucky to have this time with him. Seriously, just having him home, I feel better than I have in the past 48 hours. I might even be able to eat lunch today.

2. In related news: The love, good wishes, and support of friends. I was in a blind panic taking Dexter to the vet and with the complications that came after. I put together a mass email on facebook, frantically picking friends that I knew either loved dogs or had big, powerful hearts, and even though I normally don’t ask for help, I begged that they send love and support to us–and they did, so much that I was completely humbled, overwhelmed by it, and so helped. Getting Dexter in the car, driving to the vet’s office, walking in the front door, waiting in the exam room, leaving Dexter there, driving home, the horrible long wait after, and the bad news later in the day, the long, long night: I knew I was not alone.

3. Loving, kind, skilled vets, nurses, and vet techs. I am so grateful that they were there to take care of Dexter, that they took every question, every desperate phone call with grace and kindness. Again, I knew we were not alone.

4. A hummingbird feeding on my Rocky Mountain Bee Plants. It was too fast to get a picture, and I know there are only so many in town because the fires have driven them lower than they’d normally go, but it made my heart lift to see it.

5. The way Sam barks when he wants you to play with him. I really must get a video of it sometime. It’s hysterical.

6. Long walks with Eric and the dogs. Over the summer, we get to do more of these, and they are my favorite. I cherish them even more lately, the four of us all together. I am especially loving the cooler weather these past few mornings, the turn from summer to fall.

7. Eric. I am so lucky to have him, to have that direct love and support, to have his help, to not have to do this alone.

Bonus Joy: How good Dexter is at the vet. He’s just so sweet and calm.

my favorite toe is the one with the black spot

August Break: Day Two

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the sky over our house last night

I’m not sure why, but the sky here has really been showing off lately, the clouds and light making these amazing patterns and color, stopping me in my tracks, making me bend my head back and stare, whisper “holy wow” and take deep breaths, exhale long sighs.

I was reading this post on Judy Clement Wall’s Zebra Sounds yesterday and clicked on the link to Dirty Footprints Studio and read this post about the art project Connie put together to honor her friend who’d recently passed away. She’d taken a photo of the sky right after she learned he’d died, and couldn’t stop looking at it, taking more pictures of it, thinking about the connection between the sky and those we’ve lost, and she asked her readers to help her create a memorial for her friend–326 people sent her pictures of the sky with a name of one they’d lost, and she made a video.

The response so overwhelmed her, the “stories were so touching and it really proved to me how very connected by love we all truly are,” that she’s extended the project:

So everyone can share the way they were touched and lives were changed by loved ones lost…please, take the time to share a photo of the sky on your blog–and tell us who it is for and how they touched your life–how you remember them.

I’ve been taking so many pictures of the sky lately, and my life has been so changed by loss, that I decided to dedicate this second day of August Break to taking part in this project.

the view from our porch this morning

Connie suggested sharing about one person, but as you know, my most recent loss came as a pair, two separate griefs that are so closely linked in my heart and my memory that I can’t think of one without touching the other.

Obi was our first dog. I learned with him that when you rescue a dog, they actually rescue you, like little Bodhisattvas in fur suits. Obi taught me about fear, both by being fearful so I could see how unfounded and harmful most of our fear is, and by making me feel protected and safe so my own fear softened and relaxed. Obi gifted me a confidence about being loved and capable, about things being okay even when they were terrible, and it fundamentally changed the way I move through the world. I’m still traumatized by how we lost him, (diagnosed with incurable cancer after a check of a tiny lump that we weren’t even worried about when he was only seven years old), but understand that’s the deal with dogs–you will outlive most of the ones you have.

The same week Obi was diagnosed, so was my friend Kelly. We’d met in graduate school and I immediately loved her. She was the kind of person you couldn’t help but adore–funny, smart, creative, strong, and kind. She married another friend from graduate school, Matt, and they moved to Kentucky, which is where they were living with their six month old little boy when she found the cancer. Even though the doctors told her it was a rare form that hardly ever came back, it did, and Kelly passed away six months after my Obi did. She was only 37 years old.

the sky over us in kentucky the day of kelly’s memorial service

Both of these losses were so sad, so shocking, traumatic–both of them were so healthy, so loving and loved, so young, so vibrant and alive when diagnosed. It changed everything for me. I was compelled to begin living my life with my whole, open heart, the beauty and the terror of it, all of it. The grief and the anger that came with having to let them go was the energy behind the birth of this blog, (as well as many other positive changes in my life). I was inspired to rehab my life, and this blog is a way to contemplate, process, record, and share that experience.

Even though it is brutal, loss and grief can be a catalyst for health, sanity, wholeness. It reminds us that we aren’t guaranteed a set amount of time or health, that anything can happen to anyone of us at any time, so we have to squeeze the life out of every second, fully live each moment and be so grateful for every breath, every heartbeat, every sunrise.

Postscript: I had already written this post, scratching it out longhand in my journal, when I turned on my computer this morning to check Facebook to find a status update from Patti Digh that her husband has been diagnosed with cancer. She asked, “Please pray for him, for us.” Only hours before they got the call, Patti had had shared the most amazing picture of the sunset, the view of the sky from where they were on vacation.

While I had entirely other intentions for this post, (to fulfill my August Break commitment, to take part in Connie’s art project), what I really want to do is offer my pictures, my writing, my experience of grief and loss, all my love and my openhearted, precious and messy efforts to live life with my whole heart as an embodied prayer. May John be healthy and well, may their whole family and all those that love them have their worry and sadness softened, may all others who are receiving bad news today be comforted, and may suffering in the world be eased. I also humbly request that if you have any good energy, love or prayers to spare, kind and gentle reader, that you send them John and Patti’s way.