It’s so weird to mourn something before it’s gone.
Or is it?
My dog’s left shoulder looks like there’s a plus size golf ball growing from the inside of her joint. She’s been having a lot of trouble walking. Probably a tumour, the vet says. You will likely need to make the difficult choice to put her down soon, the vet says.
Put her down.
A softening of the reality of it: to end her life.
She’s still here. She’s sleeping under the kitchen table, twitching her legs with closed eyelids and barely successfully dampening her barks while she chases something in her dream.
She’s still here.
Nothings changed.
But everything has changed.
A nearly certain outcome. A knowing of what is to come. A shift in our relationship so permanent in physicality that it makes my heart break. I miss her already.
But she’s still here.
Is it too early to mourn?
I think not. Especially as an empathic person. I can feel what’s coming. Before it’s here.
I can feel the space that lingers between now and when she leaves her body.
This space is filled with love, and sleep, a chewy ball, scratches behind the ears, crumbles, scraps of cheese, lifts up and down the stairs, super short walks on the beach. All these things experienced as they always have been, except with more love added on. Because it is close to the end of these things, with her.
Yesterday, I described my tears of grief as that leaking out of a rusty pipe. A pipe that doesn’t flow very often. I haven’t lost a loved one in a long time. And it hurts. A lot.
So, I shed my tears. I feel the sting in my face and my heart. I wipe my eyes and my nose. I throw out the tissues.
And I love her.
Because she’s still here.
