March 13th, 2023
On Loss, Memories, and the Departure of our Dogs
My dear July,
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What can I tell you now to ease the pain within your heart?
Is it: “Don’t worry, darling, it will be fine”?
Or is it “Everything will be okay, and you will be happy again”?
I cannot tell you these things because I know them to not be true. Though they are words we all want to hear in sorrow, the respite from our pain can only last momentarily with them.
So then, I will tell you something else. I will tell you about pain and about loss, about their nature and how to live with them. For this, I am confident that I have experienced much to tell you about.
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My dear July,
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When my first dog passed away, I was not even home to be with him. I was miles away and far from the awareness of his passing. He had died within the night from sickness and was buried the next day in the garden by my grandmother. Knowing of my love for him, my grandmother never told me about his passing until I returned to her home and found the silence of his death at my welcome.
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Of course, I was, above all, sad. Extremely sad. But not only that, I was also upset. I was upset at everyone for having betrayed me of the knowledge of his death. For in my mind, I would’ve traveled to him and buried him with my own hands. It was an unfulfilled anger for loss, one that would have come out anyway with his death but, unfortunately, was poured down upon my family.
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Is this anger necessary? I would say, “yes." For in witnessing the death of a loved one, we are all tempted to anger. Anger at God, at the doctors, at the nurses, at our family, and most hauntingly, always at ourselves.
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But in this memory of loss I now rekindled to you, I have also learned of important lessons. Lessons that I still struggle to learn up to this day. Lessons about the reality of loss and departures.
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The first lesson I learned was about Love.
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In love, we fear loss; in loss, we fear love.
It pains us to lose the one we love. It pains us to realize the one who lost was the one we love.
When we love someone, the scariest thought to us is always to lose them. To see them leave or even to see ourselves leaving one day. For when we are in love, we choose to stay, and we never want to leave.
Can you ever leave someone if you still love them? Maybe life forces you away but your heart remains the same. The room you have built in their heart, the bed you have made in their space. These are things we keep as long as we are in love.
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Maybe one could argue that space and time can eventually turn our love for someone into memories. But what are memories if not love itself? You can see this when someone dear to you passes away. You don’t stop loving them, though you can no longer hold them, kiss them, or tell them how much you love them; the love you share with them etches within you. Like the scars that lovers leave on the bark of a tree, your love now exists in memories. This love has no touch, no sounds, no taste, no smell, yet still, it is love all the same. And in fact, when no one remembers us anymore, truly and fearfully, that is when we are out of love from others.
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So then, how could this help us in grievance? Well, July, it reminds us that we love someone. And that is important.
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In life, we question many things, but the question of whether or not we love someone always haunts us the most. In answering this question, we can start to find peace. To find peace first within ourselves and then to find peace within the memories we have for them. We will begin to stop blaming ourselves and then to stop blaming others. We will understand that we loved them - the most noble thing someone could do for another. We will begin to see how beautifully we loved them. How much we gave, and how much we received. In seeing this, loss is no longer a void of missing pieces but rather a celebration of beauty once intertwined.
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As we celebrate our love for someone, we no longer doubt ourselves, blame ourselves, or punish ourselves. We have given, and we have received. We have sowed memories, and now we will reap them. Whether in joy or in somberness, these memories are now ours, remnants of what we had with them and reincarnation of what we always have with them.
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Truly, love never leaves us. For in love, we break our hearts in pieces and give them to those we love, even to those who will soon leave us. This is beauty, my dear July, this is what makes us human, and this is what makes us ever loving and ever lovable.
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I am sorry for your loss, and I am sorry for not being able to change your sorrow. But this is a journey we all take and a journey we must take alone. For like memories, love cannot be shared outside of those who experienced them, and love cannot be understood outside of those in love. It is specific, special, personal, and intimately everlasting.
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Everyone around you loves you, and everyone around you cares for you. But we will not be able to travel with you to the memories of your love, and we cannot draw up for you memories of your love with whom you love. You must do it yourself, and you must do it with strength and with kindness to yourself. This is the way out, not out of sorrow, but out of doubt and into love; into the understanding that love never ends, love never dies, and love continues to love. In memories, immortally forevermore.
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Please take this letter with kindness, my dear July, and find yourself again.
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All my love,
d.s.l.