Love, Life and Puppy Dog Tales

Dogs will steal a piece of your heart, often when you are unaware.   They never live long enough, and far sooner than we are ever ready, we must say goodbye, and relinquish forever that piece of our heart.   Never would I have thought that a Taco Bell sauce packet would have sage wisdom that applied to me, to my life.   Never would I have thought that a Taco Bell sauce packet would inspire me to write.     Today, it did.   "Saying goodbye is the hardest part of the job."     His moods were hard to read, and hard to understand.  If you didn't know his history, you would believe him to be a hard, angry, grumpy old man.   And on the surface, he was.   I knew better. I knew what he had had.  I knew what he had lost.   I wasn't there for any of it, nor did I feel the pain that he felt.  But I knew his story.   Perhaps because I knew, he treated me gently.  Kindly.  He confided in me his fears.  He gave me a glimpse of his heart.   There wasn't much left of his heart.  

  I wrote this in 2013. 10 years ago.  I have come to realize that grief isn't linear, doesn't hold to a timeline, and most certainly doesn't have a script.  ------ As much as you don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to say either.   I am 45 and now both of my parents are gone.   I lost my father in September of 2007, and my mother last night. Funny they were both 84 when they died.   People react differently to people who have lost someone.   You don’t know what to say.  You don’t know how to act.   Reactions vary.      “I am so sorry”  “Is there anything I can do?” They share their own grief story. “Are you going to be ok?” “How are you doing?” And how do I respond to the I am sorry’s and the What can I do’s?  I truly don’t know. I am struck with the need to make you feel better … to make sure you don’t feel bad.    From my perspective, I don’t know what to say.  I don’t know how to act.  I don’t know what is okay to say or how to say it.   Is it ok to cry?  Should I