Saying Goodbye Is the Hardest Part

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.  He had invested much of it with his wife and his dogs.  

 

 

First, they lost the first dog I knew with them.  She was elderly and infirm, and she died at home, with them.  

 

Then, they lost their second dog.  He was a feisty, formidable beast of a dog, but they loved him so.  In the end, age had softened him.  We helped him to his peace.

 

Suddenly,  we hear of his wife's passing.  

 

It wasn't so sudden for him.  Slowly, over time, he had lost pieces of her.  He loved her with everything he had, and time stole her bit by bit, from him, until most of what she was, was gone.  

 

When the stroke happened, he was by her side.  She didn't know him anymore, but day and night, he was there. No rest.  No breaks.  Feeding her. Medicating her. Loving her.  For three long months. 

 

Until she died.

 

Every day since he has visited her.  He would spend just a short time.  Just take a moment to check-in. He needed to connect with her.  To feel her.  Since the cemetery is next door, some of those days, he would stop in to order a prescription for his now elderly, last remaining dog.  Such a sweet and kind little thing.    He would stop back by on his way home to get the medication.   If the others didn't know who he was, he sometimes would become angry, yelling, sometimes even slamming the door as he left.   I would get the complaints.  He is mean, they would say.  He yelled at me. 

 

Sometimes, you just don't know the whole story.  He is angry, I would tell them.  All he has in this world is that dog.  The anger isn't at you, it is at his world.  Try to be more compassionate and remember that there are often things you cannot know about someone...

 

Recently, his elderly dog became gravely ill.  Diagnosed with a severe cardiac condition, the writing was on the wall.   And he knew it.  He hated it.  He shared with me that he wasn't ready.  He couldn't let go.  He couldn't be without her. He had said it to me before, but she wasn't truly sick.  Now.... Now she was in grave condition

 

We tried.  He tried.  With tears in his eyes, he confided in me that medicating her brought back so much of the last three months of his wife's life, and that hurt.  

 

But he wasn't ready. He couldn't be without her.

 

I heard what he wasn't saying.  This dog was his life.  This dog was all he had left in the world.  

 

This dog was all he had left in this world that was his connection to his lifelong soul mate.   At least with this dog at his side, he could reach over in the middle of the night and feel his wife by his side.  He wasn't ready to say goodbye to that.

 

The time had come, however.  And he knew the kindest thing he had to do.  The option not afforded to him with his wife was available for this sweet, loving little dog.

 

And so, today he said goodbye.  He held her in his arms and kissed her sweet face. He cupped her face in his hands and he told her he loved her.  He told her he would miss her.  And he said goodbye.

 

And it is, honestly, the hardest part of the job.