Good morning…
Our dog Tate came to us from Adopt-a-Golden at eight weeks old. That was nine years ago this month. At the time, our youngest son had just gotten his driver’s permit, our youngest daughter was finishing her junior year in high school, and our oldest two were in college, one finishing her freshman year at Ole Miss and the other finishing his junior year at Georgia Tech. That special summer, all of the kids were home, excited to bond with our new fluffy puppy. Tate has always been a love magnet, quietly drawing us together over the years.
This week, we learned that Tate has a large, cancerous mass beneath her left arm pit, a mass which cannot be surgically removed without amputating her leg and a portion of her chest cavity. We will not put her through that trauma. The other treatment options are trying to shrink the mass temporarily through radiation or giving her pain medicine for comfort until the time comes when we graciously release her to heaven. As a family, we will decide what’s best for our sweet Tate.
I shared the news with one friend. She had to put down their 19 year old cat the night we returned from our women’s retreat two weeks ago. I shared the news with another friend. Her young daughter had been run over by a truck 29 years ago yesterday, enduring a lifetime of physical and emotional scarring. I shared the news with still another friend whose husband recently passed away and whose sister-in-law faces emergency surgery today to remove a malignant, aggressively growing lump. I shared the news with a friend whose little dog died last year and whose remaining dog is on chemo to manage her own cancer. I shared the news with my parents, who have spent years living through health challenge after health challenge. We shared the news with our four kids, and they joined us in our sadness. Thinking of life without Tate is sad, really sad.
I step back from the paragraph I just wrote, and I feel grateful to have friends and family with whom to share my sadness. Our family is not the only one experiencing loss. We are not the only ones processing grief. All of us are living with some form of sadness, loss, grief. We all are invited to practice walking and talking through the pain, sharing life’s bittersweetness with God and each other.
On a phone call with my peer supervision group yesterday, I shed tears over our hard news. One friend responded by reading aloud a quote from Francis Weller in The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief.
“A practice offers ballast,” writes Weller, “something to help us hold steady in difficult times. This deepens our capacity to hold the vulnerable emotions surrounding loss without being overwhelmed by them. Grief work is not passive: it implies an ongoing practice of deepening, attending and listening. It is an act of devotion, rooted in love and compassion.”
Together, we practice walking through grief, step by step. We practice talking it out, sharing life’s joys and sorrows. We practice expanding our capacity to hold vulnerable emotions. We practice deepening, attending, listening, rooted in love and compassion. These ongoing practices offer ballast, something to hold us steady in difficult times.
A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance (Ecclesiastes 3:4, NLT).
…Sue…
P.S. Opening photo of Tate was taken years ago by my friend Jo Reeves, a dear friend whose sister’s cancer journey took her to heaven this week.
