Maggie, Ellie and Rachel with Annie (maybe a year here)
This is how I know: I’ve been experiencing a deep and profound sense of loss these past few months and it’s had multiple incarnations.
Waves of grief hit me in unexpected ways. This morning, walking the dog, we took a break at a picnic table in the neighborhood that looked a lot like the picnic table we once had in our backyard where we shared meals and memories in the summer twilight together. The picnic table is long gone. The memories are imminent.
Sometimes our grief is not overt. Anything that feels like a loss is accompanied by a felt sense of grief, even if we don’t acknowledge something being a loss. My 4th and youngest child graduated from high school last week. What’s grievous about that?? We celebrated! She accomplished much! The child graduated Summa cum Laude and she didn’t even tell us. We found out when we saw her name on the graduation program noting her as such. So much to mark. So much to celebrate. Yet, underlying these events were such sadness for me.
A week after she graduated, our family cat of almost 20 years got really sick. We took her in to the vet and realized that it was time to let her go. Annie has been there almost as long as I was married. Bree, my high school graduate is younger than Annie. She has never known life without Annie in it. Annie leaving marks a significant change for my family and me.
We store events, trauma, memory, experience in our bodies. Our bodies are soul houses. Two weeks ago, I threw my back out loading and unloading bricks for a retreat. I was excited about building a labyrinth on site that retreatants could participate in. It was really beautiful and all of it occurred before I ever felt any pain. 24 hours later, I felt it. I was in bed, unable to move for three days. My body was beginning to protest unfelt and unprocessed loss. I entered into a forced pause. Then came graduation. Then came Annie. Dying.
I’ve gone through old pictures of both my children and my pets. And, somehow, that life seems like a phantom life, like someone else’s life or a distant dream. Being a mom at close range feels like so long ago. I don’t know when it happened, but I’ve transitioned from a central figure to a peripheral one. And that’s as it should be.
I stood naked in the bathroom in front of the mirror, looking for the evidence of our narrative, since some of the grief leaves me feeling like an apparition. And I saw the things that told me I was a mother; the varicosities all down my right leg from the 4th and final child that originated and resided in my body for a short time in the dark, the multiple stretch marks that have long since faded, but still exist like old tire tracks in my skin, the stretched, saggy skin, the wrinkles, the faded freckles. And for the first time in my life, I thanked my body out loud for the many miraculous things it’s done, first for myself, and for all those my flesh wrapped soul house has done for those that I’ve come in contact with. I’ve abused my body. I’ve pushed it, ignored it, been angry with it when it protests and tells me the truth. But today, I am filled with gratitude for all the ways it has been present to my life. For the last several years, it has been a spiritual practice to drop into my body. Being embodied and fully present, yes, is a practice, not a given.
I watched Annie’s body give way to age and watched her breathe her last. I’m gonna ask my body about it, how to be sad, how to grieve. And then, I’m going to move into this next season with humility and strength as I await what’s next.
The very day Annie left this world, I found a mama kitty and her four babies in my shed where I keep the lawn mower. The reminder was poignant that life continues in its mysterious cycle of life, death and rebirth. It is gut wrenching and miraculous all at once. And maybe love is the thing that will save us all. Annie had a long (her breed life expectancy is 12-15 years) love-filled life. She sure gave a lot of love and we sure loved her. Life will go on. And so will LOVE 🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻