Alongside a Companion—Grief, a Dog and Hope

Grief was present this week like an old friend.

Today I stumbled upon and re-read some words I wrote in the past on grief:

“Maybe it was a memory, or a date on the calendar. Maybe it was reading another story of someone losing a loved one. Maybe it was the reading in Kings—David bidding farewell to Solomon—the beauty and ache of a father blessing his son, stirring memories of the goodbyes I have known. Grief sneaks in on its own time. Today was no different, as I found myself remembering those we have lost—this year, and years before.”

I could have written these words again this past week. Maybe the reading wasn’t the same, but there was a sense and just last month we saw the movie, David, and I remember feeling the weight of grief then, too.

I became acquainted with grief once again recently. Unexpectedly. We’ve seen so much loss, in a short amount of time, Sometimes I wonder if people think I have a dark cloud hanging above me. Then I remember so much time has gone by.

It’s been a week since we said goodbye to our ten-year-old Frenchie. And our puppy, Rue, knows. I know people will say it’s just a dog. I don’t need to justify the weight of losing a pet. This is the third dog we said goodbye to in this house. It’s the second dog since my husband died. The new puppy is a whole new thing. She has never met Jon, but she did grow up the last year next to our old man Clyde. So many layered in this.

I have noticed over the last two days, especially after the kids returned to school, that she, our 16-month—old Rue feels the loss greatly.

She’s been quieter. Staying close. Whimpering without reason. Following me from room to room and settling herself near what feels familiar. She has stayed ever so close, with a paw always touching me. She’s still such a baby. And she notices the absence—the empty places, the routines that no longer end the same way. I know how you feel my sweet little companion in sorrow, Rue.

Maybe when we chose the name Rue Emmanuelle over year ago we were given a companion for a time such as this. It really does fit—now more than ever—that Rue means companion, among other things. Read more here.

She didn’t just lose a dog brother, a companion; she lost a presence. Like the rest of us.

Dogs know grief. They feel it in their bodies. They know anticipatory grief, too. She never left his—Clyde’s—side in his final days. Just like my other two dogs never left Jon’s in his. Just like Clyde never left Bonnie’s in her final days even before we realized it. He grieved a great deal, too, for a while after his big sissy, Bonnie left.

Dogs can teach us so much.

Dogs have an uncanny ability to stay present and be near. Unlike humans, they don’t hurry through grief or try to explain it away, or try to see the sunny side of everything, though they love resting in the warmth of the sun when something doesn’t feel right. They sleep, they don’t eat the same. They walk around aimlessly, They feel unsettled. They stay near what feels safe and caring. Dogs love without conditions or timelines and they notice the loss, too

Watching our puppy, Rue, the past few days has reminded me that grief isn’t only something we think or name. It’s something we inhabit. Maybe it inhabits us. Something that moves through the body and asks us to draw closer to what is steady and safe, to what is familiar, to what brings comfort, to one another, to those who love us best.

Yesterday, as unexpected tears flowed while I sat alone in a room, she jumped up from her nap and into my lap to comfort me. That made me both laugh and cry a bit more. What a companion living up to her name.

Which brings me back to words I read from a reflection I wrote on grief on February 5, 2021.

“Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted”-Mt 5:4

There is comfort in knowing our beloved is no longer suffering. But pain and suffering increase for those left behind, drowning in an ocean of grief without their loved one.

Our faith teaches us that being separated from our loved ones who go before us is temporary—we shall meet again.

It doesn’t really lessen the weight of walking with someone you love who carries the heavy cross of grief.

Grief and loss summon up all kinds of emotions caught in the depths of our DNA that we cannot yet fully articulate.

Grief causes our existence to shift off kilter, become untethered, numb, and unable to think.
In time, we move through waves of grief, pain, and hope. Eventually, we allow tears we’ve collected to wash over us like cleansing waters that resemble peace.”

What strikes me is that the thoughts I’m carrying in my heart echo words I wrote on a different February 5th. I came upon them again this week, written in another season of loss, and I remembered how many people once reached out to tell me those words mattered to them in their own grief journeys.

I barely remember writing them, but I know I did. It sparked a memory of that time for me and how much grief was a companion even then before some big losses…

I am not sure I wrote them for anyone in particular. I do know those loved ones I was grieving at the time, including the anticipation of the passing of a spouse with terminal cancer. They call that anticipatory grief. I didn’t know then what I know now. Looking back, I realize I probably have much more to say about those years than I understood at the time. But I know for certain I was grieving the loss of the life I knew and the loss of my husband long before he died.

“It is a loving act to show sadness when our dear ones are torn from us, but it is a holy act to be joyful through hope and trust in the promises of God. . .Thankful joy is more acceptable to God than long and querulous grief.”-St. Paulinus of Nola

So some of those words on grief I wrote on this day a few years ago are showing up again and meeting me where I am now.

As time passes some of the most significant losses move further into memory. That’s a grief all its own. I am coming up on a third anniversary in April. These next few months open the flood gates to memories of some of the hardest days preceding Jon’s death. Each trip down those memory lanes, reveal something new, something either hidden, healed or holy.

Grief returns.
Unexpected
Insistent
Curious.
Faithful in its own way.

That doesn’t make the losses less meaningful or brush grief away. It doesn’t mean joy and hope haven’t found a place to live alongside them.

It simply means we are always learning how to carry more than one thing at once. Grief becomes a companion.

Life keeps offering itself. Receiving it is an act of courage.

Life keeps offering itself. Receiving it is an act of courage.

heather lebano

So I do my best to keep linking arms with it as I continue to look for the small moments of joy and whispers of hope. I am choosing to do my best to keep going in spite of it—grief—while holding space for it.

Thursday I walked into the room where the sun greets me best in the morning.

The bulbs with the one bud I noticed blooming the day after our Clyde left us were in full bloom today. I was drawn into the room by the light and the fragrance, but I was struck by how beauty insists on showing up whether we feel ready or not.

Then the light shifted, and in a certain way, a rainbow flooded the room. For a moment, I stood frozen in the tundra outside. It held my gaze for what felt like an eternity. I knew it was not. I imagined the beatific vision was much like this. Maybe even better. Far more magnificent than what this moment held, and it held a lot. I looked around me, mesmerized by all of the splendor surrounding me.

And yet it didn’t erase the ache or distract from the absence. It simply shared the space with it.

That’s how hope comes to me now. Alongside as a companion.

It’s not necessarily a relief or resolution, but as presence.

Like a veil lifted ever so gently. Oh, the Glory we are promised. Oh the Glory I long to see.

Grief remains. Love remains. And grace keeps finding ways—through a loyal puppy, through blooming bulbs, through sunlight and rainbows, as if heaven itself comes down—to remind me that we are not abandoned in our mourning.

“Your tears were collected by the angels and were placed in a gold chalice, and you will find them when you present yourself before God”-Padre Pio

That’s how hope comes to me now—alongside a companion.

heather Lebano