Red, A Place Of Love

Early Friday morning I woke thinking of Red and not able to fall back to sleep.  So I got up and  went outside.  It was still dark, the sky filled with more stars than I’ve seen all summer.  I walked out into the pasture, and just sat, looking at the sky.

I watched long enough for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, to see a few shooting stars, meters leaving thick sizzling trials of light that faded in moments.  I watched long enough for the sky to lighten and the stars lessen.

I didn’t know we’d be euthanizing Red later that morning.  But I was relieved when Dr. Fariello returned Jon’s call to let us know she’d come in on her day off to keep Red, and us, from having to wait till Monday when we had an appointment with her.

Red was so much Jon’s dog I was surprised by what I felt yesterday after we euthanized him.  I lost all my energy physically and emotionally.   I couldn’t explain what I was feeling,  I just wanted to sleep.

Sleep has always been my friend.  A place I can usually count on to go for healing.  Something happens when I sleep, I don’t know what it is, but it somehow seems to realign my subconscious and on waking, I often feel better.

This morning both Jon and I laughed when I told him I had that song in my head that goes…”One less phone to answer, one less fish to fry” (I think those are the words).

I loved being able to dig a hole in the pasture for Red’s body.  We only had an hours notice for Red’s appointment at the Vet, and I didn’t think I’d be able to dig a big enough and deep enough hole in the hard, rocky soil.

I actually love the ritual of the digging.  The hard, repetitive work it takes.  It gave me something important to do.  A place to put my energy.   A gift to honor Red and a way to keep him close, to bury him where he belonged.

I couldn’t help think of the people who died in the shooting last weekend and their families.  Not to compare, but to keep perspective.  To me they are very different.  More like different degrees of something similar. And while my mind was doing one thing, trying to think through what I was feeling, my body was doing another.

I knew I had to let myself feel what I feel, without trying to push or think it away.

Last night Jon and I took a ride to get ice-cream.  On the way he told me how much he appreciated that I cancelled  my standing Friday lunch with my fiends to be with him.  He said he wanted to be with me, but couldn’t ask.  He said at times like this, he usually withdraws into himself.

In the hour before Red died, I could feel myself getting angry.  I snapped at Jon when he asked me a question.  When he said to me, “Let’s be nice to each other” and I saw how I often process pain by lashing out.  By getting angry instead of allowing myself to feel the hurt.

Red, with his big heart, was genius at opening people up.  He would walk into a room filled with people anywhere Jon took him, walk up to stranger, look at them and they would melt.

Yesterday, once again,  he did the same for me and Jon.  Helping to open us up to each other and to realize old destructive patterns that come from a place of pain instead of love.