A Reason to Keep on Living
Before Karl died I thought that “broken heart” was just a phrase. I had no idea that it would one day describe exactly how I felt. It really did physically feel as if my heart had cracked into two and wouldn't keep beating. But it did and I didn't really know what to do about that. You read about how couples who have been together a long time often don't survive each other by very long and now I understand that as well. Karl was central to my life and at first I didn't feel as if there was a reason to go on living with him no longer in the world. I mean, what was the point anyway? The ones who die soon after those they love are often those who never find an answer to “What's the point?” At least it seems that way to me.
Two things kept me going, my dog Rusty and my job.
Rusty bless his greedy little heart kept wanting to be fed and wanting to go out and wanting to be with me as I cried. I wanted to stay in bed and never get up again, but he insisted. At length, some days. He was a rescue dog and I couldn't just die and leave him homeless again. I had given him a forever home, damn it, and I was going to keep my part of the bargain as he had kept his. He had more than kept his part of the bargain (which was to keep us company and make us laugh). Rusty was (and still is) a genuine hero dog in my eyes. One night when I was asleep, Karl fell and couldn't get back up. With emphysema, he didn't have the breathe to yell so I would hear him, so Rusty came upstairs and banged on the bedroom door until I woke up and then he led me to Karl. I couldn't send a dog like that back to the SPCA if his owners were gone, so I had to keep going.
And work needed me. We were shorthanded in the group I worked in and my bereavement leave had put us further behind. So I had to get up everyday and go in and try to work (I worked much more slowly than usual and I cried every day at work, but I went in). I'm not sure what would have happened if I had lost my job those first two years, might have been the last straw that pushed me over the edge. But I didn't and so I avoided the edge until I had healed enough to start thinking about building a new life.
After I healed some more, I decided to rescue a second dog. Christopher was abused for more than 6 years in a puppy mill. He was terrified of people, he didn't understand what it was like to live outside of a cage. He was frightened and unhappy. I found him about 9 months after his rescue and he had barely begun to heal except physically. The rescue organization had been fairly sure he would never be adoptable. But I saw something in his eyes. He wanted to be loved, he just didn't know how. So the woman with the broken heart and the dog with the broken spirit joined together.
He may never be a happy, cuddly loving dog. But he enjoys playing in his yard and with Rusty and Duncan (my roommates' dog). He has learned to anticipate dinner and to believe that he will get it every day. After more than a year, he is finally able to go for a walk on a leash without panicking and he will even relax a little when he gets patted. It's really special when he sees me and wags his tail. He needs his home with me and that too gives me another reason to go on living.
Now my beloved Rusty is getting old. He has diabetes and needs shots twice a day. I care for him as I cared once for Karl, knowing as I knew then, that he is old and ill and won't be there much longer. I treasure the days we have knowing that dogs just don't live as long as people. I have learned to live in the moment and enjoy the time we have together. Karl's illness taught me that and it is a priceless lesson.
The love of my life is dead; I can't change that. But it doesn't mean I can love others or live my life. In my dogs I have found a reason to live. For those of you experiencing the first agony of grief, I hope you too can find a reason to keep on going.
8:45 PM PT: The diaries here in the Grieving Room are exactly the kind of thing I wish I had seen when Karl first died. I was thinking that if a group of us who write the diaries and make the comments were interested, it might be a good thing to create a book on grieving written by those of us who are, If I can get 4-5 people to commit to helping write it, I would be willing to put the whole thing together. We could publish as a free e-book (I personally could never charge for this) on Amazon and fill a niche I know is needed and maybe help some people who are floundering in their grief with no support. It doesn't need to be long, it just needs to be honest. We could change the names so that we can be honest without hurting friendsa and family.