Grief And Loss: Onwards Without You My Friend

Grief And Loss: Onwards Without You My Friend:

Grief sucks. I will miss my boy forever. But I can’t stand wallowing in loss. The world is still a magical place. There are so many places and things in the world and I have such a short time to explore and enjoy them. This post is about what worked for me to be able to continue even through grief and loss. Maybe it will help someone similarly devastated by loss.

Death of the physical presence is undoubtable and it is often what we miss when a loved one’s physical body dies.  We can no longer hold them, touch them or take joy in watching or engaging with our loved one.   However, when someone we cherish passes away, we are left with our memories of them.  More than that, the loved one still influences the way we perceive and interact with the world.  In this respect, the loved one is not truly gone.  When someone we cherish passes away, one of the best, healthiest things we can do is honour their memory.  

We can honour a loved one who passes on by making the world a better place. We can pass on all the positive influences they had on our lives.   In that way, only the body dies.  We may miss the physical presence of the loved one. But he or she is never truly gone as long as they are honoured in this way.  Indeed their spirit could  live on forever. It will live as long as people are passing around the wonderful things that made them who they were. It’s really a true  eternity.  The idea is  based in Buddhism and it makes a lot of sense. Especially when we are dealing with grief over the loss of a loved one.   My self described Janist/Buddhist father passed away in 2012. SInce then, I have tried to spread his wonderful positive energy and compassion to those around me.  But the idea also works with dogs too.

Dogs Are All Amazing

Each dog I have ever had the been blessed to share my life with has brought enthusiasm, love and joy in the “small” things in life, like enjoying a sunset on the beach, or playing with children.    When a dog is enjoying the moment of finding a bird, or savouring the smells in a field of grass,  he isn’t distractedly in a “half world” of things that won’t matter in 2 years.  The fact is that In the end, we all only only get a certain number of heartbeats, before our number up.   We all decide how we will make those heartbeats matter. 

 I’m going to honour Earl by taking joy in everything, trying new things (Earl loved to try new foods and eagerly learned tricks like using a paw to point at things he wanted or learning to play a piano), I’m going to be joyful and fun to be around.  Earl was always kind and tolerant. Who knows, maybe I’ll inspire people to always be kind and tolerant toward others.  I hope I inspired someone to start a performing trick dog team, like Earl did!