This page is normally reserved for happy whims, reflections of milestones, and moments we want to remember forever. Leslie does a wonderful job of updating the blog and has a way of expressing emotion with words that I struggle with. However today is different, today is not whimsical or happy; nor do I wish to remember the events of the last week, however I feel I need to write about our sadness.
My sweet puppy Haplo passed away.
It is a paltry lamentation for an event that has shaken me to my core and brought waves of despair as well as unrelenting sorrow and grief to our perfect family. I want to pour my emotion into the sentence so everybody can see the ink black with sadness writhing with pen strokes of anger and self doubt. I want to release this pain onto the paper, into the paper ripping it to shreds, breaking reality so I can reach into the void and pull my best friend back into my lap one more time.
My sweet puppy Haplo passed away.
It seems insufficient, it does not radiate the happiness that Haplo brought. . no, forced upon you, with every ounce of his being. It needs to shake like his whole body shook when he wagged, as though his tail was too short to exclaim the joy he ached to share. I want to etch vivid memories into the reader so they experience the life which can not be documented with weightless adjectives. The words should be a fury of teeth, fur, tongue and paw imploring you to accept the full crushing weight of his love and startle emptiness of his absence.
My sweet puppy Haplo passed away.
These are the words I wrote minutes after finding out, still in shock and lost in grief. Just a note to work to let them know I would not be coming in that day. Just six words. Just a lifetime cut short. Just a dog. Unjust. Unfair. Uncomprehending. No, not just a dog. My dog, my best friend, my shadow, my alarm clock, my therapy, my stress relief, my family. I read once that grief was not a dark tunnel that you come out clean on the other side but a tar pit that you thrash around in till you come to the surface scalded, tarred and forever changed. I am still thrashing but I am fortunate to have a wonderful wife and we are helping each other to the surface. We can tend each others burns and help each other change for the better. And maybe one day the tar will fade, I hope not at the sacrifice of our memories of Haplo.
I will share one such memory here to give you an idea of his kindness. Recently I was feeling under the weather and was a bit irascible and had snapped at my wife to leave me alone. As I made my way to the couch Haplo, as always, was under foot. I irritably push him aside and yelled ‘you are always in my way’. I curled up on the couch and pulled the blanket over my head to complete my pity party. I felt the blanket start to move and wondered who was disturbing my grump fest. But then I felt a wet warm tongue licking my ear and realized Haplo had managed to worm his way under my blanket to find my face. Nestling further in, he laid his head on my chest and there we sat together in our fort. As the minutes passed and I rubbed the ridge from his nose to his forehead, I begin to feel better. I apologized to him for pushing him out of the way, relinquished my blanket fort, found Leslie and made amends for being a jerk earlier. This may seem to be a small moment out of all the great memories I have of him but that moment was repeated a thousand times in the three short years I had with him. That is what Haplo gave to me, happiness and allowing me to be the best person I could be at each moment.
I am still sad, a bit lost and I continue to expect him at my foot every time I turn around. I know it is darkest before the dawn and I know that it can get no darker because my shadow is gone. Our pack has lost one of it’s members and we are all sad but together we will forge on and hope the dawn breaks soon. I wish I could say it better. I wish I didn’t have to say it at all.
My sweet puppy Haplo passed away.
