pondering life, death, and grief

[jesse_the_k]

...seems to be on the agenda. (We're fine, Bella's getting better.) MyGuy and I are finishing up our will, designating personal representatives who get delegated to herd our health and wealth In The Event.

From BlairBraverman's regular column in Outside magazine, pondering the grief we feel after losing a dog, and how we can imagine the next dog.

What to Do When You Lose a Dog

Dogs’ lives are short to us, but not to them. To them, their lives are the length of lives.

The burden of this, the hardship, falls on us—we outlive our best friends. But it also allows us to give them a gift. A dog can pass through puppyhood, adulthood, and old age in the company of caring humans. They can live their whole lives on earth in a cocoon of love.

Dogs exist in each moment. They are shallow in the best of ways: their life consists of the things they’re experiencing now. They want to be loved, they want attention and snacks and walks, they want gentle hands on their fur while they drift to sleep. The best thing we can do for dogs is to make their moments good. If their moments are good, then their lives are good, too.

And when we lose them?

They give us one last gift, which is that we can grieve like dogs. Moment by moment. Not by living in the past or the future, but by taking the sorrow as it comes.