For the Animals Among Us

I swear I have funny things to write about and I will get to them, soon....but, just yesterday, my mother lost a best friend. And just last week I spoke with a patient who lost hers. The patient told me she has never experienced such loss and asked, "Is this what a broken heart feels like? Because if it is then I never want to love again."  

I read something this morning on a friend’s Facebook page that struck me. I've always been of the persuasion that if something affects me--and it could be a positive or negative affect--then it's worth paying attention too. Some things don't affect me at all and that's a good thing because none of us have nearly enough time to be affected by everything in this world. But breaking hearts, those affect me. What I read on this friend's page was something about fear and then stopping to think about being on a spinning planet and how scary is THAT!! So, even if we don't already have a healthy fear of enough already - we can think about the fact that we are spinning madly on a planet in a solar system so large none of us can comprehend it. But, I digress...  

My patient wanted something for her broken heart, was nearly demanding it, as she fought back tears. All of 25 years old, she'd just had to put down her chocolate lab, Gusto. He became sick so suddenly, she said, there was nothing that could be done. At 10 years old he'd lived a long life for a lab, a good life. Still, she hadn’t been able to go to work since, couldn't stop crying, was irritable with friends and family. Not yet the recipient of unrequited human love or a nasty divorce or the death of a loved one or even just lingering in an unbearably broken relationship, this furry animal was the first real loss she had ever experienced. And so I grabbed the Kleenex and talked her through the stages of grieving. Because they look remarkably similar - no matter the loss. Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. And, finally, acceptance.

And then yesterday, when my mother called me at 10am my heart sank, because I knew why. Her cat, Tanner—the “Tan Man”—was gone. As so often happens with animals, because they can’t tell us what is wrong or even if something hurts deep inside, by the time we figure out what is ailing them, it is often too late. And so I listened, all the while feeling my own heart bend. I clutched my pets a bit harder throughout the day—my study companions, the ones who tear up my notes and endlessly want to play, and sleep as close as they can to me at night knowing that I toss and turn like a mad woman. I held them closer because they teach me about love—and how humans love, and also about how we fail sometimes at loving, because of fear.

So, if you hesitate with your heart, think of this: We are—each one of us—sitting on a swiftly spinning planet, in the middle of a vast and dark universe, probably careening towards some unknown demise hopefully millions of year down the road. Scary! But love? No, love isn't scary. 

To paraphrase the poet Mary Oliver: …To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, let it go. 

You will be missed, Tan Man.