Dealing with Loss and Grief: Losing a Man’s Best Friend
I want to share some of my thoughts and feelings about dealing with loss and grief. Twenty-nine days ago, I had to put my dog down, and going through that experience has hit me so hard. His death has been the most difficult death that I can remember experiencing, even though he was a pet and not a human being.
Looking back, from 29 days out, there are a few things that I have learned while dealing with my loss. I also believe there will be more things to learn in the coming days ahead. The first several days, my thoughts of him were constant. I could not escape them. In fact, I didn’t even try to. I just went with the memories that came. The memories were good. The hardest part was that I knew I would never see him again. After the first week, I began trying to push the memories away, by distracting myself with some other activity. This worked, and I began to move on to my normal routine.
Yesterday, I woke up and he was on my mind again. I guess grief is like that, you never know when it is going to hit. I tried pushing it away but the memories kept coming back. I finally just decided to go with it and had a sad day with my thoughts. I dreamt of him last night and today is similar to yesterday with the thoughts and feelings.
“They”, tell you to feel the loss and go through the process, but that is not easy, and why have the memories come again? I don’t know.
After the first week, I chose to begin to tell people what had happened. There were some people who chose to have empathy with me saying they were sorry for my loss. Sometimes people did not have many words to say to me, but that was OK. Simple, genuine responses were helpful and I appreciated them. There were those who chose to give advice and\or to tell me their story of loss. That kind of response, to me, was not helpful or appreciated.
I want to remember what I have experienced with this loss when I interact with someone going through loss in the future. A simple, genuine and empathetic response was the best. No words that anyone could have spoken would fix anything. So, just showing empathy was the best choice.
The last thing I’ve been dealing with was thinking about the morning I had to take him in to be put down. I was not able to keep a thought in my head. I ended up choosing to not go back with him and be with him until the end. I let the veterinarian take him while I left. I regret that choice the most. I still wish I’d been with him, even though I feel like it would have been extremely difficult at that moment. I am not sure how this might relate to anyone going through a loss; but if I had the opportunity to make that choice again I would go back and be with him until it was over.
Goodbye Jake, I love you and miss you greatly.
