The Brochure on Continuing Grief and the Solace of a Dog

Today. I'm going to continue telling you about my journey of grief, but keep listening. I'm also going to share my experiences today with our dog, our dog Brownie, at the neighborhood dog parade. So it's going to end positively and it's going to be a good story. So I hope you'll stay tuned for the whole episode. And, again, I'm going to forego the intro and outro, the perky music. I'm getting to the point where I think I can bring it back. I'm getting to the point where I think I can bring it back, but right now my heart still feels heavy and so I'm going to keep it out for now.

An author, she's an American philosopher, and I found this quote on a friend's Facebook post, Lydia, who I've spoken about before and who is on her own journey of grief. I believe she's one of my listeners. I'm very grateful for my listeners and Lydia's been a listener. So hi, Lydia. But I found this quote on her Facebook post and I saw the end of it and it already captured my attention, but I couldn't read it at the time because sometimes it's just too much for me to take these things in. I'm promising myself that I'm not going to cry, or try not to cry today, so I went back when I was feeling braver and I read the whole quote and for me and as I've shared with you before, I've been on many journeys of grief. I've experienced many great losses in my life so far and I've become sort of I call it a connoisseur of grief because I've really tried to work through I laugh at myself when I say that, but working through your grief is such an important part of getting through life and it's such an important part of learning how to live fully, I feel like. And so, being a connoisseur of grief, I've really sought out what people have shared about their own journeys of grief, right? So when I went back and I read this quote that she had posted because she was having a day where the loss of her mother about a year ago had really hit her and that's how grief gets you Some days you'll be okay and other days it hits you and you're not okay. So when I went back and I read this whole quote, I was like, oh my gosh, this explains. This explains kind of exactly how I feel about the loss of Dallas. It encapsulates everything that I feel and I know how I feel, right. But for some reason, reading it and having words to put to it makes it. Does it make it better? No, it doesn't make it better, but it just it helps to. I guess it helps to process it right. I don't know, nothing ever helps, but because it's grief, it's grief. So I'm going to read this for you now and I hope that you'll really listen to it, but I'll also post it on my social media for the podcast, because I think it's so powerful.

When we lose certain people or when we are dispossessed from a place or a community, we may simply feel that we are undergoing something temporary, that mourning will be over and some restoration of prior order will be achieved. But maybe when we undergo what we do, something about who we are is revealed, something that delineates the ties we have to others, that shows us that these ties constitute what we are, ties or bonds that compose us. It is not as if an I quote unquote I exists independently over here and then simply loses a quote unquote you over there, especially if the attachment to quote unquote you is part of what composes who quote unquote I am. If I lose you under these conditions, then I not only mourn the loss, but I become inscrutable to myself. Who am I without you? When we lose some of these ties by which we are constituted, we do not know who we are or what to do. On one level, who we are or what to do On one level, I think I have lost you, only to discover that I have gone missing as well. Let me read that last line again On one level, I think I have lost you, only to discover that I have gone missing as well. This is from Judith Butler's book Precarious Life Powers of Mourning and Violence, and that last line really sums up how I feel right now. I feel like I have lost my beloved Dallas, but I feel like I've lost myself in the process, and I think that this is such a powerful statement because I know that I've lost. Statement because I know that I've lost. You know you've lost. Sometimes you lose a place, right, you lose your place where you live, or you lose a business, or, because of that, you lose your community. So I just thought that this was a very powerful, powerful statement. Um. So thank you, lydia, for pointing that out for me and bringing it into my consciousness and everyone else's who listens.

Share photos with for Dallas, his caretaker, who was just such a wonderful man and somebody else who really helped me with Dallas and I wanted to put together some pictures of Dallas as a keepsake for them and a thank you, part of a way of thanking them for their help. And I've really struggled because I started off looking through some pictures I have just hundreds of pictures of Dallas and I wanted to go and get them printed up. I got the frames, get them printed up. I got the frames and I can't finish it right now and I feel so bad because I'm kind of just stuck. And I was talking to Bill about this and I mentioned how I feel and he was very kind to me. He said don't worry about it. When it's right you'll finish it. There's no hurry, and I was really happy that he'm at.

I guess when I fell a couple was it three weeks ago, two weeks ago, I guess it was three weeks ago. My knees still hurt a lot. I have a lot of edema in one knee but I'm managing okay. I was really distracted and now my way of getting through is to be distracted and to have distractions to keep my mind occupied, and so today's distraction was going to the quote-unquote dog parade up at the park that we have here in the neighborhood. Every year there's a dog. They call it the dog parade, but it's like an event for all the neighborhood people. In our canyon I think we have about 700 homes here and we have a very active neighborhood group that they've formed. I don't know how long ago it was, but every April they have the dog parade and so people come out with their dogs and they have what they call a dog parade through the park. They line us up and you walk your dog through and all the dogs. It's a social event for the people as well as the dogs. There's an agility course and there's a competition for tricks. So I took Brownie today because I'm usually not up and around early enough most years to go, but this year I was up and feeling good because my whole schedule's changed. Because of my work schedule I'm usually not a morning person, but it's a pretty day, it's not raining, and so I thought, you know, we'll go and check it out and see what it is.

Brownie's not been the most sociable dog, can I say, since we got her. When we first had her she was very wary of strangers. She was initially good with other dogs, but then we had an incident where when we lived in the apartments there was a big Samoan dog that got loose from its owner and I think it was trying to play with her but ran over, kind of attacked her. I couldn't see Brownie anymore and she was yelping because she was buried by this you know, 100 pound dog. She's 14 pounds and so since then she's been very wary of big dogs, scared of them and that's, you know that's hard. So she, she, you know I didn't know how that would go, but she did really good. She, you know I didn't know how that would go, but she did really good. She, you know, interacted with the dogs that were her size. She was a little wary of the bigger dogs.

There was like a Basset hound, there was a Greyhound, there were some labs, there was a big fluffy dog I don't know if it was a snickerdoodle or a I don't know what you call them anymore but a big, or maybe it was a poodle, mix Poodle. I guess that's a snickerdoodle, right? Is that a snicker? Am I thinking of the cookie? I don't know. Anyway, a golden doodle. Anyway, big dogs, and nobody was aggressive, which was good. They had cookies, dog biscuits, so that kind of helped.

So we did the dog parade. She wore her little security t-shirt. It says security on the back. Everybody got a kick out of that. And then I thought maybe we were a shoe-in for the costume contest because there was only two dogs that were wearing costumes. They were dinosaurs, but I didn't realize there was another one with a bandit mask on. So we didn't ace the costume contest but we didn't do the tricks, because we don't really do tricks very well, although she does give us a hug when we ask her. But I thought the pressure of competition would be too hard on us.

And then they called our name in order for the dog parade and they said do you want to do the agility contest? And I thought the agility course. And I thought now, going back to my terrors about PE class in school, I was not the most athletic and you have to realize I've had knee replacements. I don't run really. I mean, if there was a tragedy I wouldn't be able to run for my life. I could slowly jog perhaps.

But I said, okay, we had tried out part of the agility course when we were waiting around for things to happen and there's like a hoop thing to run through. There was a jump to jump over, like a little horse jump. And there were the flags. You know the eight flag stands to run over and Browning really wasn't having any of it. But I said, okay, well, you know, we'll go for it. And we, we did manage. I'm not sure what our time was.

The there was, the MC helped us with the hoop, I had a cookie in my hand which helped a little bit and we, well, I'll just say this there were dogs that did worse than we did. There were dogs that did worse than we did. So there you have it. So they gave out the award. They have awards. They gave out awards for certificates for best costume. We didn't win that. They gave out awards for best, oh, for the dog parade. We didn't win that. We don't know how to heal very well. So, yeah, uh, and they gave out awards for the tricks, I think, or for the anyway. Then I didn't realize. So I figured you know that the whole competition was rigged for people that knew. You know that we're the most popular in the neighborhood. But then they gave out certificates for best overall and to my surprise, in Brownie's amazement, we won second place. So yay, yay, brownie. So she's very proud of herself. At one point she did get tired and she started to jump on my leg which meant Mom, I'm tired of this, please pick me up and hold me. So she was like this is way too much socialization and interaction for me. I'm just tired of it. But she's very cute and so she did really well.

So even through it all, I tell myself that I'm thinking about my grief, even through it all while I'm at the park. But I know it's a good distraction and so I'm distracting myself and I know that's good. I guess it's good. I don't know. I can only take it one step at a time. I feel like I could sit in a dark room and watch Terms of Endearment and other sad movies. I could definitely find some sad dog movies. I could probably watch Old Yeller and what's that one about? Some old dog movies, right, like the Purpose of a Dog or the Dog's Purpose, or oh, the Purpose of a Dog or the Dog's Purpose or something like that, or Runaway Dog, I don't know. I could sit there in a dark room and watch movies like that all day and just sob my heart out. But oh, and definitely no horse movies. But I just I don't know, I'm not sure where that would get me.

We did hear, thanks to a friend of mine. She texted me the other day and she sent me a link about some abandoned horses that were confiscated by animal control about 75 miles from here, about 75 miles from here, and you know we're a big rescue family. So I did look at the information and I found the Animal Shelters Facebook page and they have videos of them. They were all confiscated. Over 60 horses and 40 dogs were confiscated from the same owner. They were neglected and skinny, so they're up for adoption and I did send an email.

I tried to call but I don't know, not sure how I really feel about all that, but Not sure how I really feel about all that. But Bill was asking me well, what would happen and what would we do, and I said let's just see if they respond. First of all, one step at a time. I can't look too far down the road, but anyway, that's all I've got for today. Folks, I think that's pretty good. Um, the dog park, the dog parade, the dog agility course has left us feeling triumphant and a little tired, but we did get some good fresh air and next week I hope to share with you some more good news. I hope that you have a good week and thanks for joining us. I hope. I hope you have a good week. All right, take care.