Soapbox

And So it Goes

    Well it’s been a week now since we lost our dog Boomer, and of course, life goes on.

    Don’t you just hate that some times?

    Don’t you just feel sometimes that the world should change somehow? Some sort of cosmic acknowledgment of the passing of a soul, whomever it was? But other than that weird sense of emptiness in the room and in your heart, nothing much really does. The house gets dirty and needs to be cleaned, laundry still piles up. People on TV get excited about the same inane crap they always did, you have to deal with the same junk at work. There is still a thousand little details of life that you need to attend to and the world doesn’t care about your grief. That sense of normalcy can be a great relief, and at the same time, as annoying as hell.

    This seems to be how it goes. First you feel devastated and wander around like the walking wounded, missing that person (or that dog) all the time. Everything makes you cry.
    Then after a while, you stop thinking about them all the time, and you don’t feel so bad. Then you realize this is happening, and you feel guilty for not feeling so bad. It seems disloyal to be going on with your life when they are not!
    Then you feel stupid for feeling guilty for not feeling so bad…. all of which makes you feel bad. Ah, the perversity of the human mind! These stages go by faster when the loved one was just a dog, but I think they are essentially the same for anyone.

    That awful day after we had him put to sleep, when I was staggering around exhausted but unable to rest, I decided to keep busy and got out the vacuum. As  I vacuumed the hair off the rug in my bedroom, I realized that I as sucking up all traces of Boomer in our life. I paused for a moment, then shook my head in exasperation. What was I supposed to do- keep the furry rug as a shrine? Ditto for the dog nose prints I washed off the back window the next day. Reality rears its ugly head and life goes on.

 I don’t cry any more when I pull in the driveway and look to the garden gate and Boomer isn’t standing there, wiggling with delight at my return. Seeing Rocket wander by with Boomers old kong in his mouth only gives me a small lump in my throat. Katie and I spent  time this weekend searching through photos for pictures of Boomer, and finding them made us happy instead of sad. 
    We have a tasteful little wooden box of ashes on the shelf by the front door, where Boomer used to lay on guard. I set his old collar on top of the box with the tags hanging down in front. When I go out the door, I kiss my finger and touch the tags as I go by, and usually I smile.

    Life goes back pretty much to normal, whether you want it to or not. Which I guess is a good thing.