IN HONOR OF BUDDY

We lost our new pup this week ♡

Warning: This email honors my new puppy’s life and recent tragic death.

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Good morning my friends,

I’m still, mercifully, in my bed.

At first light when I stirred, my stomach dropped.

For the past month and a half, I had become accustomed to jumping out of bed, racing to dress and opening Buddy’s crate. He would hug me with his muppet paws and smother me with kisses before submitting to a long, generous belly rub. Then we’d bundle up and head out for his morning business, greeting the dawn together.

On Thursday morning, Buddy tragically departed for the spirit world.

Anyone who has lost a dog before, knows that it is a crushing loss.

I am new to this grief.

To be honest, I am shocked.

Buddy came to us at 10 months old, and in such a short time, won our hearts.

Not only that, he taught us that our capacity for love—and chaos—was far greater than we expected.

It feels unfair to lose him just as we were growing accustomed to a new way of life, and building a new relationship unlike any we had experienced before.

I had hemmed and hawed about whether to share this story with you.

After all, I promised you a primer on knife safety for children.

But if there were ever a time to exercise the privileges of being my own boss, it’s now.

So, in lieu of today’s scheduled content, I want to honor my fur-baby’s life while offering a story that might help someone avoid the same perils, or at the very least, ease another’s sorrow.

Buddy was positively brimming with energy. He was strong and tough, smart and determined.

We had worked up to walking the same trail, every day, off leash. It was the only place I felt he was safe to explore and be free (we had yet to install a fence at our home). He would bound up and down the trail alongside me, coming when I called if he was out of sight, leashing up before returning to the car.

This past Thursday, we went for a drizzly walk in the morning. This time, Buddy went onto the iced over river that borders the park. I caught him on the edge close to the bank, standing on his hind legs looking at me, knowing he shouldn’t be there.

“Come Buddy!” I called, and spun on my heels. He always followed me if I turned to walk away. This time, he seized his chance to explore, and dashed to the center of the ice. I heard a faint yelp, and turned back to find his head bobbing in the river where the ice gave way, his paws struggling for purchase on the ice.

I raced down to the edge, encouraging him to come, pleading with him to be strong and climb out. He ducked under, and was gone.

I expected him to resurface but the current had swept him under the ice.

I was frantic. I called 911. I called Bobby. I raced up and down the bank, rain pouring down, screaming his name.

I knew there was nothing I could do. I knew I couldn’t go after him.

I have two daughters at home.

Just like when our house caught fire last winter, our community immediately turned out to help. They even sent an ice rescue team. But ultimately, there was no hope of recovering Buddy. But having them there—Bobby, our neighbor fire marshals, their families, friends on the cul-de-sac where the river bends—brought comfort.

Tucked in by the girls ♡

The hardest part about living is losing someone you love. The fire inside you feels snuffed out.

Grief is exhausting, and necessary.

I often think of a quote from Martín Prechtel’s book, The Smell of Rain on Dust. He writes, “Grief expressed out loud, whether in or out of character, unchoreographed and honest, for someone we have lost, or a country or home we have lost, is in itself the greatest praise we could ever give them. Grief is praise, because it is the natural way love honors what it misses.”

Well, I can tell you that my head throbbed like a heartbeat from sobbing. My tears stained my pillow and my throat was raw. I didn’t try to hide my sorrow from my husband or my daughters, and I held them in the different ways they needed too.

As often happens with jarring life events, I have been trying to keep the “what-ifs” and self-blame at bay. I am noticing anxiety creep into my sorrow. I feel a crushing sense of guilt in letting down his former owner. There are countless ways I would rewind time.

My primary solace, and reminders to be gentle on myself, have come from my incredible community. Bobby, who brought me tea and chocolate, and checked on me every half hour as I lay in bed and cried, even as he navigated his own sadness. My twin sister, Dimity, who packed her boys into the car and drove north Friday morning to hold me, and cuddled me in bed to watch Knotting Hill and sip wine together. My mamma, who sent me a gorgeous basket of flowers and called me every hour. Who as only a mother can, could feel my pain and sadness. My siblings sympathy. My beloved friends, who delivered us food Thursday evening, who have poured messages into my heart, and cried with me on the phone. My neighbors, who continue to check in. Our dear family friends, who brought Buddy into our lives, and stood by the river with us, casting words, roses and bones into the water.

As time continues to move on, I find myself starting to laugh more easily. And with those moments, I notice a twinge of fear. Am I forgetting so soon? Is it ok to smile? Is that callous?

No.

I am alive. I am here to honor life’s delights.

I have a friend who writes down his list of delights every day.

I love the word “delights.” It’s specific, unlike “gratitudes,” which can be broad.

It is the difference between a who-can-dress-the-craziest-contest with my eldest daughter and feeling grateful for my children’s imagination.

I have ebbed and flowed with this practice, but I plan to reinstate it today.

I am no stranger to loss. The grief will still be there. But the stories and memories remain alive.

Buddy brought a cascade of new, daily delights to my days, and I will miss him dearly.

So please join me in lighting a candle for Buddy, and anyone you have loved and lost.

And if I haven’t told YOU enough, I’m grateful to you for being here.

For bearing witness to what each week brings. F

or being part of my extended community.

And for always offering me encouragement, enthusiasm, and an ear.

♡ Emma

Grief is praise of those we have lost. Our own souls who have loved and are now heartbroken would turn to stone and hate us if we did not show such praise when we lose whom we love. A nonfake grieving is how we praise the dead, by praising that which has left us feeling cold and left behind. By the event of our uncontrolled grief, wail, and rap, we are also simultaneously praising with all our hearts the life we have been awarded to live, the life that gave us the health and opportunity of having lived fully enough to love deep enough to feel the loss we now grieve. To not grieve is a violence to the Divine and our own hearts and especially to the dead. If we do not grieve what we miss, we are not praising what we love. We are not praising the life we have been given in order to love. If we do not praise whom we miss, we are ourselves in some way dead. So grief and praise make us alive.

Excerpted from The Smell of Rain on Dust by Martín Prechtel. (c) 2015, North Atlantic Books.