I Bring This News to You in Anger, Horror, and Resignation
You’ve got to make it through all of the “firsts” without him. The first Thursday. Your birthday. Then his. Crying alone over the green shoots of spring daffodils. The first piece of good news. The next bit of bad. You’ve got to make it through, knowing only that grief is more prolific than useless baseball statistics. It just goes on like this. It just goes on like this. It just goes on like this. And nothing can make it stop.
Stan and I were an unstoppable duo, and he helped me rebuild my life post-divorce. Making weird art, hanging out, going on hikes, and holding him tempered so much disappointment and loss. I have edited and retitled several works from that time to make them more cohesive. Thank you, sweet Stan!
I. CONCEAL
spend all your time in a house far too spacious for a small woman and her large dog
II. CONGEAL
the dog takes up two-thirds of our bed, two heads on the same pillow
I lost my beloved Labrador at the beginning of the month due to complications with late-stage lymphoma. Stanley was a month shy of being 11 years old. From diagnosis to his passing, we had 2 weeks. Two glorious weeks of eating whatever the hell he wanted. Two weeks to cherish my soulmate. Two weeks of couch cuddles and slow, cold walks around the block.
On his last day, I made him his favorite mini apple lattice pie. He got a cheeseburger and fries. We went on a short loop walk in his favorite park. He lay in the center of our living room among the baby’s toys, listening to the extended family talk. He always kept track to make sure we were all safe. He left the room to lie down on his bed in the den, where he began having breathing complications and shaking.
Stanley passed peacefully that evening at the emergency vet. I cradled and kissed his head, listing every person who ever loved him. My mom rubbed his back.
As a survivor, I must bear the burden of unconditional love into the interminable future and carry the wellsprings of joy and pain that his memory evokes.
The posts for the foreseeable future will be about our life together. I’ve revised some old pieces as an attempt to write my way through grief, but it is insufficient.
I wrote the below in Fall of 2019. Just Stan and me building a new life in this big old rental.
labrador retriever at 3:23 AM
the dog whines to go outside i walk slow from my bedroom down the steep steps and he clumsily follows
“don’t knock me down the goddamn stairs!” i stage whisper – he snorts
we emerge into crisp Cleveland he relieves himself on the hydrangea bush
amber streetlights illuminate the leaves splaying patterns across my pale limbs
cool air carries close scents: hot piss a distant skunk
he smells the wind and comes back inside to drink water like a moose
my mind seeks the gentle tones of human voices rustling in the treetops
i whisper back to the breeze “Stan’s a good boy” and pet his velvet ears
he is already asleep unfathomably peaceful a cozy, rounded-corner of blackness
