A month ago today, I said goodbye to my sweet Kenan.  The amount of support and kind words I received in response to my farewell to him, Doggie Heaven, has been so meaningful and compassionate and I am truly thankful to all of those that kept Kenan and my family in your thoughts.

It’s been a long time since I lost someone close to me and, while I always knew that I sucked at grief, I had no idea it would be so incredibly hard.  As a counselor, I have all of the tools I need to get through this.  I have helped numerous people deal with grief at many different levels.  I am not afraid to admit that, when I do have a client who is struggling with the loss of someone close to them, I have been known to cry right along with them.  They have always said that it helps them to know that their struggle is real and legit and not easy.

But, without Kenan, I feel so alone and empty and lost in such unfamiliar territory.  It has been a ridiculously horrible month.  Let me first say that, with Kenan’s disease being of a degenerative nature, we knew that we would eventually have to make the decision that we did.  The one thing that I said to Matt (who, for what it’s worth, has lost pets in the past) was that we wait until after Christmas to make the decision.  He agreed and I was left in a weird mix of happiness and denial.  The big problem was that, when I looked at Kenan, I still saw a healthy and energetic puppy who could run for miles without stopping.  My mind ignored his back legs dragging behind him.  I chose not to think about the rubber mats that we had to line the house with so that his feet didn’t slip all over the place when he tried to go to the kitchen.  And I justified his crying and moaning at night as loneliness and aggravation that he couldn’t do the things he used to.

On a Tuesday night, I got up with him around 2:30 in the morning.  I had to lure him outside with jerky treats and I had to carry the back half of him most of the way.  He made it all the way outside to the grass, turned around, and looked at me with eyes that finally admitted, “Mommy, I just can’t do this anymore.”

I sat down with him, outside on our back deck, only in my pajama shirt and bedroom shoes, and I held him while I cried.  It was the first time that I was able to see how much pain he was in.  It was the first moment that I didn’t think of him as a puppy anymore.  And, in that moment, I realized that it never occurred to me that he would die.  I never thought about a time in my life when he wouldn’t be there.

The truth is, I don’t have any regrets about the time that Kenan let me be his mommy.  In fact, he taught me how to be a mother.  His stubborn nature and lack of consideration taught me how to be patient, even when tired and frustrated.  His dislike for the slightest movement or disturbance taught me how to move slowly but surely as I tried to slip out of the room or escape from under the covers.  And his ridiculous antics taught me how to laugh at an impossible situation rather than get angry or upset.

During our last night with Kenan, we brought all of the mattresses down from upstairs and made a giant floor-bed so that we could all sleep as a family one more time.  We spent the night telling funny stories about Kenan.  Matt reminded me of the time that, on his way to Asheville from Chapel Hill, after he and I had a huge fight, he was less than five minutes from his parents’ house when Kenan stood up in the passenger seat and vomited and vomited all between the console and the seat and then tried to lick him in his face. 

Then, there was the time that I had to hold Kenan down when he was just a few months old, so that Matt could try and clip Kenan’s toenails.  He wriggled and writhed until, obviously, Matt clipped a toenail too deep and Kenan’s toe began to bleed.  He immediately began howling and crying at a pitch that sounded as though we were beating a cow into submission.  He ran, full speed, up and down the stairs of our rented apartment, leaving a stream of blood everywhere he went.  He never let us cut his toenails again.  We tried taking him to the groomers a few times but, after the 2^nd groomer called us and told us never to bring him back again (while we can hear him crying and moaning in the background), we decided that he would just have long toenails.  And then, in the first moments after we said goodbye to Kenan, while sitting on the floor at the veterinarian’s office, I wiped my tears away, blew my nose, and said to Matt, “Do you want to cut his toenails?”  We laughed for a minute and then cried together.

The hardest thing I have ever done is to walk out of the veterinarian’s office and leave Kenan’s body behind.  I could have sat in there for days, just holding him and rocking him.  Matt asked me if I was ready to leave and I just shook my head, “No.”  He sat back down and held the two of us while I cried.

What’s crazy is that, before Kenan finally faded away, I looked down and noticed a large wet spot on the leg of my jeans.  When I looked further, I realized that the wet spot was from Kenan’s tears.  He was crying.  But I don’t think it was sad tears.  I think it was a sign of him letting go.  I think he was trying to tell me that he was ready.  And I think he was excited about being able to run again.  He wanted to go to the dog park and chase the birds in the yard.  He wanted to run to the door and bark at the UPS man.  And he wanted to jump up on the bed and snuggle up beside me on Saturday mornings.

Our house is so much quieter now.  The hardest part is when I walk in the back door after work and no one barks at me to make sure that I am not a burglar.  Poplar, our black lab who just happens to be the sweetest and quietest dog in the world, doesn’t make any noise (unless she stands too close to the wall and her tail bangs against it).  The silence is deafening and it breaks my heart every time.  I spent the first 2 weeks avoiding our house as much as possible.  Matt finally asked me to “try and come back to him” so I worked really hard at spending more time at home.

The truth is, I really do suck at grief.  The empty hole in my chest is still empty and I spend every day “grief-shopping” just trying to fill it.  I realized that as long as I stayed busy or bought “stuff,” I didn’t hurt so much.  But the house is still quiet.  Matt, because he is so wonderful, texted me one day that he was home and we got a package delivered.  He texted, “The UPS man just rang the doorbell and Poplar barked for almost 3 minutes.  It felt safe again.”  I sobbed like a baby.

Kenan, I desperately miss you.  I’m not sure when this pain will pass but I want you to know that your presence in our lives left such an impact.  I still hear you sometimes.  When I am up by myself or when it gets really quiet, I hear you howling.  I have even turned a looked a few times to make sure that all of this grief has not just been a bad dream.  I hope that you are running faster than all of the other dogs and that you have found a comfortable spot on the couch next to a really warm and still angel.  And I hope that everyone up there has a ton of patience because you really are so amazing if people give you a chance.  I am working every day to get by and to move forward.  But I think about you all the time.  And, even though I know you’re not coming back, I feel you here with me.  I just wish it wasn’t so quiet.