Absence Profound

One online dictionary defines the word “bereave” this way: “be deprived of a loved one through a profound absence, especially due to the loved one’s death.”

Profound absence. Before this week, I’m not sure that phrase would have resonated with me so deeply.

One can say what they will about emotional attachment to the family dog, but Anatole France said it best: “Until one has loved an animal, part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” If you don’t understand what this means, then you haven’t experienced it. Bonding with an animal changes something inside us on the level of our biochemistry. Don’t believe that? Take a good look at studies performed by major medical organizations, like the ones discussed by Harvard Health Publishing. If having contact with pets affects us so remarkably, it makes sense that losing them would affect us as well.

Monday afternoon, my husband and I said goodbye to Hollywood, the precious long-coated chihuahua who’d been part of our lives for the better part of two decades. Hollywood was eighteen, and his body finally failed him. Strong until the end, his heart kept him alive longer than he likely should have been. By the time our veterinarian helped us make the decision to end his suffering, he could no longer stand, see, or eat. He went peacefully with loved ones surrounding him, and I had my hand on his head when his lion’s heart stopped beating.

In the aftermath, my husband and I felt some physical and emotional shockwaves that neither of us expected. We’ve lost people close to us before, and lost other pets. But we’ve never been affected by any loss quite this way. It’s beyond sadness. Beyond the ache in our hearts. There have been physical and mental ramifications that sent me deep into the Web looking for answers. Why am I so tired? Seems like all I can do is sleep. Why is my husband wracked with guilt, even though he gave Hollywood the very best of everything for all those years? Why are we both unable to think clearly, or focus on a task for more than minutes at a time? Is this normal, or are we both showing signs of deeper issues?

Sporadic reading on the subject (since I couldn’t concentrate on more than a few lines of text at a time) assured me that our responses to this loss are not abnormal. Everything from a sense of surreal disconnect to overwhelming fatigue are well-documented and predictable ways that humans experience grief. Weeping and despair are only a small part of it. I found myself unable to cry at all most of the time. I simply felt shut down, out of sorts. I couldn’t carry on normal conversation. I could listen, and I could understand. But formulating a proper response and putting it into actual words is something that, for a little while, may be difficult for me. Apparently the part of my brain responsible for communication is lending its resources to the emotion centers of my brain. This causes a disruption of service. For a wordsmith like me, this is alarming. But I also read in almost every report, article, and study I found on grief that suppressing the symptoms can make them manifest in more serious ways. In other words, the more you push it all down and avoid feeling the unpleasant emotions, the longer they will control your life.

So, I’ll give myself time to be inefficient in my thinking, unreliable with decision-making, and unproductive in performance. While I’ve always been in favor of bereavement leave in the workplace, now I understand why it’s necessary. Grieving people simply don’t function normally. Not because they’re sad, but because their energy metabolism has been diverted and brain chemistry altered. They need to physically heal.

Writing this post has been therapeutic for me. Not because I needed to vent, or crave sympathy. It’s a much more practical exercise. I’m a writer, yet the flow of words from my mind to the page was seriously compromised by Hollywood’s death. Getting those channels open again may take some time, but at least it’s started. I don’t want to form neural pathways that may not be as efficient as the ones that got blasted by grief. So, word by word, I’ll deal with this loss and move forward. I just ask that everyone please remember that I’m struggling, and my behavior in the chats may be affected for a while to come.

R.I.P., little Hollywood. Your body was small, but your heart could eclipse the sun.