An Impossible Goodbye

My family lost our beloved Harold in the early morning hours of May 14, 2023. It was the hardest night of my life. Seeing his pain and struggles breathing leading up to that moment, I knew the time for him to go was upon us. But leading up to that point, he was still with us. I could hold him and look into his eyes. l could continue to repeatedly tell him I love him, on top of the thousand times I told him that exact same thing with more and more emphasis over the past 24 hours. I could smell that unique odor on the top of his head. I could kiss his crusty little nose just a few more times. But I knew the decision needed to be made to end his suffering. And I was the one who needed to make it. And I did.

Emptiness and darkness soon followed. I felt like a hollowed out version of the person I was just 10 minutes prior. I couldn’t recall the seemingly fulfilled person I was even 2 weeks ago. I was in a state of agony that I hadn’t felt before.

This pain was hard to grapple with and understand because I thought I was somehow prepared. Harold was 11 years old (a fairly long life for his breed) so I had time to play out the scenario of him passing a hundred times before. He had a number of scares during his life that brought the subject front and center. But in this situation prior events or experience with loss did nothing to ease the pain.

In the days and weeks following Harold’s loss, I found it nearly impossible to find the right words and resources to help me fully accept Harold’s passing and cope with the grief. During those very dark early days, momentary bouts of relief were very hard to find. I was desperate to discover some meaning for the hurt or find resources to help deal with the pain. I have never walked so much (staying in motion always helped during prior difficult times). I listened to every podcast episode I could find on grief and pet loss. I talked to friends and family that had also lost animals they loved. I attended therapy sessions with other people going through pet loss or anticipatory grief. I journaled rather obsessively to collect all the thoughts and ideas in my mind. I went down a lot of roads to try to better handle and understand my grief.

In all of this, I did have some breakthroughs and found ways to get on a better footing in dealing with this grief. I’ve shared these in a separate post.

However, you might be disappointed to learn I never found closure (which I believe is a stupid term), nor did I land on a proper stage of acceptance that Harold was gone (the stages of grief are also moronic). There was simply no way my soul was going to find a satisfying or proper goodbye. And this now makes sense. How could there be a goodbye for something that I can quite vividly still feel, hear and smell? How can something be gone that I still love so strongly?

In this situation a goodbye is impossible. Because Harold lives on in full force within me and my family.

So no more goodbyes here. I now welcome Harold’s spirit as a part of my everyday. Because his presence is still looming large. And always will.