Hierarchy of Grief

My beautiful dog, Ace, is gone and I find myself, for the first time in my life, on the precipice of grief, buffered by no-one who's love I perceive greater and who's sorrow is rawer. This time it is for me to feel the unrelenting contractions of loss, pain and disbelief. There is no hierarchy of grief to hide behind. 

It is an intensely powerful thing to grieve as a family unit, each feeling the same depth of pain, in different ways at different times. We are broken open, but able to hold and comfort each other, really understanding the chasm of loss that each other is experiencing. My children are teenagers and are humbling me with their capacity to explore this agony, to be emotionally available, articulate and generous. Still Ace teaches. 

In spite of all of the beauty and love, the rituals and the ceremony, the day after his passing I was bereft. My belief in the beyond evaporated with his energy and nothing held me sane. There was simply a vast space where once a magnificent force of nature existed. My children felt him leave, but I did not. I felt anguish for betraying his trust, for not being able to save him. For calling the person who would force his transition.

For all of those who have felt this pain before me, I am astonished, and I marvel at the resilience of humans to heal from grief. Grief, it seems to me, is a kind of madness, a rocking, wailing, salty insanity as our embodied spirits try to make sense of the incomprehensible. There is no place to hide, nowhere to sit, nothing to imbibe that will bring solace.

To love unreservedly is to ache viscerally. To the guts. The marrow. Deep into the heart. Nothing makes sense. He is nowhere and everywhere. This pain is deep and raw and consuming. And we must sit in it, allow it, immerse ourselves in the recognition of a great love. 

Our dog reminded us that we are animals. That we can be wild and free and at one with nature. He was kind and he attracted love. We have turned back to our wild selves to grieve him. On his last hot, Downs walk we gathered wild flowers to cover his beautiful body and to lay a carpet for his final journey. We asked for loving entities to come and guide him home; his mother, who died recently, and the dog who guided us to him in the very beginning. We asked our own spirit guides to support us. He had buddhists chanting for him, shaman holding him, others praying. We supported his passing with fresh rosemary, and with oils of rose otto, frankincense and bergamot. We filled our house with hawthorn branches, lavender and bowls of foraged flowers. We smudged with sage and eucalyptus. We drummed his physical leaving, a compelling rhythm that found unity in the heartbeat of our shock and pain. He was smiling even in death, outdoors where he wanted to be, surrounded by nature, love and compassion. We sat by an open fire and tried to process an event so horrific but so gentle. Euthanasia comes from the Greek 'Good Death' and as time continues to unravel, we see that we were able to give him exactly that.

We have built a shrine and we tend to it daily, keeping a flame alive, fresh flowers in a bowl. We have baptised ourselves in the ocean, cleansing ourselves for a new beginning that we are not ready for and did not want. 

We are listening to music. To screaming saxophones and African beats, gentle lulla-byes of love and truth and faith. Every word has been written for him, and for us. Words are powerful incantations and the very spelling of them into existence to translate our pain is surprisingly comforting. We have sobbed and held and danced. We have shocked each other with outbursts of grief at realisations of 'lasts', that there will be no more. 

As the days pass we find that the beauty of the rituals in which we bathed him, and which did not serve us in the shock of the aftermath, are in fact guiding us gently back to a belief system and to comfort. He was always a huge presence, and his energy has taken no time to show us some (frankly outrageous) signs that he is still here. They come daily, and they buoy us.They cannot compensate for the physical loss, the missing of touch, but they are settling like sediment into our cells, creating a new sense of wholeness.

I will be eternally grateful that this great love, this teacher of the unconditional, came to me and to my family, with no expectation, to show us purity, curiosity, boundless energy, kindness, pain and a higher love. He has taught us so much, not least to grab life and all of it's shame and sorrow, guilt and glory ... and joy.