I’m migrating to a new blog shortly, as I mentioned in a previous blog post, because a stage of my life ended – the stage that prompted this original blog – when I put my dog Gracie down last July.
I wrote the following post on the day I said goodbye to her, and I think it’s finally time to share it:
By the time it was over, I felt like I’d swallowed a gallon of seawater, then cried it out drop by drop – I, the person who started out hating dogs.
She’d been my first dog, by my side for 8 years, while I struggled to stay afloat after sinking into starvation and depression, while I learned how to live in the world and navigate adulthood.
Rationally of course I knew she was “just a dog”. I berated myself for grieving so profusely over an animal. I’d always known this was inevitable, that I’d have to say goodbye someday.
So why was I sitting here in my bathrobe at noon on a weekday, with frozen spoons on my eyes, after crying for a solid 6 hours?
It wasn’t just the tears I’d cried into her fur. Or the joy she’d brought to a recovery process that was often painful, slow, and frustrating. It wasn’t that she followed me from room to room, or the way she greeted me when I opened the door at the end of the day; the click-click of her little paws on the tile, the plash-plash of her white feet in the rain puddles, the miles I walked with her or the nights I spent comforted by her presence curled up next to the bed, nose to tail.
I remembered how we charged out of the animal shelter the day I brought her home. It was a new adventure – I’d never even liked a dog, much less owned one! I was fresh on my own after more than a year of depression, sickness, moving home, rehab for an eating disorder. And now I was healthy, I was ready to finish college and re-enter the current of the world, pick my life up where I’d left it.
And Gracie helped me through it. I did it – I made it through eight years to the other side of pain I thought was impossible to conquer. I knew I’d have her as long as I needed her. And now, perhaps, I didn’t.
I wasn’t crying for all those memories, and the empty bed and food bowl she’d leave behind, and the walks I’d have to now take by myself. Really I was crying because I looked in the mirror of my sadness and saw a different person.
I was crying because I saw that grace had changed me, even when I still felt so flawed. When I feared having to continue life without this crucial distraction and beloved companion, I didn’t feel strong enough. I didn’t think I could do it without her. She was my routine, my joy, my warmth, my pick-me-up, she kept me from feeling alone. Without that, would I slip back into the hole I’d been in? Would I let the riptide of obsessions and the fears suck me back out to sea?
That’s why I cried. Because I realized – it wasn’t ever my dog. It was God the whole time. He was the one beside me, giving me strength, bringing me joy, teaching me wisdom. He was never leaving, and his goodness would never cease to manifest itself in my life.
How good had he been to provide the precious gift of joy throughout the years that were washed with tears. The pigment of joy had allowed my tears to create watercolors.
It was sad, but it was so, so beautiful. There would be more adventures ahead. I could face them. There would be other dogs to love. It was time for me to charge ahead out of the confines of my own limited view of life, and see what else God had planned for me.
A Girl, a Dog and a Blog 
True words, beautifully written. Praise the Lord for He is good, his love endures forever.