Wednesday, May 9, 2018

Heartbroken

Writing down the bones
*I want to make a clarification here. Writing Down the Bones is a book by Natalie Goldberg. I liked the title...it spoke to me. I liked the idea of "writing down the bones"... of getting my thoughts out, freeing up space in my overly cluttered and always racing mind. 
But the questions that I am answering here are from a book titled Plant Spirit Medicine by Eliot Cowan. There are five separate elements that I am answering questions about. Each chapter has at least 30 questions to answer. The section that I am doing now is Fire. 
Then there is Earth. Metal. Water. and finally Wood. 
I should have, and will from now on, include the intro to each element that appears in the book.
Fire-
By answering these questions, you can savor and explore your relationship to the element of Fire. Relax for a moment by a flame-a candle flame would be fine. Enjoy the blaze, thank it for its presence, and invite it to shed light on your experiences. Consider these questions one by one, and address the answer to the fire itself. Feel free to laugh or cry. Say what is in your heart. Contradict yourself if you like. Honest answers are right answers.

9. When have you felt heartbroken?

Instinctively, I want to type out my answer as-
When my dad died or when my daughter died or when my sister died.
And that answer would be true, as it was, at the time that those incidences happened. Is there a death that doesn't break somebodies heart?
But my clearest, sharpest memory of being heartbroken is when I had to put down my dog.
Now, while I don't want to sound like some sort of monster-
"I was more heartbroken over the death of my dog than the death of my daughter", the case remains that it is true.
I wonder if it's because I had a choice in the matter, I got to decide that it was his time to go.
And then for me, it begs the question,
Does God get heartbroken when HE decides that it's a persons time to go?

My daughter was stillborn due to an umbilical cord accident.
My dad died of Mulitple Myeloma (a form of blood/bone Cancer). He was 57.
My sister died of a rare disease called Blastomycosis of the brain. She was 48.
My dog would have died from Pancreatitis except his health was failing so quickly that I  called the Vet and had him put down. I didn't want him to suffer.
He was 14. (Yes, yes, I know. Fourteen years for a dog is pretty good.)

In the case of my daughter, I went into labor at six at night. We got to the hospital and they started the usual procedure...hospital gown on, pulse and BP checked, baby monitor strapped on...and nothing.
No sounds. The nurse looked at me, and said "Hang on a sec..I'll be right back." She came back with  both of my OB/GYN's. Things went fast after that. So many Dr.'s and nurses and techs all running around shouting things to each other. Breaking my water only to see the look on their faces when it didn't gush out clear... there was meconium in it. (baby poop)
I prayed and begged. I promised God that I would go to church,
EVERY SUNDAY FROM NOW ON
if He would wake me from this nightmare. I wanted it to be a nightmare.
Please God Please.
When they discovered that the umbilical cord was around her 3 times, the Dr. explained that had she been born alive there most likely would have been some brain damage due to a lack of oxygen. Something about that being her diagnosis or that being what her life would have been like-
brain damaged, made me thankful that God hadn't abandoned her or us, and that perhaps God in His infinite wisdom and mercy had saved us all from a life of heartache.
I remember looking back at the hospital over my shoulder while we were driving away the next day. It felt wrong to be leaving her there. I remember crying for days. I cried so hard that I lost my ability to smell for a few days. My husband grew quiet and hid out in the basement so often that I grew afraid, imagining that I'd find him hanging from the rafters one day. Death does strange things to heartbroken people.

In the case of my dad, we prayed and begged for healing. But dad was healed in heaven as they say.
My mother lost her mind for a bit through his sickness and dying and it turned her mean, and angry.
She was bitter, spiteful and unable to cope. She wished death on us all. And was unable to admit that he was dying as he literally lay there dying. When I tried to get her to understand what was actually about to happen, she called for hospital security to remove me from his room. When he died she would have willingly traded one of us kids to go in his place if God would let her have her beloved husband back. We jokingly referred to it as The Monkey's Paw moment. There was a lot of dark humor that saw us through that time. What broke my heart the most was not that my poor father had finally succumbed to the cancer that had ravaged his body. It was the heartbreak of my mother wanting to exchange my life for his, telling me that she didn't care if I lived or died at the moment. Her ugly words and insane ranting hurt me deeply, even though I knew she was grieving and in mourning, but so was I. So were we all, my brother and sisters. How do you repair that kind of a broken heart?

I've posted about my sisters death before, how it fractured the family and turned us into two warring factions; those that wanted her life support system turned off and those that wanted her plugged in for the rest of her life dependant on those machines for breathing and feeding.
The heartbreaking part for me was losing the sister that I confided in. She was my secret keeper.
I never got to say good bye to her. Her illness progressed so rapidly that one day she was talking and the next she was in a coma. I miss talking to her. I miss having someone to confide in. I miss her.

I knew it was time a week before I made the decision to put down my dog.
He'd become incontinent. He rarely ate. He stayed hidden in his little dog bed, curled under a blanket.
It wasn't until afterwards that I found he'd been vomiting quite frequently underneath that blanket.
I never heard him throw up. Not once. Not until the morning I called the Vet.
They gave him a sedative the minute we got into that exam room. We all knew it was his time.
I held him as he got drowsy. I put my nose to his, he licked the tip of my nose and closed his eyes.
I whispered in his ear "Mom loves her boy" and it was done.

Truth?? I didn't cry while typing any of these stories until I got to the one about my dog.
It still breaks my heart that he was so ill at the end. I miss him so much that even thinking about his last little kiss to my nose can make me cry. I miss how he used to spoon with me during naps. I miss watching him eat his kibble and wagging his tail the whole time...just so happy to be eating.
Losing him made me feel like I never wanted another dog. I feel like the pain of losing another animal outweighs the joy they give. We do have my husbands dog, a Chihuahua name Kena, and I love her like crazy, but she is  his dog.
And we all know it. He knows it. I know it. Kena knows it.
So for now, I love her and feed her and clean up after her and she is my dog,
but mostly she's not.
I'm too heartbroken to get another dog just yet. Maybe never again.

I could probably go on and on about heartbreak. It feels like I just scratched the surface of this subject. That is telling, isn't it??
Maybe my next book should be The Grief Club by Melody Beattie.

Thanks for reading,
Love, Lolly




1 comment:

  1. Thank you for sharing your heart, Lolly. I see the long-term grief my daughter is experiencing after losing her little girl, and I can't imagine how you felt. I'm so sorry you had to go through that. And isn't it a testament to God's faithfulness that He walks us through all the things we really think are going to kill us? I'm so grateful He's real.

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