Saturday 30 November 2013

Grief

Grieving is a strange process. Till very recently, I wasn't able to write anything about Ralph because I just didn't have the words. Everything was images and a big ball of memories and emotions that just wouldn't fit into letters and numbers, no matter how hard I tried.

Grief is funny. Some days I am fine and I feel nothing. I am able to go about my day, immune to Ralph's absence, thinking about him without heaviness of feeling. Accepting and living. Other days my mental space is full of Ralph, flooded with memories and ache and loss, and the etetnal ball in my stomach feels sore and raw, leaking tears and longing. There is no warning, no preparation for which times come when. I have to accept that I don't know when I will be 'over it'. When missing my baby will take over from missing my baby. Words fall short.

There is no cure for a hole in your heart and a hole in your life. No matter how many tears I cry, thoughts I conjure and words I say or write, our Ralph is dead. Nothing can bring him back.

All this has got me thinking about how some experiences bind us. Love is one of them. Death is another. I have found that grief is a leveller. Most people have felt it. Most people understand. Most people know what it feels like to have no solution to the black hole and all the things in your life that remind you of it, all the things you just have to learn to live with, until the cup fills up again and time rolls forward.

You grieve in proportion to the degree that you love. And nothing in the world could have made me love Ralph any less. Until a few weeks ago I don't think I had lost someone so close to me. I have lost all my grandparents but I regret to say that I was not that close to them. Not in this way. They were not part of my life like Ralph was. He was part of everything and in everything. Adjusting to life without him feels like starting again.

And I understand grief in a way that I hadn't before now.

Sunday 24 November 2013

Lazarus

When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.

“Where have you laid him?” he asked.

“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.

Jesus wept.

Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.

“Take away the stone,” he said.

“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.

Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”

So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said,“Father, I thank you that you have heard me.  I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”

When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 

The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.

Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

- John 11.32-44

Saturday 23 November 2013

Goodbye Ralph.

This morning we scattered some of Ralph's ashes at a field on a familar walk in Chalfont St Giles that Ralph loved. We wanted to remember, celebrate and say goodbye to our baby Ralph. We wanted the send off to be full of life, just as our Ralph was till the very end.




Words will never express how much Dave and I loved Ralph. He wasn't just a dog but our baby, our family. Our lives aren't the same without him. We miss you, Ralph.
Ralph taught us more than we ever taught him. He wasn't a perfect, obedient dog. He was strong-willed, full of energy, and he knew what he wanted. We loved his sense of fun and mischief. He was amazingly clever and resourceful. He could open doors, find lost treasure, and read our minds sometimes. He was cuddly and sweet at times and independent and introverted at others. He was full of character, full of joy and life. 
Ralph loved everything about life. He loved being outside and especially loved the grass and rubbing himself in it. He loved people and other dogs. Every day was a new adventure for Ralph. It was inspiring, uplifting and humbling for us. Personally, Ralph was full of an unbridled joy and love of life that I so often lacked. Nothing phased him - no dog bites or injuries ever made him flinch. He was an anchor for me sometimes. We were so proud of our Ralph.
We are devastated that Ralph, who was only 2 and loved life so much, is now gone, that his life has been cut short. Ralph was doing what he loved most when tragedy struck, playing with his great friend Mishka, exploring and smelling his way around the world, running free. He was happy till the end. He lived a happy life. 
We feel so blessed for the time we had with Ralph, all the memories and stories and lessons we learned. We were blessed to have had him in our lives. Thank you, Ralph. We love you, we miss you, and we say goodbye to you. We will never forget you, and we will always love you. 
-----
Thank you, God, for our Ralph.
Thank you for the joy he brought us, the lessons he taught us and the time he had with us.
We feel it was far too short, but every day of our adventure with Ralph was such a blessing, and every blessing - every good thing - comes from You.
Thank you for the gift of Ralph, our furry and enthusiastic little friend and companion.
Thank you, God, for our Ralph.
Amen. 
 

Wednesday 6 November 2013

Borrowed words

"Lately, he thought a lot about the story Father had told them the night before the trip to Kabul, the old peasant Baba Ayub and the div. Abdullah would find himself on a spot where Pari had once stood, her absence like a smell pushing up from the earth beneath his feet, and his legs would buckle, and his heart would collapse in on itself, and he would long for a swig of the magic potion the div had given Baba Ayub so he too could forget.

But there was no forgetting. Pari hovered, unbidden, at the edge of Abdullah's vision everywhere he went. She was like the dust that clung to his shirt. She was in the silences that had become so frequent at the house, silences that welled up between their words, sometimes cold and hollow, sometimes pregnant with things that went unsaid, like a cloud filled with rain that never fell. Some nights he dreamed that he was in the desert again, alone, surrounded by the mountains, and in the distance a single tiny glint of light flickering on, off, on, off, like a message.

He opened the tea box. They were all there, Pari's feathers, shed from roosters, ducks, pigeons; the peacock feather too. He tossed the yellow feather into the box. One day, he thought.

Hoped."

- 'And the Mountains Echoed', Khaled Hosseini

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