It was about
a month after my dad passed away and I returned to work. My boss asked someone
to back his SUV out of the warehouse. I was good at maneuvering even the bigger
trucks around in tight spaces, so I volunteered. I revved up the engine, looked
in the rearview mirror and started to back up…CRUNCH. I was motionless in a
state of unbelief for a few seconds—I just couldn’t grasp what had happened. I
opened the door and got out, staring at the pavement as I made my way around to
the back of the car. I’d misjudged the entrance by a few inches, dented the
fender and smashed the tail light. I stood there blurry-eyed with my shoulders
slumped over and nothing to say.
Earlier that
morning he’d asked me if I was okay after my dad’s passing. I honestly thought
that I was and I said I was fine. Now when he came to see what the damage was,
I sighed, “I guess I’m not so fine after all.”
My dad’s
death affected me in ways I didn’t recognize. I wasn’t quite myself. For the
next several months I had to really pay attention to my driving and I had to make
an extra effort to not let my mind wander off when I was talking to someone. I
wasn’t always successful at it, either. But eventually these side effects disappeared
and once again I was my happy self.
At some time
or other all of us experience loss and I don’t think we can predict exactly how
it will affect us on the inside or how the loss will show up in our attitudes
and actions on the outside.
So I was
surprised when it happened again. It’s been eight years since my dad died. Then
this past November, my sweet little dog Spike died the day after Thanksgiving.
I was the one who had to take him to the vet to put him down. I woke up with a
feeling of urgency at 2 in the morning and knew it was the day. He was having
seizures closer and closer together and having more trouble breathing. I
thought I might have to take him to the emergency hospital but decided to wait
and take him to his regular vet at 7 when it opened.
I didn’t
want to do it, but I knew I had to. He’d been trying to please us and do his
normal cute stuff, but I could tell he was having difficulty.
Taking him
that morning was awful, just awful. I was as brave as I could be. I took his
chubby little self into the vet on the same red leash he had when he first came
to us sixteen years ago. At the time he was in the hands of a nine year old
neighborhood boy and his dirty-faced sister. “Ma’am could you take this dog? We
already have three dogs and my dad won’t let me keep him.” There was just the
slightest hesitation on my part, but then, “Yeah, sure.” My roommate Jane and I
started toward our front door with a wiggly waggly-tailed brown and white King
Charles puppy mix. As we reached the door, I turned back toward the boy and his
sister, “Does he have a name?” The boy straightened up, “Oh Yes. His name is
Spike.”
That memory
was vivid in my mind as I gently held him in my arms on the cold stainless
steel table in the vet’s examining room. I tried to be emotionally strong as
the vet gave him the last drugs. Spike rested his head down into the curve of
my upturned palm and gave me a little kiss. It was as if he was saying thank
you. And he was gone. I held back the tears, but it was horrible, really horrible.
It’s been
six months and I recently acquired a new cute rescue dog. We actually rescued
each other. But I know deep inside I’m still not quite right. Like when my dad
passed away, there’s things that are different. I hold it together pretty well but
I know me—my humor, my joy, my playful razzing—pretty much diluted and
weakened.
However, I
KNOW IT WILL CHANGE, BECAUSE I BELIEVE GOD AND I TRUST IN HIM. I’ve been saying “My youth is renewed like the
eagle’s” from Psalm 103 almost every day and today could be the day I get my
happy whole self back.
In the
meantime, I want to thank all of you for sticking with me. Friends who don’t
give up on you when you’re going through things and acting kind of weird—they
are worth way more than money can buy.
At some time
in all our lives we suffer loss. It makes us a little different, a bit more
vulnerable, a bit weaker for a period of time, but thank God it’s with His help
we can all get through it. I agree with Romans 8: 38-39 “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” And verse 37 “Nay, in
all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”
“But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through
our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 15:57).
With friends
like you and a God like ours we can come out on the other side of loss as more
than conquerors and truly victorious.
Love,
Carolyn
Be sure to
check out my books on Amazon under my name. I have a NEW WINGS sample book with 6 chapters on Commitment. It will be a free download Thursday thru Monday.
Enjoy.
