Fading Hope, Finding Forgiveness

My hope that Girly will come back has dimmed more and more each day. I feel like I am both an observer and a participant in all the emotions, experiences, and reactions that come with a loss. The sorrow is just the anteroom to so much more -- I retreat into the dark chambers of guilt, responsibility, failure. I reflect on the irony that I wrote about unaccompanied suffering -- and that is most likely exactly what happened to that sweet cat I rescued all those years ago at a Greyhound station in Santa Maria, California. I try to avoid thinking about it, and the images come unbidden into my mind -- or invited by all those who mention "coyote". Not just a cat and not just sorrow -- a plunge into all that loss represents and all that a sudden, traumatic event reminds us about the uncertainties and unfairness of life.

There is no easy fix for this -- but I know I will be okay again, and I know I will find some way to give meaning to what has happened. But right now it is just awful -- our repeated searches have yielded nothing. I will take the "missing" signs down tomorrow because their only purpose now is to flash her picture at me when I am not expecting it, and that is hard. I will find a way to forgive myself for not noticing that she had slipped outside eight nights ago, but I am not there yet -- this is clearly going to be a process...

But, life does go on -- even as we wrestle with the existential questions and painful losses. Luckily, the dogs still need walking and training and so on. It is wrong to let what is lost take away the joy associated with what we still have -- and I still have many reasons to be grateful, including my lovely girls.

Zoey


Halo and her daughters, Asia and Zoey


Cadi and Zoey


Asia and Zoey


Asia and Halo


Stay safe.