I am avoiding sitting down to write. Unusual and usual for me. I see I have not been here, at this blog, since last October. It is now August. 

The words that normally spill off my tongue, especially in times of great pain, are backing up, crouching, and shimmying down the drainpipe of my throat. Laying low in the caverns of my gut. Contorting their fat bodies into the smallest places of my bones. My muscles wrench me into myself; they pull into a centrifugal storm and bid me to stay still. Speak no more. I am bartered into compliance: to accept the shrinking is to have the closeness of dissolve. And numbness is something to savor. The pain of love is so unimaginable.

I don't know what happened. Please don't ask me how she died. I can't even utter the syllables of her sweet name without a deluge of grief. I cannot retell the loss.

I look for her everywhere. she is in the grass and wind, the mile of road we walked daily, up and back, past the gauntlet of rushing dogs. all tails wagging but still a jolt of adrenalin and pull and gentling every time we did it. She loved it. And, when the dogs (and their people) moved out a week or so ago, she would still whine for them, plant her feet into the ground and look at me: "mama, I want to go see." so, with the house and yard empty, we would go see. She finally got to smell the yard, walk the edges of the fence, have a look around, open the mystery box. It made her happy.

Luna cries. no, more accurately said: Luna is wailing with grief. I comfort her as I can. We are all so deep in this pain. We took her on a walk today. Put a leash on her and then I nestled her in a large handbag. She settled in, poked her head out, took in the wind, smelled the neighborhood. When she curled down into the bottom of the bag, I headed back home. That was enough. We didn't walk the usual route. I can't yet. I just can't.

I sit at my altar, morning and night, as I have done for many, many years, without fail. In the last few days, I've lost my prayers. I am mute. So I sit with a lighted candle and I flood with tears. I wail with grief. She usually sat next to me. She never missed it. I could be doing prayers very late at night, after she'd tucked herself into sleep (she'd get sleepy by around 11pm or 12 am), and she'd still rouse herself to join me. She'd curl up to my left, let me rest a hand on her back or bum bum and I'd pray. Luna would join at times, too, tucked onto the crease of my right hip. Nothing made me happier than these settled moments of presence. Now, it is impossible to settle with gaping vacancy surrounding me. I consider that my tears are prayer enough right now. It is all I can muster.

I am grateful. I had 13 years with the most amazing dog in the world. There is never enough time. There would never be a time when I would be ready to say goodbye. It was the most painful moment of my life. I spooned her, she laying on a blanket on the floor, me on the floor itself, my face pressed deep into the thick of her neck, smelling her, taking her and trying to breathe her spirit into me. There was never going to be a time when I would be ready. She was growing weaker. It was the choice point of doing a huge intervention that would likely only forestall another huge intervention that would statistically only lead to losing her on the surgical table, without me holding her, without me whispering love, without her mama and papa loving her through. It is an impossible choice to make. It is an impossible choice to make when my heart has already been torn to pieces, I am afraid, I am desparate, I am in pain. How on earth do I trust my instinct? How do I trust the small place that knows the right answer, the answer that holds wisdom, not fear or agenda? It is all faith at some point. And when faith is thin, my body is wrestling with fight, flight, freeze, collapse....bargaining, denial, anger, confusion, pain, anxiety, fear....my God, it feels like a stab in the dark. This most important life or death decision; the one that will take my precious Beloved from this world or leave her here with a hope for a miracle or a terrible gamble that will prolong and inflict more pain and suffering and terror...how does one make that decision?

There was not enough time. 

Three weeks before she went to the vet and it was determined that she had gas. Even xrays were taken. nothing remarkable was found. Gas.

Two weeks ago she had a major dental surgery. I panicked throughout the entire day. Twelve hours (four in surgery). but, she made it through. She had a good recovery. She seemed bright and vitalized as the days unfolded. 

The day before we rushed her to the emergency vet again, she had a follow up check with the vet. She was bright and vitalized. Dr. Paul was hopeful. She was doing great. Nothing to worry about. 

The next day, Saturday, she was bright in the morning. We went on our morning walk, she ate her breakfast heartily. By noon, she was off. By the afternoon, she wouldn't eat. By midnight, we were at the emergency vet in Flat Rock. I thought it was gas. The vet was grim when she came back with the xrays. A mass had been found. A big one. And it had ruptured. I reeled. I fell to the floor, nearly passing out. I flooded with panic. I couldn't breathe. Because of COVID precautions, Robert could not come in. I wanted to die right there. I don't know the details of what followed but, at some point, Robert was allowed in the room and we had a choice: euthanize or go to Greenville's Upstate Emergency Vet where the specialists are. We drove the hour to Greenville and were seen right away. The outlook didn't improve. She had to have an ultrasound in the morning. We attempted to sleep in our car. It was 4 am. There was an hour or so of trying to get a hotel, which we did, we went to the room, opened the door, someone was clearly in it, the tv on, bed pulled down, food on the nightstand. We went back to our car. the hotel was full. it was the twilight zone. It was like we were being fucked with on every possible level. Grace seemed to abandon us. I did not feel held. I felt ripped apart. Robert was ripped apart. I threw up out the car door on the wild ride from the hotel back to the vet. Robert hit the median. We were all over the place. I couldn't sleep.

I have to take a break. Writing this is killing me all over again.