WAIT... IS THIS GRIEF?

Weekly reflections from Pure Pawsitivity • Week 8

Grief doesn't always look like grief. Sometimes it cries. Sometimes it gets angry. Sometimes it shows up years later. And apparently sometimes it opens a pet store.

Watch the Presentation

[WAIT... IS THIS GRIEF? | Pawsitivity Presentation #8]

This week I'm exploring something I didn't expect to be questioning:

How do I know when I'm grieving?

Not how grief is supposed to look. What it has actually looked like in my life, through people I've lost, animals I've loved, things I wish I'd known, and a nine-pound Chihuahua with absolutely no professional qualifications.

What I Learned This Week

My little sister died this year.

I loved her tremendously. I miss her.

But I've caught myself wondering something that feels strange to admit:

Why don't I feel this more?

That made me question what "more" even means.

How sad am I required to be? How often am I supposed to cry? Is there some amount of suffering that proves how much I loved somebody?

Because if there is, nobody gave me the fucking rubric.

Looking backward, I've realized grief hasn't always announced itself clearly in my life.

When my German Shepherd Shadow died while I was in the military, I didn't grieve her the way I thought I should.

Then Thunder died years later.

I broke.

And suddenly I was grieving Shadow too.

It was almost like grief showed up carrying paperwork:

"Okay, I'm here about Thunder. But while I've got you here, we still have this unresolved Shadow situation..."

I'm learning that grief doesn't necessarily move in a clean line.

Sometimes we're devastated.

Sometimes we're laughing.

Sometimes we're remembering someone we lost.

Sometimes we're trying to figure out why the fucking printer says it has no toner when it clearly has toner.

Life keeps happening.

And having a normal afternoon doesn't mean the loss didn't matter.

But maybe the biggest realization came from looking backward at animals Edan and I cared for before we knew what we know today.

There are things I wish we'd done differently.

And I've realized there's an enormous difference between:

I wish I knew then what I know now.

and

I should have known then what I know now.

The first can teach me.

The second can imprison me.

I can't reasonably expect a previous version of myself to possess information I hadn't learned yet.

But I can let what I've learned change how I care for the animal in front of me today.

The Four Pillars

Perspective

Grief doesn't always look like grief.

I don't need to decide what it should look like before I'm allowed to recognize it.

Awareness

What is this feeling actually connected to?

Sadness can be obvious. Anger, guilt, numbness, urgency, regret, or throwing myself into work might require a little more attention.

Action

Let today's knowledge change today.

"I wish I knew then" can teach me.

"I should have known then" can punish someone who didn't have today's information.

Will

Let the love move forward.

I can't change the relationship that ended.

I can choose what that relationship influences now.

The Animal in Front of Me

Then there's Rosa.

My nine-pound grief counselor.

No degree. No formal training. Terrible professional boundaries.

When I'm genuinely hurting, somehow she knows.

She climbs onto me and starts licking the tears off my face.

She's not fixing anything.

She's just making it extremely difficult to remain dramatically sad while a Chihuahua treats my face like a Himalayan salt lick.

And somehow...

I'm back in the room.

That's something our animals seem incredibly good at.

They don't necessarily make the hard thing disappear.

Sometimes they remind us that the hard thing isn't the only thing here.

There's still them.

There's still dinner.

There's still a walk.

There's still something ridiculous happening.

There's still today.

Weekly Thought

Are you learning from the past, or punishing yourself with what you know now?

I'm not trying to answer that one for anybody.

I'm just carrying it with me this week.

Keep Exploring

I recently read Dr. Chris Blazina's Good Dogs and Difficult People and then had Chris on the Pure Pawsitivity Podcast.

His work has helped me think differently about attachment, loss, and the relationships we actually form with our animals.

We don't grieve categories. We grieve relationships.

If this week's idea connected with you, his work is a worthwhile place to keep exploring.

[LISTEN TO OUR CONVERSATION WITH DR. CHRIS BLAZINA]

[EXPLORE GOOD DOGS AND DIFFICULT PEOPLE] - We get $0 from this.

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If this made you look at your animal a little differently, that's enough.

Pawsitivity in Practice is where we keep sharing what we're learning each week through our animals, the shop, the podcast, the research, and the questions that follow us home.

Pure Pawsitivity™

Learning in public by paying attention to the animal in front of us.