When Loss Encases A Beauty Too Precious To Ignore

My son and husband will be digging a grave this morning.

I never thought I’d say that. I never imagined something so temporary could leave us, so quickly.

In an instant. Without bells or notice.

And why is it, in just seconds, our world can change, and the thing taken for granted, is the very thing…our hearts long for most? 

The quietest among us, ringing loudest in our hearts. The least threatening, gonging like a banging instrument in the chambers of your soul.

I knew something was wrong.

My husband took our youngest to basketball. The house, quiet. The earth we live on, still hard, covered in snow.

Like grace calling us and teaching us lessons we didn’t want to know…

Everything is free, all life, a gift. Nothing ours for keeping, or earned. Who of us able to harness it? Not the riches or even the wisest among us.

Our boxer and golden retriever, my watch dogs, got agitated.

I let them out, hesitant to open the door, from where the fire burned bright, forcing the breezy, icy air to rush into, my safe existence.

But love doesn’t shelter. Love opens doors, encourages others to live their dreams, do what they were born for…

Even when we might not like it.

The wind slaps my face. Eye’s squint as both canine’s race out into the darkness, chasing the sounds their sensitive ears picked up in the distance.

Instincts vs. Resistance

I saw a coyote a few days ago. He was big, prancing around the chicken coop. I felt helpless as I prayed for the chickens and stayed inside…

Hoping instinct didn’t win, this time.

It didn’t.

Yet, despite my thoughts, the ravenous nature of killing and eating wasn’t mean, or harsh, or some personal vended a.

This call of life, this fight for existence is natural, God-given. Something innate in us from birth to keep us fulling living and alive.

Yet, have we lost that rise-up-and-care-for instinct, as humans? That desire to do anything to care for our families? That willingness to risk life or death, run out into the dark to care for and protect danger coming towards us?

Have we become zombies playing games, watching t.v. numb from the flashing screen in front of us…that we somehow….forget to live?

Forget to realize there is other real people beside us, begging for us to invest in them, 100%?

Numb or Feeling?

I feel numb as I sit here. We stayed up until midnight, crying by the fire, our family hugging and remembering. Our little one had never lost anything. And for a child whose first mother couldn’t care for her, loss is never easy.

It’s quiet this morning. I come downstairs in the dark of the morning. The rug by our front door, empty.

No dancing, prancing, smiling friend that usually greets me. No warm skin, or thick fur to put my fingers through. No, looking into her face, and telling her, “I love you” like I quietly do….Nobody knowing, or seeing. Just her and me.

I knew something was wrong when I let them out last night.

8:15 p.m., the sky black. Something felt like a five-hundred pound weight sitting loudly on my chest.

I text my husband, “Our dog is gone. I haven’t seen her in an hour. I called both dogs, but only one came back.”

And like a mother hen, we know when something is wrong. Yet, why we can let logic win over instincts, we can silence that voice with noise or business…

That voice that’s really God inside us. Nudging us toward’s truth, continually.

Listen, be still, trust His Spirit inside us. God gives us His nature, His voice, His wisdom…but we must do our part, listen.

She sits in a wheel borrow in our garage this morning. Ice thick, lying tauntingly.

A hit and run.

The person never stopped their car. There was no one near her in her suffering…She passed from this life to the next, earth cold, sky covered in darkness.

Like we all leave it…alone.

And Jesus also, dangled on a cross, everyone betraying Him. Blood spilling, him hanging, still, lifeless. Dying in love just to protect us.

Him also running straight into darkness…

So that we might live.

My husband and son will force the edges of their shovels deep into the frozen ground to find soft soil to bury her today.

I had to see her….

Had to come to her, like a mom who lost a child, like Mary Magdeline who ran fast from the tomb, in disbelief and bewilderment…Knowing the thing she loved most, was now gone…somehow missing.

Because someone had taken him. Someone had taken the one she loved away.

Yet, when life ceases, we have choices. Stop feeling. Live cold, let the ice cover the ground of our hearts, stop breathing, stop living…

Become numb to the reality of death and love, and every thought and ping of pain that makes us human…

Or we can live bold and strong, courageously running into reality despite our pain….

We can taste and feel and know and experience the fullness of what He has given; the good and bad, life and death, and everything in between.

I lived numb, dead, and lifeless in past decades. But this season? This day? I want to feel, not live numb, not deny the pain and reality of living…and loving.

So, I saw her.

There in the wheelbarrow. Pain pricking me, every memory, every story, every picture of her being a gift only He could have given….

Because love is worth the cost. Love is always worth the cost.

Love and Healing

She was nearly twelve years old. They say retrievers only live until eight….age ten, if they are lucky.

We got her as a puppy, out on a farm by running water, amidst a full liter of eight and a mother, named, “Ginger”….

A name I could relate to.

Her Mom was officially, “Ginger Queen of the Icicle”. Her dad was, “Cinnamon Bear King of the Mountain”. So naturally we named her, “Princess Sugar Bear”, in honor of her parents.

Her linage was excellent. Both parents, beautiful. We paid way too much for her. But love doesn’t see price tags, it sees the potential of what one can become.

We took her home, two hours, as she danced in circles at the feet of my two older children, driving over the mountains.

More than a dog. She was the comfort for the dozens of foster children that entered through our doors.

I have always said, fostering is a family affair, just one can’t do it. I was right. And in our case, our dog was the best at offering healing.

Princess Sugar Bear did more than love others. She was a therapy dog, really. Her warm coat, and approachable countenance brought peace, comfort, and healing, to many.

One of our foster daughters came out of a horrific situation. She was older, and suffered greatly. But, Sugar Bear was therapeutic, a place of comfort and security, when she most needed it…

A place where the stories and memories that plagued her could dissipate.

And isn’t true love always a refuge…just like that? 

Yes, Sugar was well loved, by many.

I saw her, that foster daughter, recently. She asked about Sugar Bear before asking about the rest of our family.

Dog’s are just like that. The friend we can trust, tell anything too, and they’ll never tell anyone. They’ll take your secrets to their grave, literally.

Another younger foster child came to us. She cried inconsolably. For hours and hours. Nothing would calm her.

She was just taken from her mother. And who wouldn’t grieve, who wouldn’t wail so that the world could hear her after being pried from a mother’s arms?

Then, she saw Sugar Bear. She calmed, got still, and started to pet her.

Canine’s give and expect nothing in return? As humans, we could learn from them…couldn’t we?

What Dying Teaches Us About Living

My husband and son will cut the earth today, past the ice, into the soft, warm soil to bury our beloved friend.

And yet, love…it’s like that.

It has it’s way of worming past resistance, getting past our cold exteriors, it finds itself deep, into the warm places that are mobile and pliable to the beauty He entails.

And I am better, we are better, by letting love find it’s place in us…For bringing Sugar Bear, or anyone, really, into our home and hearts.

“The greater we grieve, the more we have loved.” I tell my ten-year-old weeping with blankets covering her the night before.

“Don’t be afraid to cry.” We all instruct.

Our families hearts are woven together forever by the same love for a pet that we will never forget, by the changes, and steps, and experiences of loving so many foster kids…

Doing this ministry, like a family.

Yes, love cuts past the surface. The ice. The hard. All of it. I watch the dancing fire, raging strong, without apologies. And I am thankful for His mercies as I wake, even though I walk past an empty carpet where our pet used to greet me each morning.

I hurt. Yes. But the other option? The other road that we can live on….The more tragic, the more devastating road to reside on….Is to never have loved at all.

And life was not meant to be like that. Life was never meant to be lived, cold and sterile…

“Beautiful and painful, highs and lows like mountains and valleys”, I tell my children.

Who ever wants boring ol’ flat plains anyway? A life with no crevasses or peaks, or scenery or beauty?

How could we, how can anyone, live there best life then?

The sky starts waking as I write this. The sun rises like it promises. Red dashes across the horizon, chasing the blue sky above it. And I thank God for this breath He has given me.

Each day, every chance to live, a fresh opportunity to experience, to love….all beauty…simply a gift from Him.

Today, the hard earth will be cut and we will lay our precious Sugar Bear back where she came from, dust to dust.

Yes, I will cry, and yes, my heart will mourn like it does with the leaving of every foster child. Like it does when I see the world not loving, people giving up on living….

The world can be cold, but beauty is lying underneath it. Sometimes, we just must dig to find it.

And we are better because of it…better because we took a shot on love.

It’s the flavor of our souls, the reflection of heaven, the way we are called….

Gripping tight to beauty, regardless of the pain.

“He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” (2 Cor 5:15)

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities nor powers, neither things present nor things to come, neither height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:37-39)