Ep #109: Grief: Losing a Pet

You are listening to the "Overthinker's Guide to Joy," episode 109. This is the one
where we're gonna talk about grief, and more specifically, about losing a pet. Let's
dive in.
This is a podcast for overthinkers, overdoers, and overachievers who are tired of
feeling overanxious and just wanna feel better. I'm your host, certified life coach,
Jackie de Crinis.
Hey there, and welcome back. So today I wanted to take the opportunity to talk
about a subject that's a little bit difficult, but I think it's an important one to
share. And it's something that probably everyone has experienced at one time or
another. And that subject is grief.
I think of grief as a shape -shifting beast and I am no stranger to the feeling.
But I am recording this podcast because grief has recently knocked on my door after
staying away for a good long time. As many of you know who follow me on social
media or read my newsletters, I my constant companion,
and my best furry friend, my dog Blaze. Blaze was a dog that we got when my
eldest daughter went off to college. And I was feeling those first pangs of empty
nesting, even though I still had children at home. My youngest daughter at the time
was just eight years old, and she really wanted a dog. And my husband was not
terribly crazy about the idea of getting an animal. He likes animals, but not really
enough to take care of them. But my youngest daughter was relentless and it was
supposed to be her dog. I'm sure many mothers and fathers have heard this before.
And my husband had a million criteria for the kind of dog we could get. It had to
be small, under 20 pounds, and it had to be Allergenic and non -shedding and he
wanted a purebred and all the things So we did a lot of research and we looked at
a lot of different dogs But because we live in Hawaii we were limited in terms of
like who the breeders are and what you can get because there's all kinds of
Quarantine laws here in Hawaii, but we found a breeder who bred a type of dog
called coton d 'etulière's Which is basically a fancy French name for cotton dog and
they were on the other island so we flew to another island and we looked at their
litters and he was the last dog to be adopted from these two litters.
They had a few left but they were going to keep those and this little tiny white
fluffy dog was about five or six pounds. You could hold him in one hand and he
was about 12 weeks old when we got him and I think only full grown, he was about
10 pounds. So he was the runt of his litter. And his mother had had too many pups
and too short of a time. And she gave up nursing him. So he had to nurse with
another mom from a different litter in the same house. And he was kind of bullied
by the other dogs. And when we got there, he was flat under the sofa, which is
where he would hide when the other dogs were rough housing, because he was kind of
afraid of other dogs, even though some of them were his brothers and sisters and
cousins. And there was something so endearing about him. This little white puff of
cotton, like laying flat under the sofa thinking nobody could see him because if he
couldn't see them, he thought nobody could see him. But his little legs would stick
out in his little tail and he was just darling. And when we came to meet him, he
was super shy, But he was also the cuddliest of all the littermates. And we fell
in love with him and we took him home. I have always had a low level of anxiety.
It's why I wrote the book. The Overthinker's Guide to Joy is why I have this
podcast. It's how I became a life coach. But one of the traits that this particular
breed is known for is companionship. They are extremely Extremely loyal.
They are very loving. They're very good with children. They're very good with elderly
people They're just a really loving dog And so I registered him as an emotional
support dog so I could travel with him back and forth to the mainland and I could
take him in and out of stores and That was the concept behind this dog was that
he would provide me some level of comfort or emotional support And the truth of it
was he actually had more anxiety than I did. So the joke was I was his emotional
support person. He wasn't really much of an emotional support dog, but he was the
most loyal and the most loving. And we just had this great bond. He followed me
absolutely everywhere I went. He had unfortunately terrible separation anxiety.
And so if I was out of his sight, he was often not very happy or was kind of
melancholy. But we were mostly together every day. I mean, from the moment I woke
up until the moment we went to sleep. And the only time that I didn't take him
with me places was generally when I was playing tennis because it's too hot. And
then he had to stay home and he gave me kind of a dirty look when I put on my
tennis shoes. He slept at the foot of my bed when my youngest daughter lived at
home. He slept in her bed and he just was very much oriented towards being with a
human being at all times and We had our routines. I would get up in the morning
and feed him and we would meditate together And then I'd get dressed and we spent
the rest of the day in my home office working at At lunchtime, we would sit in
the dining room, and if it was nice outside, I'd take my lunch on the patio, and
we would sit in the sun for a few minutes before going back to work. But I went
on a trip, a week and a half ago or two weeks ago, to see friends and family and
to promote my book, and I was gone about nine or ten days, and Blaze stayed home
with my husband. But the night before I came home, My husband called me to say he
wasn't eating his dinner, which was highly unusual, and he didn't look good. So we
called a friend of ours who was a vet, and she looked at him on FaceTime and
heard his symptoms and told my husband he had to go to the emergency vet hospital.
And this was Saturday night around six o 'clock. And once he arrived, they said he
was having trouble breathing, and it was clear that what was a no big deal heart
murmur like nine or 10 months ago had suddenly turned into congestive heart failure.
So he was short of breath, his lungs were filled with fluid, his heart was
enlarged, and this must have happened in a matter of days, and we were not aware
of it until the final two hours. So at which point the emergency vet called me,
I was in Arizona with my friend, and it was pretty evident that his heart failure
was catastrophic and that they weren't really offering any other medical treatment to
combat it because it sounded like he was having a lot of trouble and it was
probably too far gone. So there I was, 3 ,000 miles away,
three hours ahead, it's now like almost 11 o 'clock at night for me, and I really
didn't have any medical certainty of what the right decision was to make. I put my
vet on the phone with the emergency vet. And it sounded like the best decision was
to put him to sleep because he was struggling to breathe. And so this was all like
on a conference call. Well, I merged the two vets on the phone together and then I
put it on speaker so my girlfriend could hear what we were doing. And I look over
at her and she's hysterically crying. And I start hysterically crying. And she was
hysterically crying because she knew I loved the dog, but she was also crying
because she knew she had been through almost the identical situation with her beloved
16 year old cat just two months prior. The same story, like a heart murmur and
congestive heart failure. And then he was gone shortly thereafter. Not quite as
rapidly as my dog but pretty close. So I asked the vet and the vet tech to hold
Blaze as they put him to sleep so that he wouldn't feel scared or feel alone. And
I felt so guilty that I wasn't there to say goodbye, that I wasn't there to
comfort him, that I wasn't there to see the signs maybe prior to these final two
hours. But they promised they would and we hung up the phone and they texted me
five minutes or ten minutes later and said he was now at peace and then I called
my kids to tell them what happened and I spoke to my husband again to tell him
the decision and then my childhood best friend and I just sat and hugged and cried
for hours and she finally went to sleep and I couldn't sleep because my eyes were
like swollen shut from crying and my head was pounding like a hangover, which was a
hangover because I was hungover from grief and exhaustion. And then I had to get on
a plane the next morning, which I was always planning to come home. And when I
walked in the house in the afternoon, it was just eerily silent.
There was no pitter -patter of his feet racing to the door. There was no barking.
There was no jumping up and down and forcing me to get on the floors that I'd
play toys with him or he could lick my face. It was just silent.
And I started to walk through the house and I saw his dog toys piled up in the
living room and I started crying all over again. So I went in my bedroom to lay
down, but I saw his dog bed sitting next to my bed and I started crying again and
then I went into my office and there was his other dog bed with a toy on it
right by my desk where he would sit with me eight hours every day and I just
continued to sob and sob until my pounding headache returned from the night before
with a vengeance and quite frankly I don't remember crying that hard or that much
in years. When grief hits you, it can feel like a tidal wave.
And when something so tragic comes out of nowhere, because I had a perfectly healthy
dog when I left, the only thing that was wrong with him was that he was distressed
that I brought my suitcase out and he doesn't like when I travel or leave the
house. But other than that, He was running in the backyard, playing toys,
eating his dog bones, all the things. And here we were a week later and he was
gone due to heart failure. And it was such a gut punch of the first order.
And you know, there's a lot of stories about Blaze. My eldest daughter would often
quip that Blaze was her replacement child because When she went off to college,
I adopted him six weeks later, and then she would refer to him as the favorite
child for the 12 years that I had him. And of course, like any good mother, I do
not have a favorite child. I have three beautiful daughters that I love equally,
so I would simply reply to her, "No, he is not my favorite child, but he is my
favorite boy," since I never had another one. But everyone knew he was such a big
part of my life. He had a big personality for a little tiny dog.
And I personified him, kind of like a cartoon. I gave him a voice and would often
carry on long dialogues between us. He had this derpy little face and was masterful
at looking very sad on cue, particularly if I were to put on my tennis shoes or
grab my car keys and not take him with me. He did not like being alone and he
didn't really like other animals. But he loved people and he especially loved me and
I really loved him. We just had an inexplicable bond. And my kids often joke that
I held together all of my co -dependent tendencies until he came along. I'm proud to
say that I raised three fiercely independent daughters who never had issues like
sleeping at friends' houses or leaving for a month to sleep away camp. They had no
fear of being alone, and they had not a moment of homesickness when they went off
to college. For the record, I was nothing like them growing up. I didn't like
sleepovers or sleep away camp, I hated to be away from my mom when I was little,
and I was extremely homesick when I went off to college. So I am very proud of
the fact that I didn't pass along any of my childhood anxieties or neediness to my
human children. But unfortunately, my poor little blaze was all of those things.
He was needy, he was clingy, he had abandonment issues, He was easily startled and
he had terrible separation anxiety. So we were probably unhealthfully codependent
because I indulged him. I spoiled him. I reassured him constantly and I infantilized
him. But I also figured he'd never grow up, learn to drive a car, go to college
or support himself. So there wasn't really any harm in spoiling him rotten, other
than he probably barked too much, but basically my world revolved around him and he
kinda knew it and took total advantage of that.
But after I got home from my trip and he was no longer there, it was as if all
the life was sucked out of my home. All the colors had faded and I felt like I
was walking through Jell -O. The fact that I had not slept in two days, was jet
lagged, had not eaten much, and was very dehydrated from flying and crying for hours
on end probably made the feeling of walking in Jell -O just that much worse.
I had posted pictures of him and the news of his sudden illness and subsequent
passing on Facebook and Instagram. But what really surprised me was the hundreds of
people who reached out to write their condolences. Within a day or two, I was
positively showered with texts and emails and phone calls. One of my dear friends
brought me flowers and dinner for the night I returned home from Arizona. And I
don't know if I would have eaten otherwise. So that was just the kindest gesture.
And then people called and followed up for days afterwards. I never expected anything
like this and was not prepared for so many people to have been so concerned about
his passing or the loss I was feeling. I really just posted it because people asked
me so often about him, I just wanted to get ahead of all of the questions and to
let people know that something had happened. But I read every single comment,
Every text every email and tried to respond to all of them because it meant so
much to me. I Really never expected that blaze or my love for blaze would impact
so many other people, too
But the thing that really helped me Overcome my grief because so much of my grief
was tied to the feelings of guilt The guilt that I wasn't home when this happened,
the guilt that I wasn't there when he passed, the guilt that I made this decision
to put him to sleep without knowing 100 % sure that that was the right thing to do
because the veterinarians really leave that up to you. And so I wondered if I
overreacted, I wondered if I did it prematurely, I wondered if I should have taken
extraordinary measures save his life so that I could have been home and then taken
him home and then seen how he would have done and That was such a stew of grief
and and I was so knotted up about it And I think that was what was causing this
sort of searing pain in my body was did I do the right thing and So when my two
veterinarian friends called later in the week It was so kind and it was so generous
because it gave me the reassurance that I did make the right decision for him. I
kept him from suffering and at 12 years old, he really did have a good long life
and to extend it for a few more days or a few more months,
but be in pain or be struggling to breathe would have just been unfair to him.
In telling that story, I then had other friends reach out to me with their own
experiences of sudden illnesses of their pets, and many of them having experienced
the exact same medical diagnosis of congestive heart failure after a seemingly
innocuous heart murmur. And once again, that gave me great comfort that I did the
right thing. And from that point, although I miss him so terribly,
at least the guilt and the shame and the fear and the overthinking had been lifted.
That at least it was the right decision. And then I could get on with my grief or
I could allow my grief to turn into solace. Compassion,
that he was now at peace and he was safe and that he wasn't in pain and that he
wasn't struggling.
But this podcast really wasn't supposed to be about the details of my dog passing.
This podcast was supposed to be just about grief and how grief is such a funny
thing because I've lost pets before and I remember feeling this kind of emotional
agony before. But I've also lost pets due to illness or old age, and while that
was sad, it isn't the same gut punch as a dog that's healthy or a cat that's
healthy and suddenly becomes catastrophically sick, or God forbid,
killed by a car or something like that. And that's the thing about grief. It comes
in so many different forms. And losing a beloved pet is just one tiny piece of the
grief pie and it's easy for non - animal lovers to say well it was just a pet but
that's the thing sometimes that pet becomes a family member or your best friend or
your alter ego or your mascot
And although Blaze was not a rescue dog, I have heard many people who do rescue
animals in turn say, "They rescued me." And I felt very much like Blaze rescued me
too. There is no way to quantify grief or why we love our fur babies so much.
It's just a feeling, an inexplicable connection. And while I have found great solace
in these last few days, knowing that I did the right thing to prevent him from
suffering any longer, I still miss his little face staring at me. I miss his
kisses. I miss him during my morning meditations and snuggling in bed in the morning
and taking a nap with me when I need one. But I am so grateful to have had 12
wonderful years. And I have about 300 photos and a few dozen videos and a million
memories of the best furry companion of my life. And I just want to thank you all
for those who reached out to check in and send love. It really made a huge
difference in my healing process. And one of my friends sent the most beautiful
quote that I want to share for all of you if you're grieving. And here it is,
"Grieve not nor speak of me with tears, but laugh and talk about me as though I
were beside you. I loved you so, 'Twas heaven here with you."
So that's what I have for you all today. Because grief is such a big topic and it
can manifest in so many different ways in your life. I've decided to do a short
series on grief and I'm going to talk more about it in a different form, not just
about losing a pet. So stay tuned for that in the next few weeks. I'm going to do
a series of two or three more episodes and I'd love for you to listen. As always,
I look forward to talking to you next time, and I appreciate your support. Bye for
now.
If you would like to learn more about working with me as a coach, you can connect
with me through my website at jackiedecrinis.com.