Grief

This thing, grief. Sitting on my chest, suffocating me. This thing, obscuring my vision so I can't see. This thing. This heavy, heartbreaking thing. 

I miss my puppy so much right now, it's like my heart can't fit inside my chest. It's like my body can't contain the immense sadness I feel for the loss of him. His sweet face. Those scared eyes. Those ears.

All my puppy ever wanted to be happy was to be touched. I see him all around my house, snoozing against the armrest of the couch, standing in the kitchen waiting for morsels. I hear his feet clicking on the floor. And I miss him so fucking much.

We hadn't seen him since November of 2024 because I was so scared to see him. And I know it sounds ridiculous, but I feel like the divorce was so hard on him. We tore his family apart and he was the only one who didn't know why, who didn't and couldn't understand. I hated that. Maybe I projected that melancholy onto him, but I couldn't stand it. I loved him so damn much.

Rascal was the sweetest. He wasn't the bravest or biggest, but he was the sweetest. You knew he loved you. You just knew it. 

This grief, there's no running and no hiding. It comes and it visits and it says what it has to say. Memories of my puppy haunt this home and I wish so hard for the days when he lived here full-time with all of us if only because it meant he was still with us and still happy. I want him alive and here so badly it hurts.

I can get sucked down. It's not hard. I can easily get sucked down into pure despair, wishing wishing wishing. It feels like remembering and it feels like mourning, but it also feels like something worse. Something sinister. It feels neverending and forever. It feels like swallowing a barbed metal ball that only gets bigger as it goes down, taking up all the space if I allow it. It feels like I'll never be happy again.

What makes it worse is that I also weep for the hole left in my kids' lives, and oddly, in Charlie's life. He had Rascal full-time for the last few years. He had more time with him. I never ever worried not one tiny second about Rascal's well being with Charlie because I knew like I know anything that Charlie would never let anything bad befall our puppy. I knew it. And I gotta suspect that whatever torment I am in right now, Charlie is feeling it, too, and likely far more keenly.

There is a hole inside of me right now. It feels like a black hole folding in upon itself and at some point I worry that it will swallow me whole. And I can't escape it. As much as I want to escape it, run from it, push it away, I know that I can't. My sweet puppy is gone from this world and my heart rages with sadness. 

But I have felt this tearing apart before. I have felt this fear and confusion and despair. I miss my puppy so much, and I am beside myself with grief. It hurts so much to miss him. It hurts so much knowing I won't see his sweet face again.

I am in the thick of it. I will be okay, but for now, I'm in the middle of mourning the loss of my love love.

Rascal

Rascal was the best puppy I could have asked for.

Once, he ate two whole avocados in one day. We came home and he'd eaten one, so I closed up the bag but left them on the floor. When we came back home a second time, he'd managed to open the bag and eat a whole other avocado.

He was a chihuahua mix so he was pretty anxious, which I think is pretty fitting for our family. He hated when you stood in a doorway (I always joked he hated liminal characters) or opened an umbrella. He hated skateboards and big trucks. He hated when we waved our hands in the air or whacked each other's butts. And by hate, I mean of course that he barked.

 

 

He loved squeezing between you and anything else even if he didn't fit. All you'd have to say is "mum mum" and he went running toward the kibble. Grab your keys and he's already waiting by the door. He'd be so fucking excited to get into the car--he'd race to it! pull on the leash!-- and then spend the whole time whining to get out or trying to climb into the driver's lap. 

His walks would take forever because he just had to sniff every goddamn thing. And he'd growl at all the dogs we passed and then randomly like a few, and you'd never know when it was going to happen. He hated having his paws wiped clean after a walk.

I bought him a CD player/radio for when he stayed home alone. I don't actually know if it helped, but it made me feel better because he was so anxious. We tried playing YouTube, but he didn't like seeing animals on TV either, so that was out. And he'd mostly pee and poop on the puppy pads, but he always had that guilty face. That sweet puppy guilty face with the big eyes.

Most nights for years, he slept with Lucy. I didn't allow him on my bed because I didn't want the fur in my face. When we bought a chair to go next to my bed, Rascal would alternate between Lucy's bed and my room. He was kolohe sometimes and try 

to step onto my bed. I think I loved him more because he was such a rascal.

 Rascal loved cheese and blueberries and poi. And chicken. And french fries. He loved sitting in the sun. He fell asleep in awkward positions and frequently looked like he was about to fall off the couch.

When we first got him, he didn't play. He wouldn't play. We wondered at that. And then he loved playing with the tennis ball, but we had to stop that because it wasn't long before he'd start coughing/gagging on the tennis ball fuzz. So we got him a fuzz-less ball that he loved. It was red. He didn't at all care for the larger green ball so who knows where that went. That ball was the only thing he'd play with, and we tried lots of toys.

Lucy made for him a couple of what I like to call diaper shirts. Diaper shirts because that's what they looked like-- the kine made for babies with the two snaps in the front. 

 

I called him love love. I called him Dog. "I just took you outside, Dog!" or "Oh my god, Dog, let's go!"

We adopted him from the Humane Society on June 20, 2019. He was 4 years old, his birthday November 6, 2014, and weighed a whopping 15 pounds. Lucy and I were checking out this other dog, and Charlie already liked Rascal. Unsure, we went home without a pet and then decided overnight that we had to have Rascal. Lucy and I rushed over to the Humane Society long before they opened so we could be sure to nab our puppy before anyone else could even look at him. We succeeded. He became ours and we became his.

Rascal was such a well behaved and well trained puppy, and any bad habits he learned from us. 

 When Charlie and I split, Rascal went to live with him. The kids and I wanted so badly to keep him with us, but with the kids now adults and working, the house was empty for long hours. Plus, we knew Charlie needed him more than we did, and Rascal loved Charlie. We used to see Rascal regularly, but then it would break my heart to see him so confused, so I stopped asking for him.

I'm writing this now because I am so utterly heartbroken. I had hoped that keeping apart from him would make this day hurt less, but it doesn't, and I wish I could have felt his sweet puppy body under my hand one more time. He brought so much joy into our lives and so much comfort. We didn't have him when I had my hysterectomy, but he kept me company after my gallbladder surgery, and he was there after Charlie's bout with cancer, too.

I have so many stories about our puppy, and so many memories, none of which are bad. He was the best. I'm so sad he's gone, my fatty mcfatty. My love love.