Its funny, and very sad, how we humans hear only what we
want to hear, what works for us, and what will justify our decision making.
I have spent the greater part of my adult life making a good
deal of my decisions based on the availability of money. Yesterday when I called the humane
society, and my vet, to find out how much it would cost to euthanize my eldest
dog, I distinctly heard the Humane society say that at one of their facilities
I could be with my old companion, as she was forced to walk toward the decision
that I had made for her, and since the price was a third of what my vet would
charge…I took my old girl across town to the Society for Humaneness.
When I arrived and the paperwork had been filled out, the
assessment accomplished, and the money exchanged hands…I was told that I could
not accompany my old friend to her last intake of breath.
I was stunned by the news, hadn’t I heard the woman on the
phone tell me that I had to take her to the Sunnyslope location if I wanted to
be with her? Hadn’t I promised her
that I would not leave her side?
Hadn’t I willed myself to do the hard thing and not turn away from my
decision and its consequences?
It seemed to late to turn back once I heard that I had heard
what I wanted to hear, and not what was truly available.
And so, I had to leave her with strangers in a strange
place…the only place that has ever frightened her, to walk that lonely mile by
herself. Yes the vet tech tried to
say all the right things assuring me that she would do it quickly, mercifully,
and that she would be Mocha’s “new friend”…and thus my old girl would not be
alone. But the vet tech, despite
her desire to be kind, gave me no comfort with her platitudes and assurances,
and talk of dogs going to heaven.
It seems to me, that there is perhaps a hand full of people
alive on the planet, at any given moment, who can do the hard thing and leave
you alone to feel what you are feeling, while standing firmly by your side, and
NOT attempting to fix you out of your experience.
Life is hard. Decisions are hard, particularly when those decisions take
the life of another being.
But I find no value and no comfort in folks attempting to fix me, primarily
because they themselves are uncomfortable with what I am feeling or expressing,
and wish me to stop expressing it…merely because they cannot meet me where I am
at, and would rather I be somewhere less scary.
True help would have come in the form of someone capable of
standing still inside themselves, as they witnessed my shock and grief, and helping
me to uncover, by virtue of empathetic and accurate questioning, the sense of
having betrayed of my old friend, as I was leaving her alone with strangers to
meet the fate she had no hand in deciding.
Never avoid. Do
the hard thing…first, fast, and thoroughly. On the long road to recovery from fear, that it has been my
great blessing and horrible load to undertake, that could well be my motto…Do-The-Hard-Thing.
In a culture that has gone entirely soft with its praise,
approval, applause and “lightness” it seems there is no one left who can do the
“hard thing”. I have spent a
lifetime teaching myself how to do the hard thing…in fact, as I look back over
my life, it could well be the one redeeming fact of my life.
Somehow I missed a crucial piece of information that allowed
me to do the soft thing, the avoidance dance, and to find myself in the turning
away position, which my old friend had to pay the price for.
And in this way…I have sinned against her…and it may take me
some time to recover from having let her down in this way.
I miss her…
Adayre R. Miller
4/16/13
