(Originally Published in Just Out Magazine, August 2012 Issue)

My beloved Pomeranian companion of the past ten years died suddenly a little over two months ago and I have yet to make heads or tails of the whole thing. Truthfully, I’ve been carrying his cremated body around in a tiny tin box ever since, sleeping with him next to me at night, and am so far having a really hard time letting him go.

During the first few weeks after his death I was in a state of sheer panic around his absence. For over a decade, silence in the house meant little dude was up to some sort of mischief or that he was in trouble, so to be suddenly surrounded by this new, impenetrable quiet has been unsettling. I found myself calling for him in the night, looking for him all over the house in the morning, and waiting to hear the pitter-patter of his paws on the hardwood floor as I opened the front door or walked to the kitchen, but he is gone.

As it turns out, I had a great deal of purpose wrapped up in taking care of this tiny creature, and I’m finding that in many ways I was dependent on the love I received from him in return. He was the only consistent thing in my life for the past decade, and without him around everything just feels harder. I have yet to make it through a full day without some sort of tearful breakdown and was unable to control said emotional outbursts at all until very recently. It sounds crazy that an animal could make me lose my mind like this, but he was so much more than a dog to me. For many years he was my child, my family, the only reason I got out of bed in the morning, and the only reason I came home at night…so to call him my “pet” minimizes the depth of our relationship.
A few weeks back while I was talking to a close friend about my inability to let Dutch go, he challenged me that maybe it was feeling too hard to do because I wasn’t actually supposed to be doing it. He suggested that, instead of working so hard to let him go, I should learn to hold onto Dutch in new ways. His body is gone, that much is certain. All that’s left is this box of ashes…which isn’t all that comforting when I stop and think about it.

So, I took his advice. I began to look for Dutch again, minus the feeling of panic those initial searches held after he passed. I started to focus on all the ways he is still here with me instead of mourning all the ways he is not, and suddenly he was Read the rest of this entry »

(Originally Published on The Huffington Post on 5/30/2012)

My beloved teacup Pomeranian friend and longtime companion Dutch passed away this weekend and I wasn’t there for it. Instead, I was hours away in the Oregon desert eating brunch and shopping. It could be argued that he is gone now because I was away, though everyone around me keeps telling me not to go down that road. The truth is, he was old and fragile. This was going to happen someday, and I already knew this. Hell, I wrote about it here months ago… but his passing is still shocking and sudden and seemingly avoidable, which was evidently enough to make me go completely nuts for a minute. I’m coming back down to planet earth now, slowly but surely, but have not managed to stop crying since the news came. I am in a state of pure grief unlike any I have ever met before.

I collapsed into a puddle version of myself when I heard the news. Dutch had endured a series of seizures following an accidental bad reaction to his insulin dosage, and by the time he got to the hospital and they had him stabilized, it was too late. His sweet body just couldn’t handle it. He died in the arms of our friends who were watching him for the weekend, happy and loved, with a smile on his face. My partner and I came back from our vacation and went to say our goodbyes on Sunday afternoon at the hospital. They walked us into a private room and brought him to us wrapped in a blanket. It looked like he was sleeping, but once I had him in my arms it was clear that this was not the case. His skin was cold, his limbs stiff. His eyes were open just enough for me to see that he was not there. I held him close to my chest for what seemed like an eternity, kissed his face and body, and cried from a place inside myself which had not been found before this moment. I told him how sorry I was, how much we loved him, and thanked him for loving me all these years. Aleks held him, too, and we wept together. Our sweet creature, no longer in the room with us, running the show. Read the rest of this entry »