10 Things to Do if You are Experiencing Grief

Kyle and I had to put down our dog Behr on July 19th.  I know - what a way to start a blog post.  It seems almost too soon to even be writing this, but for me writing is a healing process.  I often have words just running through my head and writing them helps to calm my brain.  I will probably cry while I am writing this, but it's my blog, I’ll cry if I want to.

Grief is such a heavy thing. My goodness.  It literally feels heavy. It’s like something is sitting on your chest and you can’t escape it.  No amount of crying or screaming relieves it - at first anyway - but you still cry and scream and do whatever you can to try to get rid of the heaviness.  I am going to give some tips about grief and hopefully some validation for those of you that might be going through a season of grief, but first, if you don’t mind, I’d like to tell you a little bit about my Behr-man as we liked to call him.  

We adopted Behr from a local shelter.  We had gone to the shelter with our dog Oreo to meet another dog but when we got there we were informed that we couldn’t see that dog because he was displaying aggressive behavior and they were not comfortable adopting him out.  So they showed us 3 dogs in total, one was Behr.  He ended up being the chosen one because Oreo tolerated him, and by that I mean basically ignored him. HAH.

The day we brought Behr home.

The shelter knew nothing about Behr. He had only come to them a very short time before that and they didn’t even know if he knew his basic commands. They estimated he was 8 months to 2 years old.  In any event, we took him home.  This was 2013.  On the ride home he was terrified!! He was hiding on the floor behind my seat. I couldn’t see what was going on so I pulled over to check on him.  It took him a few more car rides before he realized he LOVED sticking his head out the window. 

He was a very anxious dog, however.  We tried to leave him out in the house and he destroyed blinds and other things when we left.  So we had to put him in a crate only to find out that our neighbor, who was working 3rd shift at the time, could hear him barking all day while he was trying to sleep.  So we had to put him and the crate in the basement to muffle the barking.  I would take him for walks and he was so scared he wouldn’t walk by houses with lawn ornaments without me dragging him.  Overtime, his anxiety lessened, he was freed from his crate (although he grew to like it in there) and he walked by houses just fine.  He was still an overall scaredy-dog though.

He was SO energetic.  He did zoomies on steroids.  His best bud and cousin dog Chelsea would just stare at him in wonder as he went round and round and round the yard again.  He would run way out in the back of the house in the woods and would run back when he was called.  While I did do some significant training with him, he was overall just a good boy that wanted to please you!

He loved to give hugs on command - something he learned before he came to us that we discovered accidentally when I threw my hands up in the air one day.

I realized pretty quickly that Behr was a people dog.  He loved everyone.  He especially loved kids.  So Behr and I enrolled in therapy dog training.  He did so good! However, he failed the test twice because he couldn’t walk by another dog without reacting.  Go figure.  That behavior never really changed in him.  But he still loveddd people and so I brought him to visit my nana when she was in the nursing home, and I brought Behr to work many, many times.  My clients loved him.  My staff loved him.  He was just that kind of dog.  He would let you pet him forever, had no problem rolling onto his back for belly rubs and would nudge your hand if you stopped paying attention to him.  He also purred which sometimes freaked people out at first because they thought he was growling.  I mean have you ever heard a dog pur?  Me either.

Over the years, Behr slowed down but he never lost his puppy like energy.  It just came in shorter bursts.  He loved to go canoeing, loved walks and car rides.  He loved being with his people.  He also loved to sleep on the guest bed, something that I never could break him of and just didn’t bother trying.  

Behr’s death came so quick.  We had noticed some odd behavior the Sunday before he died.  We thought he was over heated because we were in a stretch of 90+ degrees and high humidity.  On Tuesday, he didn’t want dinner and was just laying around.  I knew something was wrong but didn’t know what.  I laid on his bed with him and cried.  I told him it was okay to go.  That Friday, the day he died, everything seemed fine.  He was laying out in the yard with me while I relaxed in the hammock.  It wasn’t until just about dinner time that shit went sideways.  He started collapsing.  It was also like he was having a seizure - his limbs would freeze up and he would start sliding and then just hit the ground.  I was able to get a video of it and sent it to the vet right away.  They told me to take him to the ER and don’t wait.  So to the ER we went. I had to lift him in and out of the car, I was barely holding it together if you can even call it that.  To keep it short, they found a tumor, likely cancer although they couldn’t confirm, attached to his spleen.  It was causing him to bleed internally, likely leading to low blood pressure and/or heart arrhythmias. I wanted so badly to just take him home for the night so he could say goodbye to his brothers and the rest of the family.  But the vet wasn’t even sure he would make it through the night and I knew that was just me being selfish and wanting more time.  Kyle and I loved him so much.  The good news is we were able to bring our other two boys into the vet to say goodbye.  While Felix seemed kind of oblivious that anything was wrong, Jake seemed to know.  As the vet was administering the final dose of medication to put Behr to rest, Jake rested his head right on Behr. 

I just wanted more time.  And I think that is normal in any death situation.  Even if you know it’s coming there is never enough time.  I think it’s normal to question anything.  On the Sunday when we first noticed something wrong, we called the emergency vet and almost brought him in and decided to wait the night and see how he was in the morning since he seemed to be improving.  What would have happened if we had brought him in?  Would we have been able to save him?  Would he have died sooner?  The fact remains the same - what happened, happened.  This is our new reality ready or not. You know that old saying “hindsight is 20/20” well, that's not always true.  Sometimes it just sucks.

Our last hike and camping trip together at the end of June. 

While I am still very much in throws of grief, this is not my first rodeo with losing a pet or a loved one.  The information I am sharing below is both from experience and recommendations from Dr. John Deloney.

Grief doesn’t just happen with death in the physical form.  Grief can also happen with the death of a dream, the death of the picture of life the way you thought it would be or death of a relationship.  There are many ways that grief shows up and it is important to honor that feeling. 

1. Grief comes in many different forms.  No one person is going to experience grief the same way so if you are going through it with another person, have grace for each other and know that you each are doing the best you can. 
2. Honor your feelings.  Allow the feelings to come.  Crying doesn’t make you weak! And as a matter of fact when you cry you are moving those emotions through you quicker.  When you try to shove it down you carry that weight in your chest even longer and it negatively affects the way you can show up for your life. If you are feeling angry - hit a punching bag or pillow.  Let your emotions flow through you in a safe manner. 
3. You have to do normal life things to keep yourself healthy and alive - eat, sleep and get out of the house.  Try to move your body.
4. Journal to better allow your thoughts and feelings to process and come out.  For me, writing allows my thoughts to come out.  If you read any of my blog posts, you know I talk about journaling a lot.  Sometimes thoughts just live in our head and they go round and round and round but when we put words to paper it allows us to move through it instead of staying in vicious circles.
5. On that note, get counseling.  Even though your friends will be vitally helpful through the process, even they can burn out from your grief.  A counselor trained in helping people through grief can be so instrumental.  David Kessler, an expert on grief says “grief demands a witness.”  You need to say things out loud.  The Monday after Behr passed Kyle and I were talking at dinner and saying the things that we felt - and crying - a lot.  Even if what we said was not “rational” it was how we felt and it was so important to say those things. It is so important to say those questions I talked about earlier out loud.  Even if it doesn’t change the reality, it does get it out of your head which is so important for moving through grief. 
6. Don’t make any rash decisions when the grief is new. You might want to sell all your belongings, move to a new town, buy everything you can get your hands on, quit your job and the list goes on.  You will certainly have all sorts of thoughts in your head.  Do your best to seek counsel and wait to make any decisions other than what is immediately necessary.
7. Understand it's okay to experience joy in the midst of grief.  Laughing when you think you should be sad isn’t a sin.  Feeling joyful when you think you should be sad isn’t a bad thing.  You can be sad to have lost someone or something, and also experience moments of happiness and joy.  You can be grateful for your life and still torn up about the loss you have experienced.  Both feelings can exist and neither one makes you a bad person.
8. If you feel relief, that is human and also doesn’t make you a bad person.  Especially for people in a caretaker role for the lost loved one.  This makes you so normal.  I would be lying if I told you I didn’t have tiny bits of relief that I only have two dogs now and not three.  I would do anything to have Behr back and I wouldn’t blink twice to have three dogs again if he were here, but I still feel bits of relief from time to time.  It’s a normal human feeling.  Relief and grief can also exist simultaneously.  It’s just the way it is and you don’t need to beat yourself up for any of the feelings that come up for you.  Honor them. 
9. Sometimes there are lessons in grief.  I have heard so many stories of people doing amazing things after they experience loss.  Mom’s who lose their children then dive head first into the cause that took their child’s life - think Mom’s against drunk driving (MADD). Or one I learned about recently a daughter who lost her mom and the daughter was a doctor!  She started doing her own research and is now one of the top voices in holistic health care and specifically, blood sugar balance.  These stories happen over and over and over.  This may or may not happen for you - and you don’t need to feel bad either way.  But a lot of times in our grief, come glimpses of ways we can do better.  It might not be a full blown non-profit organization for a cause, it might just be you changing something small in your life.  For me, I had a clear message hit me the night I lost Behr and that was I need to look into the dog’s food and see what I can do to give my dogs a better and longer life.  
10. Reminisce on the good times!  Kyle and I spent hours just sending each other old photos and videos of Behr.  It made us laugh, smile and cry. It really helped.  Especially if you have seen your loved one in a place that was not the way you remembered them the most fondly, or if this was a traumatic event, this is an important piece.  If someone you love has Alzheimers, it is not the same person you used to know.  The night we put Behr down, was not the Behr we knew and loved.  When my meme died, I went to see her in the hospital and sometimes I wish I hadn’t.  She was not my meme, she wasn’t even able to speak or recognize anyone in the room.  Remembering my meme for the feisty lady she was and sharing those stories made the world of difference.  Every time you have a memory of the traumatic last moments pop into your head, replace that thought with a beautiful memory.

There is so much more that could be said about grief.  My hope is that this serves as a starting point for you if you need it.  Reach out for help, make sure you have someone to talk to.  Take good care of yourself.

RIP Behr <3