A New Loss

[Harmoni]

It all comes back when you have a new loss.  You hear it's true, but you don't know what it feels like until you go there.  This week, the baby I lost was not human, but I felt her loss as if she were.  Unless you have never lost a baby, it's easy to think pet loss feels somehow the same as child loss.  People who have never experienced child loss will often think they're offering empathy when they say, "My cat/dog/whatever died, so I know what you're talking about."  Pet loss is a painful echo, a faint shadow of child loss ordinarily.  I have lost more cats than I can name here.  I've now said goodbye to a few dogs.  Under most circumstances, I can't make that comparison.  When my four-month-old died, and even when I had my first in a series of late first term miscarriages, they were world-rocking losses that left my heart a bloody hole.  I had no idea what loss was, even after all the pet deaths, until I lost my babies, particularly the one I held.  

Pet loss hurts more when that pet has become a person-in-fur to you, when you have bonded with that pet on such a deep level that the pet becomes part of your soul.  I have lost simple pets.  I have lost furbabies, persons-in-fur.  There is no comparison there, either.  We had a cocker spaniel a few years ago.  He ever remained a simple pet.  I mourned his loss when he was hit on the road, but nothing like the loss we had this week   

A year ago, my girl wanted to give away one of our two dogs, one we had inherited and with which none of us bonded, to get herself a puppy.  We sent that dog to a happy home where she had a sister dog that looked like a twin.  We have no doubt she's happier there than she ever was with us, and they're happier to have her.  We replaced her with a puppy that we all felt was handpicked by my angel Alli, the four-month-old baby I lost.  Harmoni, the puppy, was exactly the age, the size, the everything my girl wanted.  That puppy had silver-gray fur and blue eyes with flecks of brown.  It seemed like she was min pin like my husband liked mixed with a husky that my girl wanted.  She was full of energy and life.  And despite the fact that we bought her to be my girl's puppy, she spent all day as my shadow, my faithful companion, a close friend.  She became a person-in-fur, a furbaby to me.  I loved her more than I thought possible for a dog since I'm a cat person.  

Then, this last week, we installed new sod in the backyard.  My husband didn't realize he hadn't quite latched the fence.  I didn't think to look before I let them out since the backyard had always been so secure in the past.  I heard the dogs bark at the back door and was about to let them in and got distracted.  I hadn't noticed the barking had stopped when the phone rang.  The woman on the other end apologized for hitting my dog, explaining that the tag around Harmoni's neck told her whom to call.  My husband went out and retrieved by furbaby's broken and cooling body from the arms of a neighbor, who had also stopped to comfort my fading Harmoni.  We'd only had her for just under a year, and she was five months old when we got her.  She was still a puppy.  

That's when the flood of loss hit all at once, weighing me down.  It all came back.  All the child loss.  It felt like I wasn't just losing my furbaby, though that would have been hard enough.  I was losing them all, all over again.  If felt like I was being hit by a brick wall, a harpoon through the chest.  

Later in the week, we found and brought home a puppy to help my kids through their mourning.  They seem to be okay for now, though they probably feel it still on a deeper level than we all realize since they loved her, too.  I love the new puppy, but she's not the same nor can she be.  I know it's not like having Harmoni back, not even sort of.  I'm thankful that I know the angel who sent us Harmoni can take care of her and give her the love we can't on the other side of the veil.  I just miss her.  I miss them.  I look forward to the house full of lost pets and babies I'll have when the resurrection comes.  In the meantime, my arms are empty of my babies, and I can't pet my Harmoni.  Days later, I know this pain won't fade in a hurry.  The wound is reopened.  I have peace most of the time, but it still hurts.  And I know, from way too much experience that it's going to hurt for a while, possibly until I see them all again.  But I will live on, and I will continue in my faith and hope in the Lord and know I will see them all again.