Beautiful Ruins

I am staring at the most beautiful sunset I've seen all summer; one would think that they are all the same, as gravity has it, but in detail if you gaze deep into it's colors and the symmetry, you'll see. As I stare, I think about the purpose, the reason why I've connected so deeply, the reason why I've lost two of my heart's biggest pieces and still, I keep searching for the why's instead of focusing on the now.

I write about my dad more than I talk about him, he was my hero in real time, loosing him was excruciating, pain that led me into full on despair, pain that I am constantly trying to water down, because the truth is, I will never get over him not answering the phone I still have in my contacts as daddy, I will never get over the way his eyes shined as we played dominoes outside; to some "It's been almost 3 years" to me, it's been 1,021 days.

Twinkle, she was a jack russel mixed chihuahua, vanilla colored, with eyes that twinkled when she smiled, no coincidence on the name, she was the most beautiful dog, I've laid eyes on. She bite me from my nose to my upper lip, and had me in a hospital ER answering questions like "did someone do this to you?" smiling with pain at comments like " Many women survive domestic violence" I was not smiling because the comment was funny, I was smiling because never in a million years with my history did I think that a dog would have me in that predicament.

It's not a new find that I bottle my emotions; I dealt with his departure in silence, agonizing silence and I dealt with hers the same.

In the midst of being on top of the mountains last year, I agreed with the boys to get a dog, and though in my heart I knew that no pet would ever get as close as she did to my heart, I failed when I met Lea: Lea, a 6 year old beagle, stole my senses when out of all the dogs barking for attention, she was at the back of the canal shaking uncontrollably, she was said to be aggressive , which I immediately dismissed, because she looked like I looked as a little girl in a corner praying for my mom to survive another beating.

Lea, came with precautions, she came with the inability to trust, to love or even allow presence without trying to intimidate, she reminds me so much of the girl I was growing up, and throughout this year, she've taught me massive lessons, the last one was at the vet's office's line.

As 4 of us waited, we started connecting through the purpose of our visits, and as 4 multiplied to 8 and 14, we bonded over our pets. First in line was a young girl with her cat, a white furry little thing that, I could tell in her young kitten years was a gorgeous one; the young girl cried as she recounted why Ms. Furry (the cat) hanged off her arms. We all knew the end result before the tech came out with Ms. Furry, as she broke down on the floor the silence grew as we all tried to comfort a total stranger.

It was like an electric wave, it moved me, but I held it together; by the time Lea got called, a few of us had gotten into a small circle, talking and waiting for our turn; a mom of a 15 year old pitbull, that laid on the floor next to her, eyeing all of us as she spoke so sweetly about him, in his eyes, you could've seen the joy he lived, the love he gave and as mom recounted stories of how he was the funniest dog, she went to pet his stomach; that's when her smiled turned to a rainstorm, and as we all stood up and realized that Mr. Funny (the dog) was no longer with us in this world, she cried her way into bending over hugging her own stomach which led her body to be supported on a tree.

My heart shook, and my legs gave out, making my body sit back down, all I could do is think of the day we had to make the decision to put Twinkle to sleep after she endured so much pain. All I could feel on my arms was her body as it harden, all I could see was the memory of how the twinkle in her eyes turned off; a distant voice called my name and I saw Lea eager to make her way to me, I looked at Mr Funny as I got up saying my condolences to the grieving parents. Feeling like there was a volcano in my chest.

Turns out Lea had dislocated a joint, but it was already healing itself, the exact words of the technician " she was not the purpose you came in today " wrapped in what was happening a few inches from me, I thanked him, said my final goodbyes and walked to my car; as soon as I closed my door and secured Lea in the back, the volcano erupted and it took me more than a few minutes to recompose myself enough to drive.

I held my tummy as I felt the exhaustion running through my body, you know when you cry hard? you know when your head starts pounding because of how hard you are crying? I said "I am sorry" a million times, because like most of my pain, I threw her memory in the back burner as if replacing her years later was going to erase it.

I remembered a saying my mentor said to me through months of therapy after the pain of loosing dad was no longer able to stay bottled;

"Healing is like an onion"

I called this one "half time" because I was in the middle of doing a crakra cleanse, for the past few weeks I've been working on different traumas base on each chakra: to say this was unexpected, it's an understatement. As I enter a new season in my life, I am happy I took the time to acknowledge the pain of loosing her, I am happy that I got a second chance at grieving someone who showed me unconditional love for years, someone who knew that we needed love and she gave us just that.

My dad and Twinkle were my first responders at love, Twinkle came as a gift, part of something beautiful, my dad was the anchor that kept me alive through the darkest cycles; Lea is a beautiful reminder of what love could do to heal; I don't think pain knows time, I don't think that grieving understands closure, I do think that the purpose of icebergs in our lives are to carry us through the channels of the different layers of who we are at core, and yea the Titanic sank but the trail of light that it left behind became an extraordinary love story.

XOXO

Lucy