The Grief is Real

Buddy was a rescue dog. I always thought that meant we saved him, but after he died I realized how he had saved me.

We didn't expect to get a puppy, but it's hard to say no to an adorable puppy held by cute kids saying, "Our dad will send him to the pound if we can't find him a home today." We didn't need another thing to potty train in a house with an 18-month-old baby. We didn't know the puppy would be impossible to train for weeks because he had been taken too young from his mother, a wild dog that would sit under our bedroom window and bark.

I remember telling my friend, Jena, "I can't keep this dog. No one in the house is getting any sleep and I am constantly cleaning up messes. I don't know what's wrong with this dog." She said something borderline prophetic, "He's just young. Stick with it. I have a feeling he will end up being great."

We stuck with it. We named him Buddy because it was easy for our toddler to say. Within a few months, we moved back to Tulsa, Oklahoma to be closer to family, and that puppy quickly grew into the great dog Jena saw in him. We took him on camping trips and vacations, and we included him in our family photos. He was fully part of our family.

Buddy grew up alongside our son, in many ways they were brothers. Buddy was smart and anxious to please. I don't remember training him, but he wouldn't take food from low tables or from our child. He wouldn't cross a threshold without permission or chase cats. He killed mice and vermin, but he didn't harass our chickens. One time in our garden he found a bunny nest and gently brought me the baby bunnies one by one without hurting them at all. He just instinctively knew how to be the best dog for us.

Probably his most irreplaceable role in our family was taking care of me. I've had seizures since I was 13 years old. I can't tell when I'm about to have one and I don't remember anything afterward. Buddy would bark and alert the family when I had a seizure. He would also keep me company during the 6 months that followed a seizure when I was prohibited by law from driving. Tulsa, OK is not a very walkable city and it doesn't have good public transit, so I was basically stuck at home for those six months. With my Buddy dog, I was never alone and I was always comforted.

Buddy was only about 8 years when he collapsed suddenly after playing in the yard with our (now 10-year-old) son. I immediately put him in the car and rushed him to the vet, but by the time we got there, it was too late. Buddy was gone. The vet tried to perform CPR, but I knew I had lost him in the car. I had been talking to him in a happy, excited voice, telling him he was My Buddy, such a good boy, my good, good boy. Even though I had trouble speaking through my tear-choked throat, I was determined that the last thing he heard would be my voice telling him how much I loved him, and not any fear or sadness. I wasn't able to save him, but I was able to give him that final moment of love.

Our whole family was devastated. Our house felt empty. Our schedule wasn't the same. Even my son's prayers were shattered by the loss. For most of his life he had said the same prayer every night at bedtime:

"Dear God, thank you so much for this beautiful day.

Please watch over Mommy and Daddy, Kimbo and Buddy, Stephanie, and Jonathan Houghes.

Help us to be safe and kind and great.

In Jesus' name, Amen."

At bedtime, he started to pray, but when he got to Buddy's name he stumbled and stopped. He looked up at me with tears in his eyes and wailed, "Buddy." I held him while we cried together, and he never prayed that sweet childhood prayer again.

The loss of such a beloved pet who was so much more, took time for my husband and son to recover from, but for me, it was like I was living in a nightmare. I would hear phantom doggy toenails clicking on the hardwood floor or a jingle like his dog tags that made my head turn expectantly. I couldn't sleep, but I didn't want to get out of bed. I scrolled through every picture and video on my phone that had even a hair of my Buddy dog in it. I watched those short video clips over and over, desperate to cling to the feeling of having him here.

Honestly, I clung to the grief because it was the last echo of him. Like picking at a scab to avoid healing; it hurts, it will leave a scar, and it's not healthy, but part of me was afraid when it healed he would be completely gone and I simply couldn't cope with that thought.

As life rushed forward without Buddy, I continued to struggle with my health. I had seizure after seizure leading to months and months when I couldn't legally drive. I was alone, trapped at home for the first time in nearly a decade. Those months became years, and my mental health deteriorated rapidly. I gained weight, I slept all the time, and I made excuses to avoid doing things with and for people. I knew I was depressed, but the effort involved to do anything about it overwhelmed me.

When I finally was seizure free for more than 6 months and I could legally drive again, I didn't. Nothing changed. I didn't have an excuse to stay home and sleep anymore, but I still didn't leave the house. My work began to suffer and for the first time in our relationship, I began lying to my husband, "Oh sure I went into the office today, Babe."

I was becoming irritable and anxious. I was drowning in my depression and it was noticeable to my family. I would break down, yell, swear, and generally behave in unstable ways. Most of my so-called friends had long ago retreated from my life, but I still had my family. So, I confessed to my husband how I had become so lost and desperate. He already knew, of course, but he knew I needed to accept that I needed help.

More than three years after losing Buddy, I started looking for help. Finding real, professional help took nearly a year. I wanted to give up, but instead, I just moved so slowly when hitting roadblocks I simply dragged the process out. I finally started making improvements in February of 2020.

It sounds strange to admit that the Covid pandemic and the lockdowns were the best I had felt in over 4 years. I lost weight, I started singing and gardening again, I cleaned and I cooked and I enjoyed a Zoom book club with my mother and sisters. By late summer of 2020 I had had more seizures and decided I wouldn't drive anymore at all even if I could be seizure-free for years.

I came to a realization during therapy: Buddy had been my buffer. Depression runs in my family and this wasn't even my first personal experience with depression. What were my triggers? Well, stress definitely played a role along with isolation. I had always lived a relatively normal life filled with typical stress, but when I had Buddy I was never completely isolated despite all my health complications.

I had been so heartbroken by the sudden loss of my Buddy dog, that I refused to even consider getting another dog. I knew it wouldn't be fair to the animal because I wasn't really capable of loving another dog. Even the thought of another pet just made me so sad.

Still, I now recognized the therapeutic benefits of having a dog, and my house still felt like it needed a dog. It's such an indefinable feeling, but you know what I mean, like 4th of July without fireworks, Christmas without music, love without hugs; a home without a dog is just...wrong. It's lacking a final piece. I still wasn't ready to get another dog, but I knew I needed a dog in our home.

That's when I realized there was something between "getting a new dog" and "having no dog." Fostering. A foster dog doesn't belong to me, it belongs to the rescue organization. The goal with a foster dog is to have them in your home until they find a great forever home.

People have asked me how I can stand to foster dogs and not keep them, don't I just love them too much to give them up? I don't know how to explain that, of course, I love them, but I don't love them. I loved my Buddy dog, and there will never be another Buddy.

Epilogue:

Two weeks ago I brought a new puppy home. His name is Huckleberry and he is a German Shepherd mix. He won't ever be able to replace my Buddy, but I'm hoping he will have the temperament to train as a seizure-alert dog. It took me four years of agony, plus therapy, plus two years of fostering before I was able to reach a place where I could adopt a new dog. The grief of losing a beloved pet is very real and has consequences that ripple through our lives. I wish I had begun fostering sooner, it might have spared me some of my worst mental health struggles, but I haven't stopped missing my Buddy dog, and I doubt I ever will.