I was all set to upload my ‘Part 2’ blog about Yoga of Emotions when life had a different plan that just feels important for me to put out there in the world. I found out a buddy of mine, Kipling, was put down today. Grief. Pain. Sadness, so much sadness. Shots of anger. I’ve been spending the past few hours holding space for all that energy. By doing this, the other space I keep into is love. I would not be feeling any of this if it wasn’t for the love that connects me to Kip.

I am so grateful to have experienced that love with him.

MY BUDDY KIP

Kip was an English Springer Spaniel who came into my life via Greg’s parents, who became his caretakers about 11 years ago. True to his name, so much spring in his step, especially when chasing rabbits, prairie dogs, and anything else he caught scent of. Loving to all the humans around him, not so much towards other dogs, the word ‘joy’ comes to my mind when I think about him. 

We had fun when he’d come and visit or stay for some time while Greg’s parents traveled. He’d get me out on daily walks. I’d get him out in the mountains to really stretch his legs and stamina. On the rides back home from those excursions, he would sleep in exhausted bliss. I like to think his time with us felt like camp did when I was a kid.

LOSS OF THE FUTURE

Part of my sadness comes from the idea I had about seeing him again this summer. I imagined Greg’s dad picking me up from the airport and I’d open the car door to an excited bundle of fur, ears, and a body that couldn’t stop moving as we greeted each other.

That’s one of the things about death, loss of a loved one. It’s not just losing the physical body, it’s the loss of stories, future thinking, planning, assumptions and expectations. The realization that those too are gone are part of grief. Unrealized time together that will never be.

Now Kip was a dog that wasn’t ‘mine’, yet the grief and loss is still there. That’s because grief doesn’t play by the rules of ‘shoulds’ or ‘supposed tos’. It is fueled by love, the energy and time invested towards someone (or something). There’s not a handbook on grief for it has a life of its own as it works down the path of heart, body, and soul creating cracks, widening crevices, and connects to other pain that has built up or comes from memories.

GRIEF HAS NO PLAYBOOK

Like a wildfire, as it burns, it hurts. It doesn’t care where you are in life, the plans you had for today, or what else is going on in life. As it slowly goes from a raging blaze to smaller and more contained, we can’t know how long this will take – a day, weeks, months…even years.

What those cracks, crevices and gorges that are left can do, though, if we allow ourselves the process of the burn, is to be filled up with that love. Love that was always there before, during, and after. Love that, so much of the time, we are disconnected from – ‘too busy’ or ‘focused on important things’ to pause and remember. Grief and loss is a fire that, in an instant, disintegrates what seemed so important into trivial. 

It can, eventually, connect us back to love…

But only if we allow ourselves to go through the burn.

I was keenly aware as I held space for these initial emotions that roared through me, how easy it would be to feed them by adding fuel to the fire. Instead, holding space to let it burn, allowed the roaring flame to simmer down. 

HOLDING SPACE FOR GRIEF ISN’T A ‘ONE AND DONE’

Not that it’s over! Waves of it keep coming. 

And I will continue to face it and hold space, knowing that, eventually, the waves will be less so that the cracks, crevices, and gorges can be filled and become the new landscape of my mind and body. With practice, allowing the ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’ of what never dies to become more a part of me.

Another part of being human, that connects me to every other human on this planet. 

The experience of grief and loss. 

We are not alone.

Shanti.