Letting
Go
“We
need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on
comes easily; we do not need to learn it.”
Rainer
Maria Rilke (Translations of the Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke)
Yesterday,
my son, Ian, said goodbye to his precious dog, Maggie. She was sixteen and full
of painful arthritis. Even so, it was hard to make the decision to let her go.
It’s safe to say a dog has never been better loved than Maggie, and no man has
been more attached to a dog than Ian. He was fresh out of college when Maggie
came to him, a puppy, rescued from the back of a pick-up truck that was filling
with rainwater. In her first puppy year, she chewed up his entire collections
of plays, including the complete works of Shakespeare, and most of my
cookbooks. We loved her anyway.
We all
have loved and lost animals. It is a rite of passage to make the painful
decision that the time has come to say goodbye. I took the other two dogs,
Barley and Gidget, to the Vet’s office so that they could be present for Maggie’s
passing. They went completely still and silent as the doctor administered the
drugs, and afterwards, were deeply concerned with Meg and Ian’s wellbeing. To
say they knew what was happening is a stretch, but I like to think they did,
and knew, as well, that it was their job to comfort. They did it well.
Rilke
is right, of course. We must learn the letting go part of love, the hard part. When
people can walk away from a love-relationship without pain, it likely means
there was little love left. When we lose someone, whether a human someone, or a
beloved pet, they take some of us with them. A little piece of our heart is
chipped off and we must wait patiently for healing to take place. But even when
our beloved is in robust health, we must practice letting go. They must be
allowed the freedom to be who they are first, even if it shatters our image of
who we want them to be. People who cannot breathe freely do not stay in love
for long.
Maggie
was a good dog. She will be sorely missed by one man who was just a boy when
she entered his life. She taught him much, and never lost her sense of
entitlement as “First Dog.” Rest in peace, good dog, Maggie.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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