I know a woman who has shone a spotlight on how hard it is to say goodbye.

 

My random act of kindness associated with the post that follows was that I called a family member who I know is having a number of horrible things happen in her life. I listened to her pain and tried to be fully present with her. We did not talk about me.

One of the many things that suck about being a grownup is that you have to be responsible for making decisions and acting on them when you don’t want to (Although you can have ice cream for breakfast. Which is awesome).

I said goodbye to Elly, my favorite dog of all time, this member of my family who I deeply love. As when Etta was put down (See “Dogs Again” from October), Haley and my two friends who know and love my dogs were there, but this time I was not on the other side of the world. I canceled a number of Very Busy, Very Important work activities and other trips over the last two months specifically so I would be here when it came time. I owed this to all involved including Elly, and myself.

It was Valentine’s Day. A friend told me that this was a gift of love from me to Elly. I understand what my friend was saying, and it didn’t feel that way to me. I wanted Elly’s suffering to stop, but I so did not want to say goodbye. I did not want to be in that moment, did not want to be pressed against those feelings. But I did. I wanted to honor the love this dog had given me for her whole life. I owed it to Elly, and myself, to fully be with her when she passed. I cried. A lot.

 

Elly died being held and touched by people who had been with her her whole life. Elly died being held by people who loved her, and knowing this was the group she belonged to. I hope I die that way. I fear I will not.

 

Shortly after she died, a huge winter storm hit the DC area. Not much snow but the winds howled with gusts over 50 miles per hour. It brought a smile to my face that the passing of such a gentle creature was accompanied by such ferocious weather.

 

I have not lost sight of how lucky I am to have people in my life, including my amazing daughter (but don’t let it go to your head, Kiddo, you are still a pain in the ass), who were so willingly to be present with me, and people who genuinely care from afar. I know how lucky I am….. and I am grieving intensely. I am embarrassed and feel more than a little stupid at how deeply I am feeling this pain and to be sharing it so openly (I come from a stoic people after all, Brooding Swede that I am). But when I started blogging about a year of random acts of kindness and where it would take me, one of my goals was to try to be honest about what came up/what I learned both to myself and also to you. So here we are.

 

Setting aside my embarrassment and angst, my grief has given me an opportunity to experience and think about something which may be valuable to us both……or not. It has given me the opportunity to think about goodbyes.

For most of us, or maybe just me, our lives are filled with many different flavors of goodbyes, and the frequency of those goodbyes accelerates as we move through our life; relationships end, breakups, divorces, job changes, illnesses, deaths,….. I am sure there are people who are Saying Goodbye Champions. I know I am not one of them. In fact I would say I am out and out bad at goodbyes. I am so bad I should win a medal for being so bad at goodbyes (At least a bronze, although I would be a contender for gold). It shows up in small and big ways. I typically don’t go to colleagues’ goodbye parties (oh, shit, my dogs were frequently a good excuse not to go, now I need a new one. Better start planning.) I joke with the talented team I lead that I have “abandonment issues” and that when they leave “they are dead to me.” Although in fact I nurture them specifically to leave (being the awesome mentor I am) and I am joking when I say those things, there is also an undercurrent of truth. And these are minor goodbyes.

 

So why? Not why am I like this, as that is just a tale of how I came to be on this path at this point, which is not that valuable a question to be asking right now. Instead, I am interested in a different question that (hopefully) is more valuable for all of us….or not. I am trying to frame this as a more useful question… ummmm….. yeah…… This is a sucky way to try to put this into words, but it’s the best I got: What is underneath that sadness? Is the sadness being amplified  by something deeper?

 

Here is what I got. When I stopped to really listen to my grief about the loss of Elly there is something under the searing sadness. It is small and softly spoken, hard to hear over the intensity of the sadness, but is there, hard-edged, sharp, and pushing the grief beyond where it might flow naturally.  It is a voice of Fear. Under this loss, and many others I have struggled with across my life, is the hidden voice of fear; fear of being left behind, fear of not belonging, fear of never being good enough, fear of never being really loved. Every goodbye, in addition to its own genuine sadness, fans the fires of those fears, is held up as “proof” those fears are true.

 

It’s the kind of deeply rooted anxiety that makes me want to check the fridge to see if there is cake left. How would something like that ever go away? I don’t think it can….. but maybe trying to make it go away isn’t the point. If those fears will never go away, I think we are left with a couple options. One; wrap myself back up in a suit of amour, seal all that pain & fear, even if a lot of cool stuff goes with it, behind a brick wall under the stairs. A nice tidy package. Sure that whole “be connected to other humans, live life fully, be open to experience stuff because it might really matter” journey is finished, but fuck that, right?

 

Or Two; be open to that fear, maybe even embrace the fear as part of me, allow it to be, knowing it will always be delighted to join me wherever I go (Erik’s Fear: Yea! Road trip!!). Which totally sounds like it sucks, except for the possibility of “being connected to other humans, live fully, open to experience stuff because it might really matter.” I guess that would involve welcoming the fear to come along (Erik’s Fear: Yea! More road trips!!) and still be vulnerable and open, a “fearlessly frightened” sort of thing. Hmm, that has a certain ring to it. I kind of like it. Fearlessly frightened! That seems like a reasonable (and hilarious) way to go.

Ok, going to give a try. I think I will have t-shirts made: Fearlessly Frightened.  I bet they are a big seller.

Goodbye, Etta and Elly.  You are loved.