The Price of Love

I was walking Chester yesterday when a woman approached me to ask why she hadn’t seen my little dog lately – I had to explain, again, that Olive was gone.  The woman seemed genuinely moved by the news and I had another middle of the day whoosh of sadness.

I miss that little dog like crazy. She is the last thing I think about before drifting off to sleep at night – the image of her last few breaths is haunting and I have to consciously manipulate my memory to pull out a happier picture to avoid becoming overwhelmed. I’m too old to be crying myself to sleep.

I’m having a hard time dealing with this loss and trying to pretend I’m not – there is so much going on in the world right now, so much unrest and fear, I feel guilty for wanting to indulge my grief.  And yet this grief is real – this grief is the price of love and I am feeling it to my bones.

I wonder at times if age has something to do with these deep feelings – the fact I have a better sense of forever now that I can see that forever in the distance – or if I’m just weary of trying to pull myself together. 

Perhaps losing Olive in the midst of all the chaos in the world right now was the tipping point, the thing I could finally cry about.   Or maybe I’m just someone who is missing a friend like crazy and needs a bit of time to come to terms with that.