Please Help With This Unbearable Grief. Options

[ginosmom]

Gino was our beloved yellow lab. He loved everything - life, people, animals, food. He was happy. He was healthy. He was 9 years old.

While in Vancouver with my twelve-year-old son yesterday, Gino and my schnauzer Zeke (best buds) were in the care of my neighbor as they often are when we are out of town. We received a call when still5 hours driving time away that Gino was dead. The neighbor left for the store for 20 minutes and returned home to find Gino had suffocated inside a bag of cat food he'd gotten into. THere was no reviving him.

As we drove frantically home, I was hysterical and not believing what was said. I sent many people, including our vet, up to the house. All confirmed....Gino was gone.

Gino was my best friend. He has been by my side through the darkest times of my life. My divorce. So many things. He and my son grew up together from puppyhood and toddlerhood. He was full of life. He had two cruciate ligament replacement surgeries over the last 2 years, upwards of $10,000, to repair his blown-out knee joints. After each surgery, he was happy. He was like a new dog each time. He never complained about wearing a cone on his head or taking his medicine or limping. He was always just happy.

I had taken him to the dog park every day last week. He ran in the field and swam in the creek and rolled on his back in the grass. I promised to take him to the beach lots this summer, as I've been so busy with my work. THese are all now things we'll never get to do.

I don't understand.

I read through these grief pages and feel compassion for everyone who lost a pet, but what I read is of old pets and sick pets. Not my Gino. He was not old. He was not sick. He had so much life left to live. Why did this happen? WHy did I go away? Why did I leave him?

I DIDN"T EVEN GET TO SAY GOODBYE TO HIM. I didn't tell him I loved him. But I did. Oh how I did.

He was my friend. He kept me safe on the 12 acres of property I live on by myself. My other dog is still with me but nothing is the same. It will never be the same. Can anyone help?

Everyone says they can't imagine what I feel. That isn't helping. I need to hear that others have experienced this grief, this TRAGIC grief, this accident, and that life somehow moved them forward. I can't imagine.

Today we went to the vet's office where his body had been taken. I wasn't going to see him but I had to, to say goodbye. He had been wrapped in plastic and put in the freezer, covered in a blanket. I lay beside the mound of beloved dog that was no longer.......just the body, but the body of the dog I loved with all my heart. THe dog I could've been better to, could've done more for, could've appreciated more. I took for granted he'd always be here. I lay beside him and wept and said goodbye and said thank you. The body smelled badly. I wish I hadn't seen that or smelled that. That isn't my Gino.

Please help me and my son, anyone. Not by saying I have a right to feel sad or that you can't imagine my pain....but something, anytthing that will help. Thank you.

[Gretta's Mom]

Dear Gino's mom

OK at day 4! No one who has truly loved a special animal and has been loved back is OK at day 4 ... well maybe if they're still in absolute shock, but never otherwise. My Gretta left me a little over a year ago and I'm wondering if I'll be any different by YEAR 4!

Oh, yes, no matter how the images hurt you now, you were definitely right in going to say goodbye to Gino. No matter how it goes down, there are images which stab you in the heart. The look on my Gretta's face when the vet and the tech wheeled her into the grief room - her head was up, ears forward, eyes looking directly at me. I can hardly think of it NOW and not burst into a river of tears.

And how well I, too, remember the day I went to the vet school to pick up her ashes. Just like you said, a flimsy cardboard box - heavy beyond its dimensions - was all the physical matter that remained of my Gretta. The vet school had taken a plaster paw print and that was in the bag with the box of ashes. I STILL can't look at that paw print.

Gino's mom, it takes time, a lot of time, hundreds of times more than you think and a thousand times more than "people think" you should take. Only one thing matters - YOU, and YOUR heart, and YOUR love for Gino, and YOUR grief. That's all. As MoonBeam has often said, there is no "normal" and no "closure" and no "getting over. What the H does 'closure" mean anyway? Doesn't it seem strange that the only time you hear that word is when it's being used about SOMEBODY ELSE!

No, Gino's mom, you listen to your OWN heart. Hold Gino's blankets, talk to him (if you want to), take your time moving his things. (I went back on a promise I made to Gretta that no other dog would drink out of her doggie drinking station.)

The only two things that are absolute facts are that love never dies (so your and Gino's love will go on forever) and that you WILL live - even though it doesn't seem like it right now.

We are a family of brothers and sisters who are united in the bond of love of special animals ... from whom we are separated ... but only temporarily. Alone, we can't make it, but together we're strong and we can help each other stand tall and say, "Dino LOVES me and I love HIM."

Gretta's mom