Breaking Sorrow’s Grip
Grief is an obstacle to happiness keeping us unhappy. Gratitude can overcome grief. When gratitude isn't enough, often awe is.
To be human is to have expectations that aren't met. Who doesn't wish for a more perfect past, present, and for that matter future? How we live our life depends on what we focus. A happy person focuses on the good that happens, the awe (wonder/admiration), the present and being happy rather than feeling happy. As an unhappy person, I focused on what’s wrong, regrets, my grief, and what will “make me happy.” I self-medicated to escape my pain. I was busy overindulging in work, play, fantasy, and sex. Instead of making me happier, I really was pursuing less unhappy, surviving less poorly. I couldn’t get happier until first I was happy, happy with me, a lesson I learned from a dog named Stache.
I started out as a child, a happy child. Then, at three, the love of my life, my five-year-old sister Nancy, died. Abandoned, the playful, happy part of me died, too. I plunged into a grief that lasted almost a lifetime.
The next 65+ years I pursued lessening my grief getting into and then out of relationships and marriages all too easily often hurting many others in the process. Thankfully, ten years ago, I got a puppy, a Brittany named Stache.
Like the Dalai Lama, when focused on me, he could see right inside to my soul, where my goodness lies. The hook was set. I was his. It was our bond that led to his demise.
Miracle Dog
When walking in the woods, he would take off ahead. Just about the time I would begin wondering where he is, Whoosh! he would come roaring by from behind headed off ahead again. He lived life all-in.
His pursuit once led him onto a street where he was hit by a SUV. Two collapsed lungs, multiple broken ribs! I raced him to the university vet center. It was serious. The grad students examining him had tears. Two days later, Stache said: “I’m out of here”, and we went home. After that, we called him the miracle dog.
I was a rancher with a truck, of course. One day we, Stache and I, went to the ranch in the truck. My ex was there to borrow the truck and trailer. I wasn’t paying attention when she left. But Stache was. Seeing the truck leaving and thinking I had done the unthinkable of leaving him behind, he took off after it.
Lump. lump. I heard the trailer bounce over something where there should be nothing. Oh Nooo! Where's Stache! I ran up the hill to him. Breathless, I swooped him up. Ready to race again to the vet. Neck not right. Dangling. Broken. I sobbed: “My Stache, my miracle dog is gone! Arggh!”
A great master presents a final test when his student is ready. This was mine. Could I be true to my commitment to be happy, never unhappy again?
Abandoned again, grief threatened to overwhelm me. My heart was broken. With Stache as my example, I had found happiness and was committed to it. But…he was gone! I knew I had to grieve without going back to unhappiness. When I was threatened with unhappiness, I postponed the grieving by focusing instead on my gratitude for my happiness and all we had done together: the special adventures; the finding him after being lost in a giant sunflower field for hours; boating, swimming, woods walks, and beach walks. Then, when firmly happy again, I let in more grief.
I lived a life of grief until I learned from Stache to choose gratitude over grievance and be happy with myself. Nobody can take that away as hard as they try. If he could see the good in me and adore me as I am, why shouldn't I? Whenever I came home, no matter how long away, he celebrated like Scooby-Doo getting a Scooby snack racing around the house in ecstasy that I was in his life. By relinquishing my gratitude-over-grief battle, I celebrate with awe him and his all-in commitment to living happily.
I am in awe of the unexpected good that happens. Stache came into my life: Awesome! He died: Awful! My final Stache lesson: live choosing awesome over awful celebrating each day exuberantly.
