Grieving

Please understand, I want to grieve for Kuma not being here. I want to feel the hurt and pain.

I don't want to forget. I don't want to get busy and avoid the feelings. I don't want to drink and get numb. I don't want to sleep it away. I don't want to go away somewhere else where I am not reminded. No, I want to sit in it and feel it. It hurts. The reality is hard, that she is not here and she is not coming back. I want to face that reality and know it. I don't want to avoid it and hope that with time I forget.

Why? First because that's the way I am. I feel things. And, as I get older I feel them more. I have a bigger capacity to feel and to hurt than I ever did. So, I just go right inside and hurt.

Second, when I am in this pain, I am thinking about her and I am with her. I see her here doing the things that she used to do. I talk to her, call her name, fill her water bowl. I look at the bed where she slept and imagine her there. I don't want to forget that right now and not until I am ready to accept it.

I know that people may think I am crazy. I get advice from my mother who first just listened while I talked for hours, but now wants to help me be saying, "just get over it, forget it, move on, get busy, start your life without her". I try to explain to her that this is who I am and "you should know me by now". I have to think about it, I have to figure it out and I have to explore all the ways that things went wrong and understand what was actually happening. I have to know why she died.

No, I cannot go and get another dog or puppy and forget about Kuma. I don't want to forget about her. I am not ready to.

I sat with Kuma's body for three hours after she died before leaving the hospital.

I started this website to try to understand and to try to deal with it. I read all the diary notes that I made showing every hour of every day for the last few months what Kuma was doing, eating and how she was feeling. I took out all her pictures and watched all her videos.

Each day it gets a little easier because I understand a little better what was going on in her brain and when it started and each day it gets harder. It gets harder because it will not change.

I feel guilty doing things without her.

Understand that for the last few years and expecially for the last three years I spent every minute of the day with Kuma. The older she got the more I cherished every moment. I held her and never wanted that moment to end. I talked to her because she was the only one there. I stopped socialising and going to places because it was too hard on her in the summer. I stayed with Kuma because I wanted to.

So, why would I expect that I would go from this level of communication and being with her to nothing. Why would I think that I would want to just forget her in a few days or weeks.

There are many things that make it hard for me to accept that she is not here.

First, she was healthy and she was not ready to die. She should have been allowed to wake up and come home with me if she was ok. It was just a series of bad luck. So many things happened that shouldn't have. For instance when they tried to stop her heart and it didn't work for two times, I should have told them to stop and not try a third time. Instead stop her seizures because she is trying to live.

Second, I feel guilty for the many things that I did not do. I did not deal with the underlying problem that was going on in her head from the first time she got a mini stroke called Idiopathic Vestibular Disease and later her first seizure. Looking back I talked to the Vet that it may be an inner ear infection that is spreading into her brain. But, it wasn't dealt with. Later, I am sure now that she was developing some sort of bleeding in her brain or aneuriysm, embalism or thrombosis, a bulging, clotted, leaking or broken blood vessel. She most likely had a few of these but each seizure made it worse. I should have dealt with this and found out what it was with an MRI earlier and tried to fix it before it got worse. I feel guilty for not doing that.

Third, Kuma never stopped trying. If she fell down, she looked at me to pick her up. She was always positive and trying. She was always communicating with me with her eyes and her voice. She enjoyed her routine, her day, her outings. She enjoyed when people came over because she was social.

Was it time to let her go. No. I knew her and she would have let me know if it was time for her to let go. No, she was hungry and wanted to eat, not to die. She was thirsty and wanted to drink water. She wanted to get up and walk. She wanted to go out in the car and go to Tim Horton's for a cream cheese bagel. No, she wasn't ready to let go and die.

I don't know where Kuma is. Well, I do actually, she is nowhere. Tonight all the power went out and it was a full moon. I went outside for a walk because it was so eerie. I walked to the cemtary. I cried out to all the dead people there, "where is my Kuma?" Through my tears I stared at all the tombstones lit by the full moon and dared anyone there to anwer me. Nobody, no spirits did. They didn't answer me because she is nowhere. She died and she is not somewhere waiting for me. I wish it wasn't true but it is. I saw her die and go to nothingness.

Writing about her helps. But it is a constant pain that is always there. Today is three weeks since they stopped her heart.