Love's Pressure Valve

Once again grief knocks down my door, tosses the furniture, grabs my throat, and slams me up against the wall. Grief has no manners. It’s not polite, or thoughtful, or kind. Grief is a punch to the gut and then another. It doesn’t stop when you’ve had enough, when you cry uncle, when you tell it you did your best and to leave you the fuck alone. It’s like birth, noisy and painful and messy, no way out but through. 

I have grieved many times for a teacher’s passing, both my parents, all my grandparents, an uncle, two cats, three dogs, friends. Sometimes the grief is small, a jolt that snaps my head. Other times, it’s a tornado ripping me to pieces.

My dog died this week. She was nearly seventeen and we’d been together since she was five months old. She came to me as a rescue, a thin, mangy puppy with bright, intelligent eyes, atomic speed, and a sweet, irrepressible spirit. 

You may be thinking, “You should be grateful she lived to be so old.” I am grateful, immensely so, but grief kicks the hell out of gratitude. I remember telling a colleague how old my father was when he died and watching her dismiss my grief. As if the fact that he was eighty-two and I just turned forty meant I didn’t have the right to miss him. He was old. Of course, he would die. But that has nothing to do with grief. Grief is about the hole in your gut when someone you love leaves. Grief is about the moments you go to touch the other, speak to them, turn around to look and find the air empty. Grief is about the loss of presence, even if it’s smelly feet or an annoying habit of telling you what you already know. It’s the bare shelf in the refrigerator where you kept their favorite food, the corner of the couch where they napped, the sounds of their living. Grief is about the missing, the longing, the wishing. 

When my father died, followed twelve years later by my mother, regret laced my grief. No matter how hard I tried, I wouldn’t have the relationship I wanted with either of them. Grief held the loss of a future I couldn’t reach. When my dog died early Wednesday morning, I was spared the pain of regret. She and I lived well together. She had a good life, and this was the natural and inevitable outcome. She died peacefully with the aid of a kind vet. My partner and I stroked her fur and told her we loved her. We let her go, felt her leave, and were grateful for the privilege of having known her.

Grief is love’s pressure valve; the harder the grief, the deeper the love, the bigger the loss. Come on you bastard,I tell it, do your worst, and it does.  And then it passes, leaving me calmer, softer, balanced. My mantra is let grief come; let grief go. 

I will always be connected to my lost people and animals. I hold this tight as another wave pushes my face to the floor. With time, the grief will tire and fade. With time, I’ll be left with the strong, sharp memory of those I’ve lost, and the love, always the love.

-Randall Van Nostrand

Randall Van Nostrand’s stories have appeared in Chantwood Magazine, Bards & Sages, and The Rappahannock Review. www.randallvannostrand.com