Memory Monday

It’s Labor Day and I’m feeling torn between wanting to get out and wanting to curl up in this cozy quilt and stay parked on the couch. There will be traffic and people when I leave and I’m not always ready for that assault on my senses. 

Kelly and Yoda both want to get out the door early so I clean up and grab my camera for our walk at the bay. Today I’m thinking about Gus. 

It’s been a day and a year since we let him go. A year ago on this day I was up with the stars and arriving at Sunrise before the sun came up over the horizon. I wanted to clear my head. I wanted to let the air hit my tear-stained cheeks and bring me quietly back to center. Sudden grief has a way of throwing everything just out of balance. And I was dealing, too, with the guilt that came from having such deep relief that his suffering had ended. 

That was an impossibly hard week. 

A year later everything looks different. Everything feels different. Like rocks in a river, the edges soften and become part of the whole. They don’t become smooth by getting out of the current. They soften by being in the heart of the flow. In it. Of it. That’s grief. 

I’m giving myself these few days of remembrance. I have a small altar on my desk so he is never far. I find signs everywhere of his successful crossing over to “the next”. A year ago he came to me at the mountain. I wonder where I will find him today? 

I re-read my diary of days yesterday. It brought it all back. I still expect him to come around the corner and climb onto my chest. I hope that feeling never leaves.

You can read more about Gus here.

Thanks for loving him.