What’s Helping Wednesday

One thing I have longed for in the last 10 months was some sort of salve, some activity or thing or idea which could give me lasting comfort. When we are hurting, don’t we just want to feel better?

My mind has been working through full-blown grief, post-partum depression, and PTSD. I’m going along pretty well now, but the early weeks and months were a different story. This poses an important question–why have the days and nights gotten better?

I’d like to commit to writing about “What’s Helping” each Wednesday in an effort to answer this question and add another voice to the choir of hope in the dark.

I don’t claim to have the answers for everyone, but I have a lot of ideas that seem to be working for me. Some have been direct recommendations from other loss mommas or experts in psychology, others seemed to find me.

On this first What’s Helping Wednesday, I’d like to feature my constant companion, Milo.

Seriously, people. This. dog.

We adopted Milo from Berkeley Animal Care Services on January 24, 2017. I mention the date because that happens to be the exact due date of our babies. It was a big day.

Jeff and I had been looking for a dog for a few weeks by then, and after a couple of failed adoptions on different days (two dogs were spoken for seconds before we asked for them at two different shelters) we went to the shelter in Berkeley and there was Milo. Playing with a little rope toy in a clean, private doggy condo, all wags. He was the one.

The shelter has a policy that all members of the family must meet the prospective adoptive dog, so Jeff and I had to leave Milo to go get Zoe and Maia from school before we could take him home. I remember a very tall, big man at the shelter in coveralls cradling Milo ever so gently and telling me that he was personally going to take very good care of him while we were gone. I was trying not to look emotionally unstable (hah!) but I couldn’t stop crying. I was so afraid we would lose him too and my heart just couldn’t take it. When we got back to the shelter, in the middle of a rare California downpour, the girls met Milo. He licked everyone, explored the small meeting room, and fell asleep in my arms in between the sounds of closing doors and dog barks. When it was time to go, I wrapped him into my jacket and wedged myself into the back seat of our car with the kids.

Neither the shelter nor we knew his age but as it turns out, our vet saw Milo the week before and after his canine teeth (or whatever the sharp, vampire-fang ones are called) came in and give us his birthdate: likely 9/19/17, the same as James and Zachary. Though, rather than share a birthday with the boys, we say Milo and I have the same birthday, September 25th.

And since last year my birthday felt like a horrendous practical joke (how can you celebrate anything the week after your babies die?), this year it’s a nice thought that Milo and I will be together. I’m not sure if I’ll be ready for songs and blowing out candles for myself, but I can get excited about throwing Milo some fresh tennis balls and making him a birthday cake.

In terms of Milo and how he’s helped me….let me count the ways!

In the beginning, all I did was hold him and cry while he slept. But every day after we got him, I had a reason to get out of bed and a reason to leave the house. He counted on me. I loved him. Gentle and playful, we got stronger every day, together. Milo came home slightly fearful of everything and a bit helpless in our house; the stairs were too big, the kitchen chairs were terrifying. I could relate. I had come home with the constant fear that something drastic and calamitous would befall me or someone I loved at any moment. I could hardly go outside. And how could I not feel that way? I had learned that life could sometimes go terribly wrong. It is a hard thing to learn again that it usually does not.

Milo is officially an emotional support animal. He can travel with me on an airplane and I’ve taken him, with permission, to some public places where usually animals are not allowed. He makes me feel better when I see people with little babies, get stressed, feel socially awkward (I’m at the age where nearly everyone I don’t know well asks me if I have children and that makes me pretty avoidant), or just need some sort of loving contact to keep from falling apart. It’s amazing how much stronger I feel holding a 10 lb chiweenie.

He’s a sweetheart. He snuggles into blankets with me on the couch, kisses everyone in the family, bounces around after his hedgehog and squeaky dragon, loves “belly kisses”, fetches sticks, and runs lightening-fast around the huge, grassy field behind our house. He especially loves playing with two of our neighbor’s dogs, Roxy and Thumper. Milo has brought so much happiness and joy back into my life.

I can see now that grief is permanent and I consider it closer to tattoo than to hair color. It’s a continuum, and time will probably blur the lines and make it all bit fuzzy or wonky or floppy, but it will always be there. There’s going to be no growing out of it.

It’s nice to think, though, that being happy is still possible. Not every minute, maybe not every day or even every week. But it’s there, and I’m taking tiny little steps toward it ….with a super adorable companion by my side.