Six Years with Bear

I am terribly behind in writing this post. Months behind. I made excuses, and some were valid. We lost our cat Lucy near Christmastime, and the weeks after that were difficult. There were added stressors, and other things that seemed to get in the way. 

But, every year, I have looked so forward to writing this post and sharing my memories of sweet Bear. I realized finally that my hesitation is rooted a little bit in fear. Time is passing so fast. Bear is six. How can that be? For some reason, this year is hard. Passing the five year mark, he is less of a baby, and at times, I can see it. His once cast iron stomach, which was affected by absolutely nothing he ate—from lipstick to light bulbs—now gets queasy and upset from overdoing it with treats. His boundless energy, which I used to beg for a break from—is now a thing of the past. He has spurts of it—definitely—but prefers napping and sleeping in on lazy Sunday mornings. He’s had a few aches and pains, too, back strains that left him unable to jump on the bed for a few days (which had me sleeping with him on the floor) and a few hurt paws and leg strains that made him limp for a few days.

He is actually healthy and in great shape, the vet assures me, as I worriedly take him in for every little concern. He is just getting older. He is not even “old” at this point. It is just hard to watch the transition.

Bear is more than a dog, more than a companion. He is one of the loves of my life, and I say this without doubt or hesitation. A part of my heart will always be his. He found me (and I believe that in some cosmic way he did find me) at the very lowest point of my life. Even then, I didn’t realize that’s where I was. But he came to me then, and was the only heartbeat strong enough to pull me completely out of that pit I was in. There is a magical connection between us, I can’t fully explain it, and I don’t expect others to accept or comprehend it. I am so grateful to him, for loving me, and teaching me to love and laugh again.

This bond with us was unfortunately formed at a time when I was deeply depressed, and now Bear has a sixth sense with me of when I am drifting towards that abyss. There is a knowing look in his eyes that both comforts and scares me a bit. How can he know? How can he know when no one else does? He pulls a little closer to me in those moments and stares and at me long and lovingly. I am here—he seems to say. I feel it.

The best example of this is a recent moment in my life that I will never, as long as I live, ever forget. My husband was there to see it, and I am so thankful that someone else saw how special it was.

It was Saturday, December 13, 2014. My husband and I had just come home from letting our cat Lucy go, having her put to sleep, after a traumatic ordeal. Just minutes before we walked in the house, I had cradled my cat of 14 years in my arms for the last time and felt all the guilt of the world rush over me. The moment was bigger than that; I felt I had failed in one of the few things I could rely on knowing how to do—taking care of these fur babies. I came into the house and although Bear and Boone were doing their usual wiggly, happy, welcome dance, I couldn’t engage. 

I tried to make it to my bedroom in the back of the house, and couldn’t. I made it as far as the guest bedroom and collapsed on the bed, lying on my side facing the wall, sobbing in a way that I haven’t in years. Boone came in the room, utterly confused, jumped on the bed and back off. At first, Shea didn’t realize where I went and was looking for me. In the meantime, Bear came slowly into the room. He carefully got on the bed just as Shea entered the room and sat behind me on the bed. Bear crept slowly to me, and began licking the tears from my face. He then carefully laid down next to me and slid his two front paws under my head and neck, something he has never done before. Then, he put his head between my head and shoulders and pulled me close. Shea actually gasped. He said Bear had the most human expression, that he shut his eyes tight as he pulled me close. I sobbed into Bear’s chest for a good bit and held him, amazed at this act of comfort. I won’t ever forget that. I can’t do it justice with my words. But in moments of sadness, loss, and despair, Bear has found me, always.

Bear has a really good life. He is spoiled by anyone’s measure. He wants for nothing. We tell him every day, over and over again, how much we love him. He has a big back yard to romp with his little brother. Boone idolizes him, and the two of them love to play and bark at all the threats that dare come too close to our house, real or imagined. The two of them are regular visitors to the local dog park and one of my great joys is looking across the park and seeing Bear’s huge smile as he takes it all in. He still does laps around the huge park in bouts of what we call “crazy dog”, which actually comforts me, letting me know that he still has some puppy energy in there somewhere. 

Bear and Shea have an incredibly close, special bond that was instantaneous when they met, and part of the reason I was able to open my heart to Shea, when I had thought true love was something for the rest of the world, not me.

Bear is an unapologetic bed hog, taking up most of the space in our king-size bed every night. He will playfully growl if I try to move him, and often kicks both of us in annoyance when we interrupt his comfortable sleeping positions. There are times when it would be easier to make him move to the floor, but Shea and I will share a glance, and although we don’t say anything, I know we are both thinking that he won’t always be here and he gets to sleep however he wants.

At his last vet visit, Bear, as usual, charmed everyone and the vet laughed as he himself was tricked into giving Bear another treat in exchange for cooperation during his exam. The vet let me know that Bear really could lose a few pounds, and that we needed to cut back on the treats. We try, but this face is hard to resist.

He makes us laugh, with his stubborn, funny attitude—his sneaky way of tricking his brother out of his bones and toys, and his human-sounding burps and farts, that still, after 6 years, make us belly laugh every time. He is unapologetic about those, too.

As I write this, Bear is lying next to me, snoring a little, snuggled up as close as he can get, with a paw on my knee. I have been having a rough couple of days, and today for some reason, has been tougher. He knows that. Somehow, he knows.

Thank you for a beautiful, love-filled, happy, hilarious, special, flying-by-too-fast six years my sweet boy. We love you. I love you. You are my sunshine.

All of my Bear posts, year by year:

Five Years with Bear

Four Years with Bear

Three Years with Bear

Two Years with Bear

Rescued

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Worth this Love

Several months ago, I entered an essay contest. I found out about it close to the deadline, but I felt good about my entry. I know thousands of people also felt good about theirs. The winners have not been formally announced, but they have been notified.

So, I didn't win, but thought I would share my entry anyway. One really good thing about contests and submissions, no matter the outcome, it gets me writing and makes me finish things. All good. The subject of the essay was this: When did you first understand the meaning of love? Maybe you were a child, witnessing a generous act by your father or mother. Maybe the lesson came later, as you grappled with the challenges of being a friend, a spouse, or a parent yourself. Whatever made you understand love—and yourself—better, tell us about it.

As I always do in the aftermath, I see a million things I could have done differently now, maybe made it better or different...but it is what it is. I feel like I write a lot on this blog about my husband and my joy in finding love when I had given up. I always share my story, not to brag or gloat, but to hopefully give someone out there hope. I lived a long time without it, and that is a very hard and lonely place to be. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

So, here is my essay, and my dose of hope out there to anyone who needs it.

Worth This Love

I thought I had found it one hundred times before. It was the whisper of my mother’s voice in her moments of denial. It was my father’s brief flashes of noticing me in his clouded mind. It was the boy I loved who reminded me so much…of him. The one who came after and the next, all the same pain—just in a different package. Each time I quaked with relief—finally, I have found it. Finally, I know love. And then, the bottom would fall out. My mother would retreat to her cocoon, my father would lose sight of me, the boys, one after the other, would suddenly become clear to me as false, no longer shadows of pain, but vibrant in their own colors of deceit, betrayal, and abuse.

Each time I felt more alone in the aftermath, farther away from love than before, and I slowly saw my faith in its existence erode. Maybe it was all a fairytale. Fiction. Or maybe I wasn’t good enough. Maybe the problem was with me.

I remember so well the day I gave up. Sitting in my apartment I told myself what I believed to be my destiny: I would always be alone. It seemed out of control—beyond my ability to change. Each attempt at love pulled me deeper into a pit that was so hard to crawl out of. It seemed simple: leave the pit behind, face the facts, go it alone. Forget the childhood that didn’t make sense, the alcoholic father and lost mother, stop trying to be the light of someone’s life when my bulb had obviously burned out. Find a way to make a living supporting myself and hopefully needing no one.
 

And that’s just what I did. Something changed in me that day. My career took off as I focused on nothing else. Moving up the corporate ladder, I felt the pit not only far behind me, but filled. I no longer felt in danger of slipping, falling, hitting bottom and trying to crawl out. The ground behind me was solid. I chattered with girlfriends about longing for love, wishing for dates, but I knew I was just painting a picture of normal for them. I invested no hope for a first kiss, love at first sight, or even a comfortable arrangement. I wasn’t playing it safe. I truly believed I was too flawed to participate. Too imperfect, too damaged, too broken to be worthy of love at all.
 

I crisscrossed the country on business trips, gathering compliments, raises in salary without asking, recommendations, and glowing reviews. It was the air I breathed. Each new company event I created was my first date, my relationship, my happiness. I was at the top of my game, making more money than I could have ever imagined. I would stare at my paycheck—every paycheck-- in disbelief. Staring back at me was my worth. More than I had ever been worth before.

And I cried myself to sleep every night. For years and years and years.

The cracks came when the economy tumbled. There were thousands of people just like me—with the glowing reviews, the ability, a successful track record. Jobs were cut, layoffs became commonplace. There weren’t enough jobs even for the best and the brightest. I was unemployed. No large paycheck. No worth.

Everything came crashing down. Friends were concerned. My phone went unanswered. Why keep it connected? Unemployment scarcely paid any of my bills. I awoke to eviction notices taped to my door. Large bold letters telling the world what I had known all along.

The pit opened up again—this time so fast and with such force that I was almost swallowed whole.

The therapist’s couch seemed a farce in the beginning. A place to sit and hear the endless excuses for my failure, to be told all that I wasn’t. I sat staring for the first visits. Refusing to talk, in a standoff with the supposed professional across the room. I had given up. I didn’t need to be saved. I wasn’t worth being saved.

After a few visits, silence turned to tears, words rose from pain I hadn’t let through. I didn’t want to go back, but there I was, dealing with everything that had brought me here. For the first time saying the words. For the first time hearing it was not my fault. For the first time, beginning to believe it.

I had lost everything. That was when I found myself.

My therapist stayed two steps ahead and lit the path for me. My path. The path back to a life without fearing an unannounced sink hole. A life of believing that I had value, I had worth, I was more than the sum of my mistakes, more than the pain I had suffered.

It was a slow, steady climb. Some days were brighter than others. Some days the therapist’s couch was the only place I felt safe.
 

The world was different to me now. I looked again at my paycheck in disbelief, this time questioning how I could survive on so little. My life was scraped together, but whole. My life was my own, not a company’s and not dependent on the next glowing review. Work was work. Home was home. The presence of my dog Bear, a new addition, who never would have fit into my career-based life before, was a comfort. A true to my heart, not laced with guilt, comfort.

My friendships were deeper, richer, more authentic. I was almost someone they had never met, with the comfort of years of shared memories, middle school photos, and bridesmaid’s gowns. I had time to be the friend I always wanted to be, and to truly know the joy of returned phone calls and emails—not checking on me, not asking when I would ever be in town, not just a required note on my birthday. Real engagement in my life, and renewing bonds that thankfully outlasted my descent.

One friend suggested a date. Someone we both knew. Someone we had grown up with. Faint memories of junior high classes, passing in the halls. No flicker of romance then, barely an acquaintance. Definitely not the stuff of chick flicks or fairy tales.

Even more the reason to go. No real chance of anything. Just a date- maybe a new friendship. Maybe nothing. Probably nothing.

The night was normal and electric. Unfamiliar and personal. Unlike any other date or wish or figment of my imagination from my past. Nothing fiery or predestined. Just a night.

Then another night, followed by more. What I thought I had found one hundred times before, in another lifetime, when I felt I wasn’t worthy or deserving…was becoming real. I was 40 years old. I had never married, never been close, never thought it could happen. Even now, wasn’t it too late?

This love wasn’t something I created; it wasn’t something I tried to be for someone else. It wasn’t the conjured moments of something I wanted so badly. He didn’t remind me of him…at all. It wasn’t the same pain. It wasn’t a perfect Hollywood set up. It just was.

I slipped into a level of comfort I had never known. Not for one moment of my life before this love was I ever completely myself. How sad, but how beautiful at the same time. I felt myself trusting completely for the first time, knowing the freedom that is saying I love you, and knowing the words returned have meaning and are not just spoken.

My husband Shea was my classmate in 7^th grade, sitting half of the alphabet away from me in Language Arts class. He is the person who taught me the meaning of love, its definition in strained moments, its beauty in trusting the unknown. He is the person who makes me laugh until I am gasping for air, who knows the secrets of my childhood and my innocent wishes for unattainable dreams. He knows the emotions behind my indiscernible facial expressions—and when a smile is masking a painful memory. He has given me a new definition of love, far away from how I had defined it before. It is knowing there is a tomorrow, brighter than the present day- even with whatever struggles we face. It is a life without the fear of betrayal, the truth always between us, and the belief that the most flawed parts and quirks I posses are endlessly endearing. This love is not regretting one moment of the life behind me because it led me here, to this place, this instant, to this dance of life I am living that never leaves one second taken for granted. Something I tried for so long to define has been explained, written for me, given to me as a gift at the age of 40.
I have found my worth, I have found my value.
I have finally found love.

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