I’ve been thinking a lot about letting go.
Our dog died last week. Liver failure. He was an old guy, and he lived a very full and loving life, but it was still devastating. I don’t know how many of you have had to do it, but letting go of a beloved family pet is right up there with the great underrated sorrows of all time. Harder, though, even than letting him go was explaining to my kids what was happening. It is certainly the first time we have had to deal with death around here, and boy did the questions come flying at me, addressing mortality, heaven, God, old people, horrible accidents, sickness, and the concept of grief. There were tears out of the blue — first my daughter’s and then mine. We all still walk in the front door expecting that old dog to be there waiting for us. It will take a while to get used to the quiet.
It’s sacrilege to say, and I wouldn’t have wished it this way for all of the water in the ocean, but I have to admit: the quiet is nice. My daughter has already started asking for another dog, but I tell her that we need some time to breathe. And to respect the dog we had. And to let him go. It does take time to let something go.
I am becoming more and more aware that as I get older, I accumulate things. Certainly I accumulate stuff — we all do. But I also accumulate responsibilities. Emotions. Friendships. Digital Photos. Birthdays to remember. Emails to respond to. Guilts. Projects. Dreams. And it’s really hard to let go of those things, even when they’re no longer fulfilling you. Instead of living our lives serially, moving from one experience to the next, we add the experiences together, and before long, we’ve just piled on too much. We hold onto old dreams, old ideas of who we’re supposed to be, old relationships that no longer feed us. We are suffocating from accumulation.
I have one great lost friendship. A dear friend from college and I had a horrible fight a few years after we graduated. We went without speaking to each other for a few more angry years, and then finally, after an emotional conciliatory email, we started to find our way back to each other. In the time we were absent from each other’s lives, I got married and she had a kid. We missed the chance to share those events with each other. Saddened, I vowed not to let that happen again, and I tried to stay present in her life, as she did in mine. But we had grown apart, and the damage was deep. I was making myself crazy trying to figure out how to fix the friendship, and then one day I made a conscious decision to let it go. Instead of dwelling on the sadness of the relationship ending, I choose to remember her contribution to one really great chapter in my life. She has a few fantastic photos in my scrapbook, and if I ran into her I would be filled with joy. But I have let her go.
The thing I know, the thing I’m sure you know, too, is that if I were spending all of my energy on that flawed relationship, I would not have had room for the new friendships I’ve made in the years since. If we do not let go of the things that fall away from us, we stop moving forward.
We can’t be everything. The bucket list I made when I was a teenager still has a gazillion things on it I haven’t begun. (Learn to play the cello? Become fluent in Italian? Swim the English Channel?) But for now, my days are as full as they can possibly be. The hours are rich with family and work and friends and responsibility, and in the midst of it I’m trying hard to let go of the internal barometer that tells me whether or not I’ve accomplished enough, whether or not I’ve been a good enough friend, whether or not I’ve been a good enough mom/wife/composer/businesswoman. Each day brings pressures enough. The ones that come from me? Yeah, I’m gonna try to let those go.
But, oh, how it does take time to let something go.
Simon Dog Brown
(2000-2012)
Georgia, I am very sorry for your loss.
But I am grateful that you wrote this beautiful piece.
So true and so timely for me.
Thank you and hope to see you next year in Japan:)
Hi Georgia. Boy, am I glad I waited to read this! You write so beautifully. Literally!
I was not fortunate enough these last few weeks to sing for you or the amazing group of brave people at ANMT but I must tell you that I learned so much, both from you and our new community of board treaders! I think it’s ironic that you have just written about letting go and that this week we worked on your material. If I had chosen a song it would have been ‘I Lay My Armour Down’. For me that song is all about ‘letting go’ and it does it perfectly and without fear. God knows (or does he/she) that I have a lot to let go of including fear, so I get it!
Have a safe trip. I hope we stay in touch. Don’t forget my transatlantic hug!
Thanks again. It has been invaluable.
LOL, Rachel x
The loss of a pet is truly one of the most underrated losses. They save our lives from all of those things we don’t let go. This made me cry. Thanks for sharing!
Georgia,
Those were beautiful words. What can I say that hasn’t been said already?
Energy flows. Time flows. People, pets, everything and everyone will pass. Letting go is hard because we fear the unknown. We lack faith. We don’t trust the universe (or God, or whatever) to let life flow through us and therefore we maybe hold on too tight to what is familiar to us.
If you read about feng shui, you’ll see that one of the main principles is to avoid clutter.
There is a time and reason for everything.
It doesn’t mean that we don’t mourn (I think that is essential in the process of loss) what has passed. It means, though, that maybe we, as a society, need to have a little bit more faith that, by letting go, wonderful things will come.
- Virginia
Beautifully penned, brilliant piece, full of lessons we constantly have to remind ourselves to keep in view. And an astute sense of how letting go and making space opens up new doors at every turns, as well as recognizing the beauty of the limited time you were meant to share deeply with someone. Many people and projects and goals and, of course, pets are only meant to be in our lives for certain periods, and even knowing that, it can be difficult to let them fly away.
I spent time in a Native American Sweat Lodge circle, and they call it “letting go of things that no longer grow corn for you.” One piece of wisdom I still carry from that circle is that the Full Moon is for letting go, the New Moon is for planting. So at Full Moons, I try and remember to take stock of where I focus my energies, and consciously let go of things that hold me back and are no longer where I belong. Not always easy, but so healthy, and it helps me then to recognize the good things that came even in the most difficult of packages, for the time they were with me.
A warm hug for your heart and a prayer for Simon who I met in his last days. And again, thank you for this. I must share. – R
Thank you, Georgia. So beautiful, and so true. My condolences on your loss; Simon Dog Brown was a very lucky boy.
-Dean
In memory of Lucky Bruggeman Johnson (1996-2012)
There’s nothing else to add here, Georgia. You said it all, and beautifully so.
Sigh. Simon – you were a great friend to all and I know youare making heaven a happier place with the wag of your tail.
Georgia. Beautiful piece, and so timely. There seems to be a lot of need to let go these days, and I’m glad that you have so eloquently written that it is necessary to make the space for new things to come in. Not all our dreams serve us, yet they have become habit. We can honor the roles friends have made in chapters of our lives – life-changing chapters – yet understand the time has come to move on.
I honor your choices, friend, and am inspired, too.
I’m so sorry for your loss. But know the space left will allow for new riches.
xo,
Sus
And now Willa has a new friend, Sus!
Georgia, thanks for helping keep things in perspective.
True. Willa Cather Egan 1993-2007. She was with me for everything. =) And now she’s likely annoying Simon.
Georgia,
This is beautiful, and true and wise. I deal with this specific loss a lot in my line of work (I run a pet care business), and it never gets easier.
I love this: “My daughter has already started asking for another dog, but I tell her that we need some time to breathe. And to respect the dog we had. And to let him go. It does take time to let something go.”
It does. And I’m glad you are taking the time.
Hugs and love to you and your family,
Renee