Sweet Cherries and Grief

parting thoughts from the central coast

My morning begins with dark cherries and coffee, which I consume in excess until my stomach hurts. Despite the ache, I’ll likely do the same tomorrow, my last day visiting Central California; the cherries are too sweet, the coffee too good.

I take my mug out on the porch, where I watch moths perform their fatal dance in the dirt. Exhausted from flitting into the porch lights all night, they’re too tired now to fly away. Instead, they spin in circles until they die.

Like them, I am drawn to something—light, like a revelation, or perhaps transformation, the shedding of an old life.

I shift my attention to the field where my dog is hunting for ground squirrels.

She’s exploring the remnants of a fallen tree, her head dipping in and out of its cavernous trenches, when she suddenly begins furiously shaking her head. She bolts toward me, letting out small, piercing yelps of pain along the way.

I get up from my chair and shout, “What!?” not knowing what to do or how to help.

When she finally reaches me, her high-pitched, agonized shrieks bring me to my knees. I throw my body over hers in an instinctive attempt to shield her from whatever invisible thing is hurting her. I shake too, as if I can feel her pain in my body.

All I can do is cry out, “What’s wrong!?” and search her for bites or wounds.

Her tail is tucked beneath her, her legs are trembling, but there is nothing visibly wrong. To my relief, the shrieks gradually fade, and she eventually looks up at me with sad, searching eyes, seemingly more concerned with my distress than her own. She licks my hand, and her tail begins to wag gently.

I am left shivering from shock and crying into the gravel. The cause of her pain remains a mystery. For the rest of the day, I watch her with the attention of a hawk and Google the nearest emergency clinic, just in case. I sit with her as she eats her food, crying quietly into my hands. I question the droop of her left ear, fearing paralysis, until it perks up at a noise outside. She licks away my tears and lets me gaze into her amber eyes for several unbroken minutes.

hubbell

I couldn’t help but imagine life without her, how the world would be empty and dark. That intense reaction—falling to my knees, crying, shaking—was my body recalling every grief I’ve ever carried, all reverberating through this fresh fear of losing my favorite companion. For a moment, I really believed she was dying.

I’ve seen what sudden loss can do. Those memories make me hold her closer, make me more fearful of the day I’ll have to let her go.

---

Years ago, my ex and I took our dogs on a walk through her neighborhood, somberly discussing the end of our relationship. A few houses from her home, she unclipped her dog’s leash, thinking the dog would be safe sprinting to the front door as she always did. Instead, she bolted into the street, chasing something we couldn’t see, just as an SUV came barreling around the corner.

There wasn’t time to react. I saw and heard the car roll over the dog, and she let out a single, blood-curdling howl that cut through the breath my ex and I were both holding. We ran to her in terrifying disbelief and found her lying on the asphalt, life leaving her eyes in seconds. My ex knelt down beside her and sobbed inconsolably.

That moment sometimes replays in my mind, accompanied by the awful thought: I almost let my dog off-leash, too. She would’ve followed my ex’s dog without hesitation.

One small decision saved my dog; another caused a death.

These memories live with me, influencing the choices I make today and tomorrow, coloring the world around me.

---

My grief follows me wherever I go.

For my 34th birthday, I hiked up Bishop’s Peak under the glaring sun, carrying my 15-pound dog most of the way. I used to live at the base of this mountain when I was 19, back when I shared a home in San Luis Obispo with my brother. Climbing it again and reaching the top felt like looking through a portal where I could retrace the shape of him.

bishop peak trail

I am grateful to be alive, in this body, to have made it through another year. But it will always hurt to be here without him.

I can’t help but imagine how this could all be different had my brother been able to speak about his issues with drinking. How talking about it more freely could have led him to ask for help before it was too late.

His death taught me the cost of silence. It’s why I speak so openly now, why I share my struggles with addiction. He couldn’t, and maybe that’s why he’s gone. If I hadn’t learned from his silence, maybe I would be, too.

I carry that knowledge with me, and it helps me make better choices in my recovery and in my life overall. But grief has changed me—it affects how I react to things and how I see the world. It’s a part of me now. I can’t escape loss or pain any more than a moth can avoid its fate after circling the light.

three bridges.

Thanks for making it to the end.

I want to know:

• Have you lost someone —or something— that has changed you?

• How does that loss shape the choices you make now?