Beth

Tonight my roommate and I were talking about how the older you get, the more grief becomes a part of you. The longer you live, the more you know of pain and loss. During this conversation, I almost started crying.  I'd been down and emotional all day, but this almost tipped me over the edge.

It's strange how raw something that happened 32 years ago can still feel. In a way, it's almost not fair that this is so. Time should allow healing. Though, I know most days it does. It's just sometimes, especially on anniversaries, when it can't.

I know I blogged about this last year, but if you are new to the blog, I'll explain. On July 4, 1980, our house burned. The house was a familial home and beautiful. I loved it dearly and wanted to keep it for the rest of my life. Worse than losing the house, so, so much worse, is the fact that my dog Beth was under it.  She didn't like fireworks and she hid under the house. When the fire started, she couldn't get out. I lost my house and I lost a pet that I love dearly and who loved me.

Beth was gentle and sweet.  She was a St. Barnard, mostly white with some dark orange spots. She had big, sad brown eyes and a long soft tongue.  As a child, I thought she was the most beautiful dog I'd ever seen. I know it is love that colors this opinion, but it doesn't matter. Whenever someone says "beautiful dog," Beth is what comes to my mind.

Things were pretty chaotic for me as a kid, and Beth helped to calm a lot of that down. She was this sturdy, kind presence who wanted nothing more than to be by my side. She would hang out when I would play.  She would sleep on the bed to keep me warm.  She would run around the yard with me, though not fast because she had some hip problems. She was just truly happy to be, you know? She loved the life she had.

But she hated fireworks. And so when we decided to shoot them off, she hid. And when the house started burning, no one even thought about the fact that she was under there. I hope she was asleep. God, how I hope she was asleep, and that she just died before she felt any pain or had to be scared. I just really hate the idea that she died scared and alone. I hate that so much and even 32 years later, I can't stand the thought of it.

Losing the house altered a lot about my life. It robbed me of something that was deeply important to me and it set us into a deeper level of poverty. It altered my identity. I was no longer the girl with the big pretty house. I was the girl who LOST her big pretty house.

Losing Beth broke something inside me.  I felt so utterly betrayed by life. You have to understand, I was a very young child when this happened. Up to this point, I just didn't really comprehend how cruel and crushing life could be. But my house was taken away and my dog was taken away. My dog died and in a horrific way. I didn't know how to process it. It was just so completely horrible to me. Losing Beth changed the person I would have been. The grief just ripped up too much inside me.

So yes, I can understand why some people, as they grow older, have an ever increasing difficulty in maintaining positive and sane. How many days of devastation can we experience before we just decide to give up?  How many can we experience before giving up isn't even a choice anymore?