Life is all about risk.
It’s a risk to live. To take our first breath. To enter the world with all of its uncertainty because of all of its promise.
Throughout life, we take risks.
As a child, we learn to ride a bike. We may fall and scrap our knees, but we do it for the joy of the breeze on our face. Of the independence and pride it allows.
As a teenager, we learn to drive a car. The potential for accident and danger never goes away, but we drive to see the world. We drive to seek adventure. We drive to visit loved ones. We drive for the simple pleasure of an open window and an open road.
As an adult, we make choices to let love in. There’s our first relationship when love is more than just a tingling feeling in our pants. It’s a tingle that takes up residence in the core of our being. An emotion so all encompassing that we ache from the weight of its presence. We shoulder that weight for the happiness, for the stupid, childlike euphoria it induces. We dream of growing old and grey with that love. We have promise that such companionship is possible.
We may make other choices to love, to take on not just the partnership of loving but the responsibility of loving. That is a unique and even more terrifying kind of love. That of parenting. Of entrusting ourselves with another living being. A being dependent on us for survival.
With children, we trust that life will play out as it should with children outliving their parents. We trust this because it is too horrifying to consider the alternative. To consider that this natural order could ever be disrupted. This fear may loom in the corners of our conscious, but we suppress that fear, that risk, knowing that that is an anomaly. That nature should persevere.
Then there is the choice to love an animal. To let that animal into our homes and into our hearts knowing full well that we will see that animal through the course of its life. That not only will that animal not outlive us but that we will not even grow old together. We hope, however, that we will at least get the privilege of that animal growing old by our side.
Sometimes, those hopes, those plans, don’t play out as they should. And so we pay for that risk. And it hurts. It burns in the back of our throat and aches in the pit of our stomach. And we must face the consequence. Face the pain. Face the bruises and wounds that are being inflicted on our heart.
While we will carry those scars with us for the rest of our lives, they are worth it. For the love. The joy. The happiness that was provided by that risk. By daring to live and open our hearts and let it all in. To drown ourselves in all the emotion and risk and potential baggage that comes from loving. From living.
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Ursa has bone cancer.
I’ve known something was wrong since December. First there was this and then this. But it hasn’t been getting better. And I’ve known. I’ve had that lingering fear in my gut since she first showed symptoms of injury and discomfort over six months ago.
A tumor appeared, literally, overnight.
We took her to the vet immediately, yesterday morning. Then today, more testing confirmed what I’ve been burying deep down, smothering with optimism and hope.
Her leg will be removed a week from today. She will be a tripawd.
My beautiful, sweet tripawd.
At best, she’ll live as such for another year. But there’s no cure. Just a little more time and comfort that we can provide.
And I can’t even put to words the crushing devastation I feel. The loss. The helplessness. The hole that is being opened years before I ever thought I’d have to face its vacant abyss.
This dog holds an unbelievably unique place in my heart. In my own life story. She was my graduation gift from college. In a sense, we began our lives together. At 7 weeks of age, she entered my life as I had just begun building it. She was by my side in my first apartment. In my first job. I was out on my own in the real world, building a life, learning my way, with my furry, floppy, crazy, tennis ball-loving companion. She saw me through my marriage. Through two cross country moves. Through two pregnancies. Through transitioning to life as mother. Through home ownership. She’s been there through all of it.
So now I must see her through this.
She’s earned it.
It’s not fair. She was supposed to live forever.
She turns 7 years old next month. I thought I’d have her for at least another 7. Our time together was supposed to be only half over. It’s not supposed to be the end.
Instead, she now needs to see me through learning how to say good bye. How to face the risk I knowingly took those seven years ago. One more lesson in this life she’s helped me build.
