Bingo

Grief may well be the most uncommon of commonest feelings.

It’s not a feeling I was familiar with prior to the past few weeks, but with the passing of our beloved family dog, Bingo, it’s one I’ve sadly become acquainted with.

For just over 10 years, we’ve woken to see his bright brown eyes staring expectantly up at us.

For just over 10 years, this little bundle of fluff brought us immeasurable joy (and the occasional nightmare)!

As a Jack Russell X Terrier, we were told he might go on to be in his twenties.

It turned out that 14 years was enough, with age simply and suddenly getting the better of parts of him.

Like anyone in the throes of remembrance, we found ourselves reminiscing about his many quirks, which were likely the result of his tumultuous early years; years that we know very little about as we rehomed him when he was just three.

His funny, sad, sweet, strange and often utterly inexplicable ways earned him the reputation of being a ‘character’.

And that he was.

My sisters and I have been immensely fortunate to have never really lost anything or anyone before, so it’s only now that we’re coming to understand grief’s true nature.

Together, we all realised that we will inevitably experience ‘greater’ losses in future and that woefully plenty of people carry these with them already.

Nevertheless, those who have suffered the loss of a pet will realise the heartbreak we feel is as significant as that felt upon the passing of a person.

Bingo was a presence who studied, learned and unconditionally loved our family every day for over a decade.

Now that presence is gone.

And it’s impossible for that not to leave a hole.

I kept saying to my Mum, “I thought I’d be better at this.”

By ‘this’ I meant grief and she soon reassured me that mourning isn’t something to be mastered.

No matter how much you think you know about anguish, or indeed yourself, it seems you can’t predict or even necessarily control how you’re going to be.

I only needed to look at the five of us to see five individuals handling our shared sorrow in entirely unique ways.

It appears then that there are just two keys, one being support, the other being to allow both yourself and others to move through the motions unaccompanied by expectation or judgement.

Having given grief considerable thought, it is one of life’s great, universal mysteries.

But there are two things, two little ideas passed on, that have offered me a sliver of solace.

You don’t get over grief. You grow around it.

The only real healer is time.

None of this means you’ll forget.

It simply allows you and every effervescent memory to keep on living.