So there's the best-foot-forward, present-a-good-face truth of my Facebook post, and there's the rest. The messy, embarrassed-by-my-tears, unpalatable truth of "how I'm doing."
This has been so much harder than I ever imagined. It feels like any given minute I am assaulted by guilt and grief. Guilt that I had looked forward to the end of the stress Kona's condition was causing me. Guilt that I could have done more to relieve her suffering. Guilt that even at the hospital I was so involved with my own feelings and guarding J's that I forgot to say a proper goodbye. Guilt that I didn't give her more joyous experiences this past year while she was still healthy and active.
Grief because there is a Kona-shaped hole everywhere I look and think: where her dishes would sit; the places where she would lay; how she would be there when I came home; how she barked at the milkman; how she would eat the food we'd spill; how even taking off my shoes for the day always came with a quick calculation of when I'd need to put them back on to take her out. Grief that I didn't know that the last times were the last times: the last time she played in water; the last time she got a really good walk; the last time in the mountains; the last time we played together; the last time jumping in the snow; the last kisses.
Tears come at any moment, and sometimes they come light and sometimes they come so hard they threaten to carve a canyon in my face.
Empirically I know that I will get better. I can already feel each day that I'm getting better, working through the grief, but even that somehow feels like a betrayal to the time she was here. So in a sense this snapshot of the mess is my attempt to honor her memory.
