our sweet boy

"To his dog, every man is Napoleon. Hence the constant popularity of dogs." -A. Huxley

My family dog died this past weekend. A part of us knew this was imminent. Yet admitting this seemed to break our hearts extra wide open. Why does it ache so much? Why can't I stop from crying at random times throughout a day? Why does it feel emptier than normal at the house

 

It's love separated by death. That's why. This is not how it's supposed to be.

We adopted him as a rescue more than 10 years ago.

I'm confident that other life experiences will hurt us as much as the death of a family pet. But I'm also confident that it's uniquely, distinctly desolating to say goodbye to a pet.

My mom often says that there's few things on this earth more symbolic of God's love for his people than how dogs particularly love their owners (I can't speak about cats as pets, or reptiles, or any other animal, so I won't speculate -- I'm sure they also provide love and affection in palpable ways).

How did this dog demonstrate such love for me, and my family, that it'd remind me of God's love?

-He always wanted to be near us. It didn't matter how long it'd been since we last showered, or if we'd brushed our teeth yet that morning. Wherever we were, that's where he wanted to be. God is like that too. We're never somewhere that he's not willing to come to where we are to be with us.

-Our dog's love and affection for us is unconditional, as is God's love. It's rare in life to know a love that unconditional that we can trust is unconditional. No second-guessing. No games.

-He saw the best in me, and in us. We didn't need to earn his love, or attain any status, to earn his love. It was there, and it stayed.

-The playfulness. We too often undersell the playfulness of God. 

A friends once told me of a time, in high school, when she contemplated some serious self-harm. One night, she got stuck in a devolving, self-loathing mental/emotional spiral. She began considering how she could hurt herself, and when to do it.

 

Who intervened?

 

The family dog -- bounding into her bedroom with the grace of a dump truck to lick her face, bother her for pets, climb into her lap. The dog broke through the spell of shame. She broke free of the spiral.

Dogs know when we ache. They may not be able to pay off a credit card, or recite math equations, or change a tire, but they are keen students of their pack.

A question I plan to ask God someday: why is the span of a pet's life is so truncated compared to our lives? It cleaves me in two to have to let go of this companion. Why do they have to age so fast? I'd gladly take the pain of this with the love we knew for all these years. But wow, the pain screams.

 

Also: do I believe all dogs go to heaven? 

 

I'll put it this way: I believe in the resurrection of the dead, and of God "making all things new" (Revelation 21), and that would not just be humans, but all creation. The bonds we form with these creatures are a gift from God. It's unfathomable that God would withdraw this gift forever. I look forward to playing with this special dog, my sweet boy again. I love him so.

 

nothing gold can stay

"Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay." -Robert Frost

-----

My kid recently checked out this interesting book from the library. 

 

It's titled Astonishing and Extinct Professions (89 Jobs You Will Never Do). It gives succinct descriptions of long-forgotten vocations, such as Whalebone Rippers, Armpit-Hair Pluckers (ouchie), Waker-Uppers, and so on (if you're looking for a gift to give a nephew, niece, or young cousin in your life, it's informative and enjoyable to read).

Three of the professions caught my ear as the book was read to me: the roles of 'Wailing Women (Professional Mourners)'/'Mutes' and 'Funeral Jesters.' In many ancient civilizations, these pros were paid to come to a funeral, cry, pull out their hair, spread ashes on themselves. They often didn't know the person who'd died. Their wailing helped the family and loves ones of the deceased grieve more deeply. 

 

The mutes were men hired to stand silently with the mourners, to look somber. They walked with the funeral procession. They wore all black, except if a child had died -- then they wore white.

 

The funeral jesters would imitate the deceased person during the funeral procession (can you imagine??). The jester would re-tell their favorite jokes, act out important life moments. They humorously revived the dead for one last time. This would give the grieving a chance to reminisce about the departed in a playful, loving way.

 

"Wow," I thought when I heard this. This reminded me that past civilizations and customs have a lot to teach me. I'm sure you could learn a lot too. There's such wisdom in these ancient practices. 

 

How often do we truly make purposeful effort for remembering good times, and for celebrating good things? How well do we make purposeful effort -- truly, set time aside -- for thoughtfully mourning sad things? Always in a hurry to move past. Onward and upward. Gotta get to the next task, gotta keep moving. Always something else to do, somewhere else to be.

 

The train almost never makes an extended pit stop.

Maybe it should.

To stop to acknowledge a blessing reminds us we've been blessed. It also helps counter the weight we feel when a blessed thing comes to an end. 

 

To stop to acknowledge a sadness reminds us that, save the love of God, nothing lasts forever. As good things come, good things go, and that is the reality of life. Nothing gold can stay. 

What's a blessing you have that you would do you well to stop, to ponder more, and to thank God for it? Surely there's some blessing.

What's a sadness you have that you would do well to stop, to ponder more, and to ask God for comfort and hope in your time of sorrow? Surely there's some sadness.

 

We rejoice, and we weep. Many sadnesses mourn blessings that were never designed to last forever.

 

A time to mourn, and a time to dance. Many blessings are of sadnesses vanquished.

 

God doesn't ask us to experience any feeling in this life that he hasn't experienced. It fills our hearts with joy to feel the blessings. And it hurts like hell to bear the sorrows.

"We are not infinite
We are not permanent
Nothing's immediate
And we pretend like we're immortal" -Gone (Switchfoot)

Gone - Switchfoot

the one about the smell of death in the dorm

Gather round, all y'all:

The week my freshman year of college that our wing smelled like putrid, maggot-y death remains a core memory for me.

The Monday started like any other. The temperature outside had dropped, and that this meant we didn't want to open our room's windows. This also meant the building's central heat was on. These details are important. 

Our res hall had a unique layout: 

Each floor had six single-sex wings, with a lounge in the middle on each floor. A floor may have two wings of females, and one wings of males, etc. Each wing had its own community-style bathroom. Each wing had a door to the lounge that could be shut.

By Tuesday morning, we noticed a smell. It smelled like something gamey was left to rot in someone's microfridge. 

But since we were almost two dozen 18-year-old males in one wing and sharing one bathroom, the presence of an unwelcome odor wasn't that uncommon. We figured the scent would dissipate.

I woke up earlier than usual on Wednesday morning. This was not by choice. 

That faint rotting smell had come into our room (I shared with two others). "Surely we're not the source of this?" I thought incredulously. The three of us all showered every day and didn't keep food in the room, so it didn't make sense why we'd be the source of the odor. I opened the door to the hallway to go use the bathroom down the hall.

The rotten, warmed smell of death permeated the hallway, way stronger than our room.

Dry heaving, I rushed to the bathroom. So the smell wasn't from us (thank God); it had just crept through the door. A putrid, a brazen mix of cheap, brined propane gas smell and sulfuric nastiness. Now our entire floor knew, and we could not figure out the cause.

It didn't help that one of the girls from the adjoining wing had (sensibly) shut the door to our wing. The funk of death was contained to our wing, but that only spiked its pungency for us.

By Thursday, it overpowered us. Something had died, somewhere. There's no mistaking that smell. Even the dude who was always in his room with his girlfriend had come out to complain about it.

I made arrangements to sleep in a friend's room that night. 

After my first class, I gulped in a big breath of air, opened the door to our wing, and ran to my room. 

While in the hallway, I saw a floormate, Chris. We nodded at each other in grim acknowledgment that we didn't want to talk, because talking meant taking in more breaths, and that meant taking in more of this foul funk of life departed. 

Chris' eyes suddenly widened, he shouted "oh [EXPLETIVE]!?!" and ran into his room.

He instantly sprinted back out of his room to the outside. He also happened to be carrying one of his jackets ... at arm's length. 

Not much time passed before we noticed the smell had lost some of its potency. Were we just delirious from the lack of non-contaminated oxygen? No, it was definitely weaker.

We later learned that nasty truth from Chris' roommate: Chris had gone quail hunting the weekend before. While out in the tall grass, he bagged a quail, but in a rush to keep walking forward to hunt, he placed the dead quail in his pocket. 

He then subsequently forgot about it being there. For four days. 

It didn't help that when he got home, he tossed his jacket onto the floor of his room, next to the heat register. This gave the decomposing, liquefying stench extra motivation to permeate out and disgust us all.

What did help was that Chris was such a gregarious, likable fellow. Our annoyance at him for this fowl foul wafted away as the scent left our wing. Before long, we were laughing about it.

It was another two days before the girls in the adjoining wing let us open the door to the shared lounge, though. In hindsight, I can't blame them at all.

best imposter of myself

Imposter syndrome club, at some time or another, has counted us all as members.

"I'm not good enough to be here," we mutter to ourselves about [pick the situation]. "I don't belong. I'm such a fraud, an imposter."

This could be a friend group. A class, a degree program, or a school. A club. A relationship. A team. A job. An opportunity. You name it. Friends could tell us we belong; people wiser than us can affirm that we're up to the challenge ahead of us. People that know us, and love us, can bellow into our faces all day long these assertions.

But still, these positive reinforcements clang off our self-imposed armor of suck like jump shots off the backboard.

How do we step around this self-doubt?

I propose some ways to bypass this imposter syndrome (in other words, these are some ways that've helped me).

Bypass Way #1: Let's face facts. We suck ... at assessing ourselves when it comes to certain things.

This should not be news to you, or to me. Sort of how we can't tell when we have a piece of food stuck between our front teeth, but others can notice right away.

Sometimes, we need to admit that others can offer us a fairer assessment about ourselves than we can. Not just anyone else, but wise people who love us, want us to succeed, and who wish us well. We gotta recognize that their input is more accurate than our self-perception. In other words, we suck at fairly assessing ourselves. We gotta doubt our doubts.

Bypass Way #2: Let's re-frame imitating and pretending. 

What's so wrong with imitating, pretending to be something we're not quite?

Hear me out.

As little kids, we felt zero qualms about imitating, and playing pretend. We pretended we were doctors, musicians, fashion designers, scientists, construction workers, professional athletes, or soldiers. 

What all did you pretend to be? 

Our playgrounds, stages, and imaginations held court to so many instances of us pretending to be someone we weren't. 

You've done this. I have too.

Who hasn't stood in front of a mirror, holding a comb, and pretended to to be a famous singer?

But somewhere along the way, we got this idea that if we're watching and imitating others to a degree, we must be fake. We must be imposters. But we didn't always regard imitating and copying this way. 

I tell you this to remind you that imitating isn't always bad. It's often good and wise. 

A chef learns how to expertly cut vegetables by watching someone else do it first. A carpenter learns how to expertly use equipment by first apprenticing and watching someone else work. We all imitate. You're only really aware that you do this, and don't give much thought to if anyone else does. Imitating doesn't make you an imposter. There's wisdom in following an example.

Bypass Way #3: It's not a one-time fix. Imposter syndrome isn't something we overcome once, and that's that. A mentor taught me to think of battling imposter syndrome as akin to pulling weeds. Weeds never, ever go away for good. But weeds can be uprooted and thrown out to allow good plants to flourish. The more we fight the feeling of being an imposter, the easier the fight gets.

So pretty please, try these bypasses when you feel something like an imposter, a fraud ... when you feel like you don't belong.

Trust the words of loved ones as much (if not more) than you trust your own thoughts.

Remember everyone's long history of imitating, and how much we've grown by copying wise examples in our lives.

And keep after those weeds.

It gets easier.