We were celebrating an anniversary in March when we got the call: our beloved black shepherd, a weary, starving stray who'd been shot in the face when we found him dragging a thick chain 13 years earlier, was suddenly, seriously ill.
He lingered for a week at the vet's before we ended his misery. As I dug his grave on a slope overlooking the lake, the thawing ice seemed to sigh in sympathy.
We cried for weeks, then pushed the feelings away, deep down, where they wouldn't threaten to boil over at inopportune moments. All spring and summer his grave lay bare because no words on a stone could capture his essence or the joy he brought us.
Then, at a recent crafts fair of an animal rescue group, I spotted the perfect grave marker. I ordered one without dates or epitaph, just the letters "Jericho" cut out of powder-coated steel on the front of a cross, with a small heart on either side.
As I told his story to the vendors, I was mortified to find myself starting to cry. Strangers, they looked away and busied themselves with the paperwork of the sale. I thanked them and quickly moved on, hoping no one else would notice the tell-tale pink nose and red-rimmed eyes.
But it got me to thinking about the discomfort we always feel when our emotions overtake us and about how helpless it seems we are in the face of another's pain.
Only a few weeks before, I'd driven down an alley from a parking lot when I passed a young man crouched near the back door of a business. One glance at his posture — shoulders hunched and shaking, knees drawn up, head in hands — told me he was suffering.
Pulling up alongside, I rolled down my window and asked if he needed help. When he didn't respond, I drove on. But I only got a couple of yards before I stopped again, knowing I wouldn't relax until I made sure.
"If you tell me to go away, I will," I said, as I approached, hoping to spare us both embarrassment. Instead he began to talk; about how he was new to the area and new to his job, and about how his years of responsibility to a dependent family member were taking their toll on him and his career. He'd just received a phone call saying he was needed again and more time away from work would jeopardize yet another job.
As I patted his shoulder and listened, I thought about a few times in my life when all seemed hopeless and when only the kindness of friends and strangers convinced me otherwise.
Now I'm hoping a friend who just lost her child will be able to draw that same comfort from the kindness of others. There's little we can do to ease her grief. But we can be there. We can listen. And sometimes that's enough.
Reach staff writer Marta Hepler Drahos at mdrahos@record-eagle.com.
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