Nali’s memorial tonight was more than I ever expected. My family and friends are amazing. It was low key and fun and celebratory and perfect.
My friends that couldn’t be here sent the perfect accoutrement: a shirt with her peeping out the pocket, an L-paw-print-N-necklace … I felt so loved.
Working through writing an obituary:
Where do I even begin?
Do I start at the very beginning, when I was like “oh I’ll just go look at a dog” and the first one I went to see, I fell in love with?
She was never what I wanted her to be; but she was exactly what I needed. I thought I wanted a friendly dog I could take everywhere and anyone could play with, but in truth I needed a one-person dog, whose love you had to earn, because she was mine and we were special.
What did I learn from Nali?
I always tell the story of her and the chicken tender trash IN MY BED. https://www.dailyhap.com/a-raw-chicken-s-lesson-in-forgiveness/
How absolutely boundless my capacity to love is… Forgiveness. Treasure. Unconditional.
All the advice from a daaaawg on dailyhap:
https://www.dailyhap.com/?s=advice+from+a+daaaawg
A quote that’s helping me:
https://www.dailyhap.com/love-loss-collide/
“… I underestimated the intensity of this moment. It is beyond hard. The pain I feel is worse than I imagined and my grief feels palpable. But to grieve this hard can only mean that in this lifetime I got to love that big…and for that I am grateful.” – Seane Corn
This is what I would consider the obituary, that I didn’t say at the site of the things and white bread we threw into the ground to commemorate her:
What did I learn from Nali?
What didn’t I learn from Nali? I learned everything with her. We grew up together.
We little baby Texans grew into outdoorswomen who loved to frolic in the snow—which we experienced for the first time together. We lived out my childhood dreams of living by the beach and found out the various pros AND cons of that lifestyle.
We dated together, made friends together, road tripped together. She was never my shadow, she was always by my side or running up ahead of me on a trail. We worked together, she slept in the car while I went to yoga, she rode in the jeep with no top and no doors, strapped into a doggie seat belt. She hosted every party with me—mostly barking at people, which is probably a good thing for keeping strangers away—and retold most of my crazy last night stories with me on morning walks with Natalie. She dug into my most expensive leather couch I’d ever bought to make it more comfortable for herself; she took over my closet as her safe space when she started to be in pain. She FaceTimed me while I was away; she always came to nuzzle me when I cried, we learned to deal with immense loss together. We felt JB’s presence together; we dealt with other traumas personal and professional with long talks and walks.
I watched her be herself completely unbothered with how people reacted, and thought hey maybe I can do that too. I watched her never let people push her boundaries, and thought hey maybe I can do that too. I watched her snuggle and love and wiggle and dance and most definitely thought I should do that too.
We shared everything. We grew up together, and as I thought about losing her, my biggest refrain was that I truly don’t know who I am without her, because I’ve never been an adult without her.
But that’s the thing about a love like ours: it’s foundational—it can’t go away. It bolsters, it fortifies, it reminds. 16 years with her prepared me for the rest of my life without. Of course I know who I am without her, because I am exactly who she believed me to be: above all else, unconditionally loving, an adventure buddy, protector and provider and challenger.