Wisdom through suffering

For the first time in a long time, I've not experienced any waves of grief, I haven't felt like I'm drowning in despair and my heartbreak seems to be developing a thin layer of scar tissue and is possibly beginning to heal.  I don't feel like I'm suffering with my loss.  It is dissapating as I simply experience the loss without suffering and that I'm beginning to understand the difference: suffering with the feeling of loss is paralyzing. This, as opposed to simply feeling a sense of loss without suffering.  For me, the suffering associated with the loss of my Jersey is related to the sense of finality that comes with death; the sense that she is gone forever and that forever is a long, long time.  Hopefully someday I'll be 90 years old and she still will not have come back.

I don't know if I believe the concept of being reunited in Heaven.  No one has ever come back to tell me it's true.  Those that might have come back to give an answer haven't; they are dead. I think we take a sense of comfort from telling ourselves that there will be a joyous greeting upon arriving at the pearly gates.  I also think the idea of death is so incomprehensible that we had to create the idea that death isn't really final there. It is a nice thought, I just don't know if I can buy into it only to have it turn out not to be true.

My aim is not to engage in a discussion of the reality of heaven, it's to share my evolution from suffering to a deep sense of loss which I can accept and even begin to live with.  I will always miss Jersey; there will always be something gone from my life that can never be replaced.  My realization is that I don't have to suffer as a result of it. Loss is just one of those feelings associated with our human experience and ultimately is one of our emotions. Accepting loss for what it is rather than asking "why" is a much healther attitude than drowing in our suffering.

This evolution I think is best expalined by a quote from Aeschulys, an ancient greek poet and dramatist: "He who learns must suffer.  And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God."

I've learned it is OK to experience loss.  We wouldn't even know what it is unless there was a flip side to it. A sense of discovery.  I am discovering it is possible to love and accept another dog into my life.  Jersey will never be replaced and I will always miss her. But someday I'm counting on the loss slowly being replaced by joy.  Joy at what I have and joy at what I had with Jersey.