No Room for Waiting

This time last year, I sat in a waiting room at the Emergency Veterinary Clinic. I was waiting for answers, and test results, and words of encouragement. Waiting for someone to tell me what to do, how to feel, when it was time to say goodbye. Waiting for certainty and confidence that never came. I learned that asking for help in letting go is essentially the same as holding on. You’re not looking for a clean break, or a push forward. You’re not looking for courage or strength. You’re waiting for that one, tiny, viable truth to breathe life into your world, as you know it. You’re waiting for a sign that shows you nothing’s changed. That nothing HAS to change. You’re waiting for a miracle.

And sometimes, it seems as if I’ve spent my life waiting for these tiny miracles. Events, and people, and things to guide me – to make my decisions FOR me. To tell me who I am, and who I’m supposed to be. I’ve spent most of my life avoiding choices, conflict, pain. Most of these years, waiting for life to happen TO me. And that’s not the way it’s supposed to be. Avoidance isn’t a pathway, and we can’t stumble on our autonomy by standing still. By waiting. My life had become a waiting room.

For years, I’d been dreading these inevitably difficult decisions – to fight or let go – for our sweet girl to keep fighting or let go. Because she would’ve kept fighting. We asked her to keep fighting. But when the call came later, to tell us she was struggling, her little lungs couldn’t find the air, her heart was failing, we made the choice to break our own and let her go. No more waiting.

When we said goodbye, no one came to tell me how to carry this grief, or how to negate it. No one told me how to set it down and move on. But I had all of you, and you helped me lift it. You made it lighter somehow. All of you, who joined the Facebook page I created to keep her alive in my head, and in my heart. You continued to speak to me, and you spoke to her, and you made it possible for me to see her face and hear her voice. I feel her with me every day. And I never asked for your support. I never had to wait for that. You just showed up – as family. You became our family.

And then came the promise of a little Sprout, a salve to soothe our wounded souls, a receptacle for the vast reserves of love still weighing on my heart. I asked for help to deploy it, and I didn’t have to wait. You came together and you found her. You gifted and brought her to me, with the resolve to help me start over again.

We’ve had Sproutie since June, and I’ve hesitated to give her a voice. Maybe I’m afraid I’ll lose Bean’s, or worried I won’t hear her anymore. But I started this blog to chronicle our new beginning, to continue sharing our lives with you. I started, and then I waited. There were things I wanted to share every day, for all these months, but I went back to waiting. I sat down to write, I waited again. I posted on Facebook and waited some more. And I know all it takes is one step in the right direction, one small step forward, but I’ve never been good at getting started.

And here we are, an entire year from the day we lost Bean, and many months from the day we welcomed our Sprout. And I have to be finished with waiting. If Sproutie’s taught me anything so far, it’s the power of perseverance. Waiting is NOT an option. And as for her own voice – I guess she can “HAS” it. We hope you’ll continue on our journey while we grow, and may this blog not be an ending, but the start of a beautiful beginning.