Grief

Grief is an odd thing.

In the week after we lost Angel, I felt entirely at a loss, as if I'd come unanchored. It wasn’t just the dog's loss, but more the portion of my life that included dogs: walks in the morning, feeding time afterward and when I first get home in the evenings, grooming and bathing and petting and playing. The lack of walks hit especially hard for some reason. I like to walk, and had started walking with Balou, the chocolate lab we lost to a probable cancer two years ago. I walked him for 13 years, and then walked Angel for another two. I set my alarm clock forward, as if signaling to my body that it was okay to get that extra bit of sleep I would have spent on walking. And I still felt depressed.

And, sitting in front of my computer without the energy to work on anything positive, I started checking the dog rescue sites. I'd been talking about getting a German Shorthaired Pointer once Angel passed (we knew she was getting on in years, and after Balou's loss it was understood that the next dog we got would be my choice; Angel was technically my son's dog, who ended up in my care once her geriatric needs became too much for him to deal with). The GSP club has a lot of local rescue groups, and there was one in my area. They didn't have any dogs that really fit my requirements, though; their four available dogs were either male, or older females. I'd had enough of caring for older or elderly animals for a while.

Then, my husband having picked up on my interest in getting another dog, we started looking on the Petfinder.com site, which showcases dogs in SPCAs and other dog rescue agencies, mostly mixed breeds. And we found not a GSP, but a Doberman mix female, a year old, who had a nice face.

And it dawned on me, as I vacillated over whether or not to go see this dog (because I knew if I went to see her I'd adopt her, having created some sort of commitment toward the animal and knowing they all needed homes), that I wasn't grieving for Angel. We'd known we were going to lose her, even before she became ill that final time. I was grieving for Balou, whose loss came as a terrible shock and still brings tears to my eyes. I was grieving, too, for the person I was before he fell ill, for the person who didn't have to make decisions that meant life and death to the four-legged members of our household.

Long story short, I went to see the dog one day and she was not there, though I'd been promised she would be. My husband said that maybe that was an omen, and we should look at a different dog. I still felt obligated to give this one her chance, though, and went the next day (the Sunday of Labor Day weekend) to a second adoption "fair", and there she was. Kaylee came home with us Sunday.

She's got some bad habits that will have to be corrected, but they aren't anything I can't handle or train her out of. She has a lovely shape and very attentive personality, one of my biggest requirements, and while she's not exactly what I thought I was looking for I know she fits into our family very well. My son and husband both love her. And so do I. (We started walking again yesterday morning.)

Recognizing what I was grieving over gave me the leverage to deal with the pain and, while it will never go away completely, I can put it aside. Pain is the cost of loving, but for all of that, it's worth it.

Pashazade and the antihero

I recently completed Jon Courtenay Grimwood's book (debut? I’m not sure), Pashazade. It's a fascinating read for many reasons, not least of which is the setting: a North African Muslim city on the edge of the Mediterranean, a playground for the wealthy and place where other faiths and belief systems collide with the strict underpinnings of the Muslim faith. I have a short story I've yet to be able to make work that incorporates some of the same alternate history that Grimwood uses, so I was intrigued from the start.

What kept me reading, though, were his characters. I thought the way he handled his anti-hero protag was instructive. Not to be spoilerish, but while the guy has the makings of a serious black hat type his personality is such that I really, really enjoyed watching him navigate through his world. I was thrilled that he survived to make something out of the mess resulting from his aunt's murder.

(More than that I can't say without getting seriously spoilerish, so mum is the word.)

For a writer, it's instructive to see this antihero succeed, to feel myself beginning to root for him. It's an opportunity to see what it is that makes a character likeable.

When did I know I liked him? I think it was his insistence, both to others and to his own battered psyche, that he had been willing to go to prison for a murder he hadn't committed because he was afraid what his erstwhile employer would do to him if he didn't. The internal fear was the catalyst for me because it revealed the depth of his acquaintance with misery and how very badly he wanted to avoid more of the same – and prison was the lesser of those evils! (I work for a state agency intimately involved in the criminal justice system; I know what a prison is like, and I appreciate the reality of Raf's choice – and Grimwood's depiction of it.)

The story itself is fast-paced, with murders and mysteries and shocks to the system throughout, as well as an eminently believable blend of cultures and mores. There's lots of information to get across to the reader, but Grimwood manages it without any sense of infodump or authorial intrusion. And, better yet, this is the first in a series – yay! I'm looking forward to reading more about Raf and his city.

And maybe there's hope for my short story yet. >;-]