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I remember the day we went to the Durango, CO Humane Society to pick out a puppy; sure we would find our soul mate dog to complete our little family. This dog, I remember telling Dave my then fiancé, would be MY dog, the first dog I’d have in my adult life. MINE.

When we got there we didn’t find “the one”, and slightly relieved and slightly disappointed we started to leave when the desk lady said that there was a puppy that had JUST left for foster care with a local family, look his picture!

That was it, I knew. A little red healer/lab mix, mutt-ball of love, I said get him here!

I remember him being carried into the room, being set down on the floor 5-6 feet away from me, and as I watched, he wobbled straight to me and got right in my lap, sweet little red and brown puppy. I inhaled him and knew he was mine.

All the way home we argued over what to name him and finally settled on Boone. Since I wanted him to be called Dan and Dave loves all things western= Daniel Boone.

Boone was an instant lap dog, and even as his size increased over the next few years into a good sized medium dog, he continued to think he was just little. I let him sleep with me, spooning the dog instead of my then husband. When I put him in his kennel he’d whine, cry and stare at me from the bedside, so it was just easier.

Fast forward 13 years later, Dave and I have been divorced for about 10 years; there has been incredible pain and sadness between us. We made it through though, we’re still friends.

I was a drunk, an addict and in the end, Dave and the dogs dropped me at a drug and alcohol rehab in Taos, NM with sadness, not knowing if I would return or if he wanted me to return and, I project, a little relief.

Here I stayed. Taos, NM sheltered me from the wreckage I had made.

At the time, fresh from a 30-day inpatient program and beginning a 3 month sober living stint, I believed getting a divorce from Dave and staying in Taos, leaving my former life, was the best way to save my life. Still do.

I grieved; I remember crying for the better part of year. I grieved the idea of our marriage, the dream of our marriage. Missing our fur babies, which we mutually decided would stay with him as I was just learning how to be a human and barely able to take care of myself.

Recently Dave called to tell me Boone, now 13 years old, has nasal cancer. That his muzzle is swollen and that for a month or so he has been blowing blood all over Dave’s house, occasionally blowing pieces of what we think may be tumor out and all over everything.

With heavy sadness and practicality we decide Dave will see how the next vet appointment goes and possibly move to have him put down that following week.

A week goes by and Dave calls to report. Boone was put on some antibiotics that took all the swelling down and Dave felt for a moment like maybe he was going to be ok. They had a great week, Boone was his sweet totally lap obsessed narcissistic self, but towards the end of the week he started to decline again.

We’ve both been through end of life situations with animals and it never goes well when you wait. There is almost never a time when it’s clear that you should put an animal down. At least for me, I always wonder if I just killed my animal and I shouldn’t have.

Knowing all this and having had the same experiences, Dave went ahead and made the appointment.

Booney went peacefully, it was a sullen relief for Dave. He had been in process around his passing for months.

Over this period Dave and I had nice conversations about Boone and our other animals now dead and gone.

He told me stories about our life and Boone, which I do not remember much of honestly. I was either high on weed or drunk or hung over our entire relationship.

We met in his garden and had a conversation over his tomato patch one night when I ended up at his house after partying with him and his friends at a local bar.

After our first date I went to jail for a month for my second DUI because I was still on probation for my 1^st DUI… Yep.

We went on our second date after I got out of the slammer, (he’s told me this story, I didn’t remember it clearly), I guess I told him I had just gotten out of jail, I didn’t have a license, and could he please stop by the drug testing place so that I could do a BAC and a urine drug screen before we headed out on our date?

I really wonder at that now, what kind of person chooses to go ahead with loving someone like that and deciding to spend the rest of his life with them?

Whatever, I’m not going to take his inventory.

Boones passing, our conversations around it and Dave telling me stories about who I was and who WE were, triggered a whole cascade of grief for me in a way I had not previously been available to myself for processing.

I had some massive ah-has.

I am so fucking grateful he decided to love me anyway. Even though I was a wreck. Even though I wrecked or tried to wreck everything I touched, including him.

It’s my belief now, and maybe I’m wrong about this who knows; that I’d be dead if Dave hadn’t decided to love me. I would fucking be dead.

I was out there literally dancing on bars, being an escort, snorting coke off the back of toilet tanks in bars on weeks nights, dressed like a hooker, in heels in the middle of winter, getting fucked in alley ways, getting raped.

Trying to annihilate, trying to obliterate myself from the face of the earth.

Being here in Taos in my insular bubble of recovery and organic foods, mediation and therapy, I had blocked out what I couldn’t handle, maybe until right now.

I think when I got sober I grieved what I could, but just recently when Dave started telling me all the stories, I grieved again and in a new way.

I remembered myself as I was then, and acknowledged the parts of myself that have been coming back to me from that time. I’ve recently in the last few years seen the reemergence of the free spirited girl that got me into a ton of trouble in my teen years; but she sure is fun!

I let her back in and I forgave myself.

Man, I had not done that before at all, or very little.

I feel from that forgiveness, the most amazing lightness and decreasing of burden than I’ve ever felt before and a newfound ability to be closer to my heart.

Such a relief.

Greif from grief from grief came tumbling out and I processed stuff as far back as being a baby.

It was a hard month or so.

It has culminated in a recent visit from Dave. We planned a fun visit, as he has a boy who is the same age as my daughter. We had a nice time, but as everything is for me it was a great learning.

Something I’ve been trying to practice is to see the Other as right sized; to see reality, to ask what is actually true.

I’ve had a habit in my life of always seeing Others as having the upper hand, as being better than me, as having more power, more right to life than me.

Unworthiness has been the original sin wound for me, and it is slowly dissipating.

I notice that I no longer automatically think attractive men have more power than me. I know, silly right? But that’s what I always thought and that’s how I always ACTED too.

In the stories I had created about my previous life, I had made myself the wreck, the one who slayed our marriage and I always, in these fantasies, made Dave the kind, compassionate man who saved me.

The visit showed me the progress I’ve made and also showed me more of reality of the situation.

Mainly I saw that there is no going back. Only forward, it’s behind me for a reason.