Love endures all

Last night I finished organizing all of Ranger's photos through the years on my iPhone into his Ranger album. It's taken me a little over a year to organize all his photos, nearly 3000 in number.

I anticipated when I got to the photos during the last 6 months of his life that it was going to be difficult for me revisiting these times. But actually the photo review of this ending period was very healing and produced a deep peace and understanding in me that I hadn't had before. There were definitely moments I captured on camera in the season of his illness and dying where I saw the suffering, discomfort, sadness, emptiness and disorientation in his eyes. These are painful photos and videos to look at, and with all of my heart I wish that I could have taken any of those moments of suffering away from Ranger. These photos I did not add to his album, but nor did I delete them from the camera roll. I did delete the last 2 photos I took of his lifeless body, after his spirit departed from it...I don't know why I took those photos of his body under the tree wrapped in his soft camel-colored blanket, except maybe as a marker for me - that this was the end. I was able to look at those photos briefly when I got to them in the camera roll, they are peaceful - he looks like he was asleep, but he is gone. I knew I no longer wanted those photos on my phone - they served a purpose in the taking of them, but I did not need to see them anymore.

In the revisiting of his photos in the year 2020, I saw things now that at the time of capture I hadn't perceived. What I came away with after this review of the last year of his life was:

• We shared so many moments of deep love and joy in this final physical chapter together. I was surprised by how much joy I saw in these photos doing things together like canoeing, visiting lakes, getting ice cream together, taking picnics, being in the woods, being in our new RV, being together...It just amazed me, because my inner recollection of this time feels like a patchwork of trauma and triumph - I didn't fully remember the peace, the love and the joy until I revisited these photos.
• I understand now, deeply, that love endures all. It endures the death of the physical body, it endures all sickness and all hardship. Love wins in the end.
• I also understood in retrospect in a way that I didn't while going through it, that the last 6 months of Ranger's life, he was in decline. I had so many moments during that journey that were either full of fear or full of triumph...the volatile nature of the progression of his dying made it very hard to see that this indeed was a most definite process of saying goodbye. In the moment also, I fought so hard for him, his triumphs, rallies and miracles made me fight harder for him...I could not see at the time what I see now - that Ranger loved being with us so much, and us with him, that we persevered together through a walk of deep valleys and high mountain tops,  towards a destination of a certain end. This understanding I have had fills me with peace, because I know that I did the right thing for him when I did - I listened to the call on September 2, 2020 that I needed to have the courage to take him to God. In the high seas of illness it's almost impossible to understand when to fight and when to let go. I have seen this so many times during the terminal illnesses of my family members and friends, and I am filled with a grace and peace for anyone who goes through this process of  illness and dying with their beloved. It is not easy, and no one can judge. I just know now in my heart, that we just have to do everything we do from love. We will make mistakes, we will miscalculate things, we will not be able to avoid moments of suffering, but if we do everything from love there will be a holiness and grace in our relationships that will transcend all. And that the blessing of this love will endure all time.

Ranger, you are forever loved.