We are Attached to the Body

I am coming up on almost 9 months, on June 2, of being separated in this realm from my beloved Ranger. I have entered into a new landscape in this journey of loss and connection. I find myself more than at any other time during this grief walk over the last 3/4ths of a year, just wishing I could 'go back'. Back to my life with Ranger during the 12 years we were together physically. The signs & messages of love still continue to flow from Ranger, I know he is with me spiritually and I am continually soothed and grateful by his reassuring messages, but I know I have arrived at a new touchstone in my grief process that finds me missing the tactile relationship I had with him now more than ever. There really is no spiritual salve for the physical loss. The shape of my grief right now can best be summed up as a persistent longing for him in his physical form and for the life we shared together.

I have talked about navigating this new landscape with my pet-loss counselor, Sandi, and she said something to me a few weeks back that has really resonated with me and that I have continued to journal about since our conversation - her thought communicated to me was that "We are attached to the body".

It's a strange landscape to find myself in these days. To the rest of the world, Ranger is forgotten, unknown or no longer acknowledged. I almost find myself in almost a shadow space these days - remembering his physicality down to the smallest details, the memory even clearer now than in the weeks shortly after his death, all the while the acknowledgement of him by those around me is withering. I long and mourn for his physical body in a penetrating way. These three states exist simultaneously in my these days: 1. I miss the expression of Ranger's being and soul through his physical form, 2. I also feel deeply connected with his spirit in my heart and through my intuitive/psychic abilities, and 3. I deeply grieve the permanent goodbye to his one and only physical body. Perhaps it has taken all these months for this truth to really settle in my being, that I will never see him in that body again in this physical realm. There is no amount of connection with his spirit that can soften the hard reality of this loss. I want to go back...

My pet-loss counselor and I have discussed in our sessions, our own experiences and general societal practice of dealing with the body of the deceased beloved. It seems that most of society wants the body to be quickly whisked away after our beloved has stopped breathing. In my own experience I remember family members and friends whose bodies were quietly and quickly taken away after death, to be prepared with embalming fluid, clothes and makeup for viewing at the wake. Or my StepFather, who's body was quickly ushered out of the hospice house and into the morgue, where he lay in cold solitary stillness for almost a week before his body was cremated.

Sandi shared with me the after-death story of one of her cats when her cat passed, and how simply due to logistics of pickup by the crematorium she had the experience of spending the night beside her deceased feline companion. She spoke of how the body changes, and you have to be prepared for that, but most of all she spoke of the deep peace and grace those still hours at night with her cat's body beside her gave her. I felt wistful hearing her story, and it ignited something in my soul that made me realize that our time with the body after death is important. It may not be everyone's wish, but I think of the peace that a few quiet hours with the body after death could give those left living. After all we will never see that body again.

I have pain intermingled with my gratitude over the experience of Ranger's body after he left it that September 2nd noon under the large tree. I have deep gratitude that Ranger left us in peace and in love, but residual pain over spending such a brief time with his body after he passed. The vet had told us we could stay with him a while under the tree after he died, but in my mind I was already thinking about how busy the clinic was and I was thinking about how my boyfriend needed to get back to work. I held Ranger for 15 minutes before we got up - and for the first time in my life with Ranger, I left his body on the ground and drove off in our truck, never to return to his physical form. Leaving his body there went against every grain in my being, I had never left Ranger anywhere unattended - and I always came back to him. I regret my overly empathetic and co-dependent nature that made me put the needs of others over the need I had that afternoon to stay with Ranger's body for just a while longer. I know that Ranger is not disappointed, but for me I would have liked to have held vigil and sacred space till it felt right for me to leave.

I wonder at almost 9 months, how this would have been for me to hold space for his body, to be able to spend a final few hours with his beautiful body in my arms...under that large tree, with his soft green car coat under him and a yellow blanket over him, holding him as I looked off into undulated green, distant corn fields under the overcast sky...

Last week I took his ashes Rosewood box out of his sacred area in the cab of my truck and placed it by my bedside. I could only have it there for a few days, because the first thought that would come into my mind when I entered the bedroom was, "Ranger is in that box." I know that Ranger is not in that box, but his body is. It was a painful and yet I believe necessary touchstone having this internal dialog about his body versus his spirit over these few days his ashes box was visible. It has helped me come to a place of unfettered awareness that while life and relationship with the spirit goes on, that our time with our loved one's presence in the body is over. An era has come to an end, at the same time the relationship in new form is growing and continuing. I find the holding of these two realities something so deep and paradoxical that I can't really put this experience into words.

Ranger's ashes box went back into the underside of the truck cab. Before I put his cremated body back in his space, I put the box on my throne chair in his outside memorial garden and lit a little bowl of sage. I cried and talked with my boyfriend through my tears. He said something to me so simple and profound that it gave me meaning in this phase of my loss, he said that we always protected Ranger's body in life and we continue to protect and honor his body now as ashes. In that moment I realized that while Ranger is not his body, we continue to care and hold reverence for the physical remains of the dear dog I will never stop loving. I then bound Ranger's box with eucalyptus and laid out his soft favorite blanket on the cab floor after vacuuming the truck floor carpet. I put a cross under the eucalyptus encircled tree of life box. I lit a small tea light candle near the box, and kept the cab door open for several hours as I sat in our yard near the truck. Sometimes I just sat for a while thinking of Ranger, and then I would do something in our garden nearby. When the tea light extinguished, I shut the truck door, and had a feeling inside that Ranger was somehow content that we are still honoring, caring for and making space for his body.

We are attached to the body.