Here we are again
How does seven years, in one second, feel like seven decades while in the next, seven minutes?
Time is a conundrum, a slippery sense that confuses just as much as it marks things out. It was seven years ago that Susie-Belle died. It feels far longer. But then it doesn’t. It feels like the dog who changed me and my life has only just gone from it. Susie-Belle changed how I view the world. She changed how I choose to go through my days and where I want to spend my time.
In the seven years without her, my life has undergone a radical change. Not all of the changes are directly down to Susie-Belle, but there are threads which connect everything to her if I look for them. Those threads are weaving their way into the book I am writing. A book that is taking me a long time to finish. Perhaps because there is so much I want to say, but am struggling to. A little more time is needed and a lot more work to be done.
Seven years ago Susie-Belle died and in the seven days following her death, my dad began his final slide into death. It took until the following Spring for dad to die, and those winter months were long and miserable. Writing about them is hard. As I grieved for Susie-Belle, so my anticipatory grief for dad became knitted together. When I reflect on this time and the months following dad’s death, it seems like decades ago. Time and its mercurialness.
I’ve been sitting this morning thinking about Susie-Belle as memories pop up on social media from 21 November 2015. Michel is away so I’m home alone with the dogs and Cosette and plenty of memories. The weather is atrocious, wind and rain hitting the windows and not one of the dogs wants to go outside. Neither do I so we’re good. If it clears later we’ll head out up the hill.
I’ve been looking through photos of the life Michel and I shared with Susie-Belle. Four years which should have been far, far longer. I feel she was cheated of so much time. Years where she was trapped in a breeding shed. Not enough years with us.
Before sitting to write this, I re-read a blog I wrote soon after her death.
I stood trying to be strong for Susie-Belle, I watched her struggle and resist, and I’m haunted by the thought that she was aware, and fought hard to be alive, to stay here in this world that she’d learned after so many unhappy years, could be beautiful.
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When I let my mind return to those final moments with Susie-Belle, I am as disturbed by it now, seven years on, as I was then. It feels like seven seconds ago.
What I have learnt during the time since, is that grief never really goes away. It is a constant in our lives. It resurfaces and we deal with it again. And again. It is part of being human.
The wind is picking up outside, it’s a dirty day as dad would have said. A day to sit and enjoy going through photos of happy times, of which I am lucky to have had many in my life. Sitting here with Angel, Cerise and Albert Claude, none of whom knew Susie-Belle, but who are here because of her.
