The Grief Never Came

Before you read this post go do bilateral butterfly taps first. It will help you calm yourself so you're as ready as you can be, as you read. Death is a heavy subject, whether person or pet. ❤️

I was sitting on the living room floor next to Marshall's pen when my spirit guide said 2 words into my ear.

Death rites.

I had already made the appointment. The hospice vet was coming to the house in 2 days. My service dog, the one who spent years feeling everything I was working so hard to hide from everybody else, had told me that morning he was done fighting, and I had picked up the phone and done what I promised him I'd do.

And then my guides handed me back a thing I had put down years earlier and never once intended to pick up again.

I asked Marshall if he wanted me to do death rites for him.

He said yes.

Making the decision has always been the easy part

I was raised to do right by an animal even when doing right by them wrecks you. So making the call to give them a dignified and comfortable death has never been where I struggle. Living with the call is where I struggle!

When my dad found my first cat dead, I was 17 and I cried for a week straight. When I had to have my first horse put to sleep, I cried for weeks (she had been my best friend for 28 years, and I still don't have words big enough for that one). When my second cat started having strokes and lost his hearing, his sense of smell, his sense of where he was, and finally his ability to recognize me or his own brother (my service dog Marshall), the vet told me it would only get worse, and I made the decision that same day.

Weeks of grief after that one too. Weeks of guilt.

Every single animal that has ever died in my care went the same way: I made a clean decision, the right decision, and then the grief came for me like a wave that takes your breath and holds you under.

So I knew exactly what was coming with Marshall. Or at least, I thought I did.

The deal I made with him years before he needed it

I made Marshall a promise while I was in my medicine wheel training, long before his body started failing.

He had injured his back legs as a puppy, so we always knew the end of his life was going to be limpy and stiff. He had also been badly abused by his first owner, tortured really, which is why he was never completely comfortable around men he didn't know. He was my service dog, and he had spent years reading me better than any human ever has. So I told him: the day you tell me you're done fighting, I will have you humanely euthanized, no matter how that feels to me.

I mean it the same way I mean it for people. If a human being is terminal and suffering, I want them to have a death with dignity instead of a long slow and painful death, and I don't know why we'd give an animal less than that.

Communicating across distance with the spirit of a thing (an animal, a plant, a piece of land, a house, a person living or dead) is one of my gifts, so this was a real conversation and not a hopeful guess. I checked in with him often during that last year. Do you still want to be here? Are you still fighting? Tell me when it changes.

He got the only vote on when it was his time, and he knew it.

The last year was hard, and I'd do all of it again

About a year before he died, Marshall couldn't do the stairs to the second floor of our house anymore, so he started sleeping in a pen in the living room. We moved his brother Duke down there too, because separating them wasn't happening (that took several weeks and a training collar that only beeps and vibrates, so I could let Duke know that barking at 2am was a no from me!).

I worked closely with Marshall's vet the whole way, staying on top of every supplement and medication that would keep him comfortable for as long as possible.

The last three or four weeks were the hardest. He started losing control of his bowels, and he'd be walking down the hallway and just leave poop behind him. The last week he got sick on top of everything else and had diarrhea, so I bought potty pads and waterproof pads for the inside of his pen so he'd have somewhere to go. He still missed sometimes, and it still ended up in his bed a handful of times.

I cleaned him up every time. Changed his bedding, washed everything immediately, got him settled again, helped him down the 3 front steps whenever he wanted the yard, and let him lie in the grass in the sun for as long as he wanted to be out there.

As long as he was willing to keep fighting, that was my job, and I was happy to have it and these final moments with him.

What death rites actually is

Death rites is a process I learned during my medicine wheel training, and it's healing work done on both sides of a death: on the one who is dying, so it's easier for them to let go of this life, return to spirit form, and get ready for whatever comes next, and on the people (and animals) staying behind, so they can process the transition instead of getting bowled over by it.

The moment we started learning it, I knew offering it for humans was never going to be part of my job for this lifetime. I learned it because it was part of the curriculum, and then I set it down, because I could feel all the way through that it wasn't part of my purpose.

So I spent 2 days doing the thing I had walked away from. Healing work on Marshall. Healing work on me. Healing work on Duke, who was about to lose his brother.

The day the rainbow-bearded vet came to my house

The hospice vet showed up with his beard dyed in rainbow colors and I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever seen.

What told me who he really was, was Marshall’s reaction to him. He was completely at ease with Mr. Rainbow beard.

He gave Marshall the first shot to help him relax and put him to sleep, then said he'd wait on the porch about 30 minutes to let him get good and under before the second shot. While he was outside, I started the next portion of the death rites, which is quite literally preparing the body for death.

And then Marshall had a seizure.

I fully expected to come apart right there. But I didn’t. I stayed calm. I turned to my husband and said, "I need you to get the vet from the porch, Marshall just had a seizure," in the voice you'd use to ask someone to grab the mail.

The vet came in, checked him, said we could go ahead with the second shot, especially with seizures happening. He administered it. I asked if he'd mind giving me a minute to finish a ritual, and he said sure, and then he asked if he could stay and watch.

I told him he could. He stood back and stayed silent the entire time, respectful the whole way through, while I did the last step.

I felt Marshall's spirit leave his body. I knew he was gone before anybody checked.

Then the vet came over, listened for a heartbeat, confirmed it, and we loaded Marshall into the car and drove him to my parents' farm in North Carolina and buried him there with his sister Star (my horse), and his brother Caligraphy (my second cat).

Then I waited for the wave, and it never came

Marshall died on February 16, 2024 at exactly 9:49 am.

Since that day, I have cried over him maybe 3 or 4 times, and only a few tears each time. That's it. That is the entire volume of overwhelming and unsettling grief I have carried for a dog who slept against my legs through the worst years of my life.

When I think about him now, what I feel is total awe and appreciation. Appreciation for the time he was here, for the service he did for me, for his love and his company and how genuinely he cared about what was happening inside me on days when I was lying to everyone else about it.

That heart-wrenching grief that washes over you and takes your breath?

I have never felt it for Marshall, and I have felt it for every other animal I have ever loved.

That experience changed my relationship with death.

If your animal is dying, I'll do this for you

I still don't offer death rites for humans, because that part was never mine to carry.

Animals are a different story. Animals have a permanent, unreasonable, front-row seat in my heart, and I am absolutely willing to do this work for yours.

What that looks like: I do the healing work on your animal, on you, and on the other animals in your home, through the death itself, so your animal can let go and so you're supported while it's happening. You don't learn anything, you don't perform anything, and you don't have to hold yourself together. I do it, and you get to just be there with them.

If you want that, email me at [email protected] and tell me what's going on with your animal. I'll write you back with what the process would look like for your situation and what it costs.

FAQs

Q: Do you have to be there in person to do death rites for my pet? A: No. Working with the spirit of a being across distance is one of my gifts, so this can be done wherever you and your animal are. Tell me the situation when you email me and I'll walk you through how it would work for you specifically.

Q: Does this replace the vet? A: It doesn't touch your veterinary care at all. Marshall had a hospice vet in my living room administering both shots while I did this work alongside him. Keep your vet, keep your medications, keep your pain management, and let this run parallel.

Q: Is it too late if my pet already died? A: Email me and tell me when. There's healing work available for the ones left behind, and that's real work with real results, even when the death has already happened.

Q: What if I've already decided on euthanasia and I feel guilty about it? A: Guilt shows up for nearly everybody who has ever made that call, and it showed up for me 3 separate times before Marshall. Making the decision is usually the easy part. Living with it is the hard part, and that's exactly the part this work is for.