My dog died, and I feel guilty (discussing cumulative grief)

My dog just died.  My Husky, Koda.  I adopted him from a shelter 12 years ago – my boys were only five and seven.  He grew along with them, and when Libby came along, he easily adapted to having a baby and two roughhousing little boys climbing on him, pulling his hair, and curling up to sleep beside him.  He was a ride-or-die, gentle, laid-back ball of fluff through divorce, moving, and death.  He outlived my daughter, which is wrong on so many levels.  

Koda was a great old boy, and having to put him down was just another box checked on the list of terrible things that have happened to me in the past year.  If we’re keeping score, I’ve lost my dad, my stepmom, my daughter, my marriage, and now my dog.  Oh, and my mom has pancreatic cancer.  

My dog’s death has me thinking a lot about cumulative grief (also called compound grief).  Cumulative grief happens when one person experiences several deaths, traumatic events, or losses in a short amount of time.  

According to this article by the Georgetown Psychology website, “Cumulative grief is what happens when you do not have time to process one loss before incurring another. The losses come in too rapid a succession for you, the bereaved, to heal from the initial loss. The difficult emotions which come from the initial loss bleed into the experience of the second loss.

If there is a third loss, then the emotions from both the first and second losses get tangled up with the emotions of the third. So on and so forth. As you accumulate losses, processing the grief from each one becomes harder to handle.”

I am, obviously, a shining example of this definition.  You would think that with all of the death I’ve experienced, that I might be ready to crumble or have trouble functioning, or that the most prevalent feeling in my life would be sorrow or anger.  

But it’s not.  It’s GUILT.  Guilt is by far the biggest emotion that I feel when it comes to the shitshow my life has been.  

Guilt is what I felt this weekend as I sat by my faithful pooch’s side while the veterinarian administered the drug that put him to sleep.  I wanted to cry.  I felt like I should be crying.  Under normal circumstances, before this year, I would have been crying, because it was freaking sad.  

Instead, I felt terrible because I couldn’t cry for my dog at all.  I felt guilty because at that moment, sitting on the floor in the vet’s office… I was thinking about Libby.  My mind went to a picture of her curled up next to Koda, watching her iPad.  And then it wandered, as it so often does, to her accident. 

Koda’s death was so quiet and calm.  A quick injection to make him sleep; another to stop his heart.  It was over in minutes, and he didn’t let out so much as a whimper.  As I pet his fur in his last moments, I wondered if Libby’s death was that quick and painless.  Or was she conscious and terrified, wishing I was there in her last seconds before the paramedics found her D.O.A.?  Why couldn’t I be there at HER last moments, to hold her, kiss her, tell her I loved her and that everything was going to be ok?  

Here’s the thing – when your child dies, EVERY OTHER DEATH seems insignificant.  

I had three months to mourn my father and stepmother before Libby died.  During that time, I cleaned out their home, helped arrange both funerals, and cried a lot.  I found myself randomly dialing my dad’s phone number to tell him things, only to remember he couldn’t answer.  I had only started to feel the significance of the loss when my daughter died.  Since her death, I have barely thought about it.  

It’s the same with my divorce. My first one left me almost completely broken.  This one?  I just felt relieved that I didn’t have to deal with any more drama.  

The guilt is especially significant when it comes to my mom, who is battling pancreatic cancer.  I try to be helpful, but I rarely have the energy or patience to be the daughter I should be.  I know I should be more sad, more encouraging, more of a partner in her fight.  But Libby’s death has just sucked all of the encouragement and fight right out of me.  

It’s like now that my child has died, I’ve experienced the worst thing that could possibly happen, and so nothing else matters.  Every other crappy experience pales so much in comparison that I’m left without the energy or care to mourn for anything or anyone else like I should.   A permanent attitude of “Ugh.  Whatever.” has taken up residence in my brain.  

It makes me nervous that someday down the road the weight of all of these cumulative griefs – the ones I’m not getting to process because they’re so overshadowed by the loss of Libby – will come crashing down on me.  I hope they don’t.

So RIP Koda, and thank you for being the most chill Husky ever.  I wish I could muster the tears you deserve. 

Watch the video for this topic HERE!