Learning To Let Go

Learning to Let Go

“It’s congestive heart failure,” the veterinary cardiologist said. Before that week, I hadn’t known such specialists existed. A leaky mitral valve had finally reached its tipping point, and my sweet little companion of eight years was very sick. He still barked at the UPS drivers and at the twin Boston terriers who paraded their sleepy owner past our window each morning. He ate well and let me know when it was time to go outside.

But in spite of regular doses of very expensive medicine, he was not getting measurably better. His rattling cough caught us both off guard several times a day and into the wee hours of the morning, and I felt helpless to soothe it. As he lay curled in my lap, I could feel his heart thumping in his thin, heaving chest.

So I began learning to let go.

I tried to imagine my house without the sound of feet on the hardwood floor, and I pictured the sofa minus his silky self stretched across the back. I considered the strangeness of not being followed from room to room, or of having no need to shoo him away from licking my wet feet when I stepped from the shower. I wondered what it would be like to wake up on cold mornings and not feel his weight plastered warmly along my spine.

I didn’t want to give him up, but I knew the choice would not be mine.

Isn’t that just like life? So much we can’t command and don’t expect. Lots of uncertainty. Countless opportunities to practice releasing our tightening grip and to trust the hand that grips us. But even with determined practice, we never seem to get much better. Sometime toward the end of Owen’s life, I wrote these words:

God, help me to let go of what you would have me release, and cling only to that to which you would have me cling. Clarify for me the difference between the two. May the way I spend this day be a pleasing aroma to you. Let its altars be placed closer together, not farther apart. Teach me to order and savor this day so that at its end I will have loved you—and others—well.

Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love.

Lamentations 3:32, NIV