I took this photo of Rosie with the other dogs before we drove her to the vet. As always, one had the sense with Rosie that she could always read me, as this was one of the few times she ever looked at the camera for me. There is hardly any photograph of her looking at the camera, she would never submit to it. Drove me nuts.

I was very consciousness as we moved to put Rosie down of the unity of grief, of the selflessness of grief. Everyone on this world has experienced a loss of some kind – of a dream, a lover, a mother or father, a dog or a cat, a job or a hope. Grief is as universal as life, and there is a narcissism to grief that I made a conscious note to avoid. I do not see Rose as my loss, our loss. It is more than that. I saw grief in the eyes of the vet who euthanized Rose, in the vet tech who inserted the catheter, in the aide who prepared the room. I see it in the e-mails of people offering condolences who lost dogs and cats, horses and birds,  daughters, sons, husbands, wives, houses and jobs.

At every turn, I reminded myself that grief is not proprietary, it is not mine alone, it is one of the universal feelings, truths and realities that we all share in this world, and in this sense, we are really one. Rose was my dog, but yours too, and your mothers and fathers and dreams and expectations as well. In this way, we all understand one another, we see the ways in which we are one, we can all empathize in ways we too rarely too, and so this is the beauty of grief, it’s power, and it’s profound connection to love.  In our sometimes disconnected world, this is a powerful connection.

That is healing beyond words, the gift of grief.