I think the reason that Midwesterners are prone to drag out their casual goodbyes is that somehow we know that abrupt, hard ones come for us sometime in our lives. There’s always a friend who leaves too soon, the tragic loss of a loved one, or the inevitable passing of a pet that pays the piper for the depth of emotion that we as humans are capable of experiencing. It’s an excruciating goodbye that comes quickly, and I’ve been stung with that grief since we left the USA on August 23.
My two old dogs were denied boarding with us on the Queen Mary 2 due to a paperwork error. We stood there, eyes on the future, listening to every professional at the cruise line and multiple veterinary offices tell us stoically that there was nothing they could do, and my heart shattered. After months of scrupulous preparations and thousands of dollars in veterinary and boarding expenses, all the love in me ripped in two different directions: to stay in the States with Harper and Sunny or to get on the boat towards new futures with my husband and children. It’s not like it was really a competition, the choice was excruciatingly clear. The dogs would have to stay. How? I didn’t know. It was too far to a shelter and we couldn’t just leave them to wander Brooklyn.
My grandma, a powerful spirit unbridled by a petite frame, used to proclaim that there were angels everywhere. We poked fun at her catchphrase for years, but in this moment, when I needed an angel, two appeared alongside us at the cruise terminal. Their dog had also been denied boarding because they left their paperwork at home in the aftermath of a tragic death in the family. Grief does terrible things to us all. But they couldn’t abide our circumstances, and graciously took our two old girls to reconnect them with family upstate.
In the meantime, we got on the boat, I kept a smile too bright to mask the emotional wreckage. I cried myself to sleep and scattered panic attacks throughout my early cruise itinerary of binge drinking and overeating. But we all settled down after a few days and enjoyed the Atlantic while our families made extensive tactical moves to get our dogs back to Illinois.
It has been two weeks, and a veritable army of support has come out to help us get our dogs to a safe space for now. It has been a labor of love, masterminded by my mom who is recovering from shoulder surgery. But this morning, my Instagram was filled with pictures of my two sweet pups, imploring the internet to find a home for them. It’s gutting, watching the dogs you raised and love be offered up like a sacrifice. But we have to make some serious decisions. We either need to spend thousands more dollars to reunite them with us here in Berlin or find them a loving home in Illinois, and both courses of action make me cry. A rock and a hard place, love and money are.
I contemplate what the next phase of life brings me, regardless of the canine companionship I may or may not have, one thing has become abundantly clear. There are people who are kind and helpful and there are systems that are cold and oppressive. When we consider the ways in which we engage with and in systems, we can either be a part of the machine or we can be the kindness. We can choose to offer empathy, to take a risk on a stranger, and to lay it on the line for each other. We can choose to be the angels that people everywhere need, every day.
