Lessons in grief

And learning new skills

Our dog died yesterday.

He was almost 17 years old, making him older than a good number of my kids.

It was hard.

As I sat there throughout the day, holding kids as they cried, crying myself, reading my kids’ tributes to him on their social media, checking in about it with my children who were no longer at home, I noticed something happening within myself.

All I wanted to do was make the pain go away from them.

Stop the crying somehow. Make them laugh. Distract them.

In other words, my desire to emotionally bypass them was SO STRONG. I felt threatened by their big feelings, like it somehow called into question my parenting. Their sadness was being interpreted by my brain as “proof” that I was failing them, as a parent. That somehow, my duty as their mom was to remove this discomfort for them, and smooth life out.