Hurt Animal Pain

A few months ago on a routine walk, Phoenix started behaving strangely. Every few steps she would stop and aggressively rub her head on the ground. I was mystified as I had not seen her act like this before. As her movements grew more desperate and her anxiety ramped up, so did my concern. She clearly was in pain and needed help but would recoil when I approached her.

So it was for me on Christmas Eve. The pain of being without Chris cut to the bone; the supposed happiest night of the most wonderful time of the year just the complete opposite - a total nightmare from which I desperately wanted out of but couldn’t figure out how to make that happen.

The hurt was visceral, honestly it cannot be described. My mind was assaulted by memories so vivid that the long past moments could have been the present – date days for shopping and lunch while the kids were in school, late nights filling stockings and assembling toys, standing together while chatting with family, sending nonverbal messages that it is time to get home – except none of that is possible anymore. Irrational reactions to seeing normal intact families, even people I love. Everyone seemingly untouched and unphased except the one person who understood me through and through, like a lightning bolt zapped just my little family and nobody else even saw it. Being unable to hold a conversation. Tears sliding into my mouth while driving, slightly open to avoid holding my breath and letting it out in uncomfortable bursts. Hopefully the Universe smiles upon the person who tried to engage me in conversation, because I just couldn’t do it… I just needed it all to be over.

There is missing, and then there is hurt so acute and innate it can only be described as animalistic pain. I’ve seen my dog’s normally soft, flat coat rise in angry bristles when she is riled up, and I felt exactly like that on Christmas Eve. Nobody and nothing can take away my pain and I didn’t want anyone near me to try.

In these spells of intolerable grief, it is sometimes helpful, or maybe meaningful is the better word, to find parallels to Chris’s journey. He certainly had to bear unimaginable pain. In retrospect, I think he held a lot in so as not to burden me or others. There were a few moments when I saw it overtake him, though he had a different constitution than I do and was not prone to anger or even prickles. On a particularly brutal afternoon, perhaps after the last regular oncologist meeting when we learned that time was extremely short, Chris’s face was etched with pain as he sat in the infusion chair to receive the last dose of avastin. I stood next to him desperate to comfort him, awkwardly trying to cradle his head against my shoulder. He couldn’t say anything, there were only tears rolling down his face and a few silent shudders. Chris closed his eyes to shut out the room, including me. Nobody could lessen his incredible pain over leaving the life he loved.  

Just as it does in dogs, deep human pain sets off instincts – to flail about to relieve it, to lash out to protect against further pain, to close eyes and withdraw from all others.

So that’s Christmas Eve, last year was very much the same. I don’t know why I even try, but you do when there are children involved. They seem to be able to laugh and eat, wonder what is in the packages under the tree, and enjoy making Santa magic even with a sad Mom. I feel bad for them and try to explain it’s because I miss Dad so much. I hope one day they will forgive me for being a mess on Christmas Eve.

When Christmas morning arrived, the kids took delight in presents and were kind to one another. After the gifts were opened, ripped wrapping paper thrown out, and the boxes broken down, little rivulets of relief trickled over my mind as the real deluge of strangely warm rain picked up outside. Much later, once the holiday dinner was made, served, eaten, the dishes cleared, leftovers packaged up, and the dishwasher hummed in an otherwise quiet kitchen as the kids were occupied in separate pursuits, my own holiday peace fully descended and stayed for the whole day after Christmas.

It’s over. Oh, thank goodness that’s over. I don’t have to do that again for a whole year.

It was all very reminiscent of that day with Phoenix, when she was clearly in pain and fighting off my efforts to help. Acting on a hunch and perhaps a memory from Where the Red Fern Grows or another book, I can’t remember now which story, I finally caught her up in firm hands and pried open her jaws. Quickly I probed the slender roof of her mouth and, sure enough, there was a stick jammed across it. Once I removed the object causing her pain, she instantly calmed and returned to her normal self.

From two years of experience, I have learned the hard way that Christmas now brings with it a unique kind of grief, I can only describe it as hurt animal pain. But I also see the truth in the sentiment that the only way out is through, and those loaded minutes of Christmas agony do eventually pass.

Boxing Day, December 26, now that might just become my holiday.