Picking up the Pieces

In the aftermath of losing Charlotte, we were at a loss of what we were supposed to do. Who were we without our little girl? What were we supposed to do when the most decisive and opinionated member of our family wasn’t there calling the shots? How were we supposed to move on from the worst night of our life?

We had said goodbye in the middle of the night, and then spent a sleepless night in the parking lot of the vet clinic. Our hearts broke all over again when we had to drive away without her, and every move we made felt heavier, weighted with our grief over everything we just lost. We drove to Ledges State Park, trying to do something that we had always enjoyed, being out in nature together. But as soon as Curtis put the van in park, our hearts broke all over again, because we could just picture her getting excited at that movement — she would have immediately jumped up onto Curtis’ lap, tail wagging, ready to jump out and start sniffing everything. It hurt so much, it made us want to curl up in bed and cry. And so that’s all we did.

Before any of this happened at the beginning of the week, we had made plans with my sister’s family to spend the weekend in Omaha, Nebraska. We had reserved hotel rooms and planned to take the kids to the zoo. Over the course of the week as our situation got worse, we started to think we wouldn’t be able to go. But now, I felt strongly that we needed to go, that this would be the only way we could make it through the weekend. Seeing the kids happy would be the only way we could smile, being able to help my sister and her husband was the only way we’d feel like we had purpose in this world. And so we decided to go. We were already halfway across Iowa, we just needed to make it a few more hours.

We slowly made our way there, making a few stops along the way. We managed to go for a walk on the High Trestle Trail in Madrid, walking to the impressive High Trestle Bridge. As we got out of the van, I instinctively reached for a dog bag. We wore sunglasses, held hands, and walked quickly, and when we made it to the bridge we stood for a long time just staring into space. Continuing further West, we stopped at a humane society to donate all our leftover dog food and medicine. We felt equal parts wanting to get rid of everything to save us from more pain, but also wanting to hold on to anything that prolonged the memory of her. This was just one little thing that could make us feel better.

We made it to Omaha, and to our hotel, which happened to be right across the highway from the apartments where we had lived for two years. When we were booking the hotel, this seemed like a fun idea, to stay close to what we knew and maybe even take the kids to our old park. But now there was no way we could go back without Charlie, who we had taken to the park every single day that we were at home. We got up to our room, and the view from our window perfectly framed our old home. And we were lost in our grief once again.

My sister’s family arrived later that evening, and sure enough, being around the kids was enough to bring a smile to our faces. They had the best time ‘discovering’ every little detail of the hotel room. The whole weekend together was filled with lots of little highlights and happy moments together, with some time spent alone grieving in between. We spent a hot day at the zoo, where the kids enjoyed seeing the animals, going between walking outside in the heat and inside different buildings in the air conditioning, and riding the carousel. I personally was most excited to see all 5 baby elephants, including Eugenia and Sonny who were born while we were living in Omaha and frequenting the zoo. But the real highlight of the weekend for the kids was hanging out in the hotel, which the kids are still talking about now. My niece tells me all the time that her favorite part was eating French fries in my room, and when we hang out we’re constantly acting out all the events of that weekend.

We said goodbye to family on Sunday, when it was time for them to return home. Our original plan was to continue on to the Black Hills in South Dakota for a week or two, and again we decided to stick with it. We knew we were going to be sad, why not go be sad together in the woods? We were so thankful for my sister’s family for not only getting us through the weekend, but also leaving us with some happy memories to reflect on when the sad ones got to be too much.