Paris in Grief: Not What I Thought It Would Be...
Preface...
As I look forward to my upcoming trip to Europe, I looked back at my blog posts from my last trip to Europe in 2013. That trip was almost exactly 5 years ago...and that was pre-Rin and pre-Therapy Dog volunteering, and boy, I was lost. I was still a bit stuck in grief over the death of my first dog, Molly (who was also my first Therapy Dog partner), in 2010, and was wondering when I would feel normal again. On top of that, the day before we left, I had to say good-bye to Lex, my second rescued GSD, who had reached the end of a battle with bone cancer and Degenerative Myelopathy. I was so conflicted...I was joyful to be traveling and sad that I was leaving; my heart was breaking while my mind was soaring - knowing that I would soon be on a new adventure in Europe, experiencing new places, meeting new people and having new adventures.
Luckily, I wrote about it...or rather, blogged about it. I write about everything. At my core, I am a writer, but have yet to make a living at it, so I blog, even though no one reads it, LOL...not everyone is as lucky as writer, Julie, a la "Julie and Julia" movie fame...but I still blog. You see, it allows me to transfer pain, joy, amazement, frustration, triumphs and more into the written form; to a 'page' where I can look back on it and remember.... Then, share with others...
I hope you enjoy reading what I write, and find meaning in my experiences which might occasionally mirror your own.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
It was getting late, I looked around the house one more time before closing the door on a house that has had a dog padding around in it for 25 years...it was now silent, and looking lonely. Honestly, I didn't really want to leave - even to go to Paris! At the same time, I felt a weight around my neck...not an unpleasant one, but one I was aware of and knew was there...like an early autumn scarf. Surprisingly, I felt Molly on one side of my shoulder and Lex on the other. Somehow, I knew they were there, and that they would go with me on my travels. It would all be ok...they would faithfully protect me from the anxiety of the regional airline plane that was smaller than my Tahoe in the driveway at home. I knew it would be ok as I stepped over the windy gap between the airport gate and the door of the plane, "It'll be ok, Mom", Lex said. "Molly will sit on the right side of you and I'll sit on the left side." Folks, it was those two dogs that got me to JFK. The flight from JFK to Paris (CDG) was pretty good, with only a bit of turbulance...but I'm telling you, it was Lex and Molly that kept me from strangling the lady sitting across from me who brought the entire NY Times Sunday Newspaper with her and kept her overhead light blaring over us all, and discarded her pages into the isle like she was sitting at her kitchen counter at home. It was Molly and Lex who kept me calm as my well-meaning-foodie Mom, spent 40 minutes declaring all the airline's food to be completely inedible. I think it was the croissant that looked as if it had been sat on and then tossed on her chic blue-dotted paper lined tray that finally sent her over the edge. It was Molly and Lex that cleared the way through Customs at CDG Airport, where we literally walked through in 3 minutes, it was Molly and Lex who sent all our bags out onto the baggage-claim belt in record time with nothing lost or broken (which, just for that miracle, Pope Francis should canonize my babies), and it was Molly and Lex who enabled us to find our driver and to be whisked away into the darkness of Paris, France at 6:30 AM.
To me, greater Paris looked the same as Newark...miles of weedy, littered freeway where people are rushing to get to wherever they need to be. However, the added excitement of motorcyclists using the lane dividers as short-cuts through the traffic-jams were a new site for me, and once I stopped screaming, and the driver came down off the roof of the car, we found ourselves in a new jam. Cars all piled together with no apparent right-of-way. Now those of you who live in Raleigh know that our traffic signals are long enough to grow grass, but at least the basics of "Rules of the Road" which exist in Raleigh (mostly...) are very reassuring. I'll never bitch about a long light again...well, probably not. As we pulled up to our adorable hotel in the very heart of Paris, with it's very-European-wrought-iron-flower-boxes; The Louvre just blocks away, the Seine one block up, and oodles of other Paris sights within a baguette's toss from our hotel, I felt the faintest hint of loneliness. It was strange, really, I was otherwise delighted with all the sights and experiences, but wandered aimlessly through the lobby of our adorable hotel, and sighed as I sat heavily on a leather ottoman. Why was I feeling like this? I felt the very real urge to keep my bag in the trunk of that limo and go straight back to my house in the US, to be near my husband and the big pillow that Lex always laid on...but as I turned a corner to get a cup of coffee, I suddenly had a strange sense that I was ok...that Lex and Molly will always be with me and that it's ok to enjoy an amazing experience such as this trip in my life after such a devastating loss. They'll always walk with me...
Life is a wheel....Fortune's Wheel, some call it. I don't know what to call it, I only know that Lex and Molly aren't in my house anymore, they are free to be my Guardian Angel Dogs...to be on my shoulder and guiding me, calming me and celebrating with me, wherever I may roam.
