Grief

[Guest guest]

Hi,

Anyone out there know how to deal with grief properly?

My insurance company paying out on my disability (though in Australia,

neither sleep apnea nor Chiari are officially a disability) has halved the

payment to me for me trying to get better by looking up Chiari. They also

look like taking the lot off me come the end of July. I can barely make ends

meet on half the payout.

My wife works and as a result is shouldering a shitload of the burden and I

feel really terrible about this and am trying to find something I can do in

the way of income generating work that wont kill me in the process for admit

it or not, I seem to have bad turns when I try to do too much. Some of these

turns are classic angina-like chest pains going down the left arm though in

1993 my heart and arteries were pronounced healthy.

Yesterday, my almost 3 year old Chow male - our first male and the one that

loved us both but was my wife's boy - died unexpectedly. It appears to have

been either a tumour or something that caused him to fit and though the vet

gave him a valium shot to make him more comfortable and stayed up all night

with him at the surgery, Thursday night to Friday morning, he died anyway at

about 6AM. I dont know why but I had this premonition about this for about a

year now and I feel bad that I did, too.

Right now my wife and i are trying to draw strength from each other as it

has been a little over 24 hours now since we found out that he was gone. We

have arranged for a pet crematorium to cremate him and send his ashes back

and as he was primarily my wife's boy though he used to sit beside me and

worry about me when I was sick, I am letting her decide when - or if - to

scatter his ashes as she sees fit. I could really use some sage advice right

about now. Anything would be appreciated because I cant stop thinking about

dying, too. If it werent for the fact that we have an 8 year old Chow, 13

year old Persian and of course we have each other to think of, I dont know

that I would be here to type this right now. Oh dont worry - I take the

needs of my wife and surviving pets seriously and I wont kill myself because

I couldnt leave them like that, as easy as it sounds to me. I just want to

feel happy again and right now, I cant feel that way. Doing everyday things

seems wrong now.

You might think, those of you with kids, what an idiot I am for grieving

over the loss of a dog like this. I dont have kids. We decided a long time

back that we probably wouldnt be the world's best parents so we made a

decision not to subject our shortcomings on a child, which, as it turned out

with my health problems, was actually a good stroke of fortune. Chows are a

breed apart from any other. They are a Chinese breed and " inscrutable " in

the classic Chinese way that you may have heard about. They are a very

intelligent breed, much more than anyone who doesnt know the breed ever

finds out. They are also a deeply loving breed and with their practical

jokes and loving ways, they make life worth living but oh it is SO hard when

they die at an elderly age but when they die unexpectedly and so young - he

would have been 3 on June 10 - it is a tragedy to those who are the Chow's

family. My wife and I treat our Chows as fmily members (and our Persian)

even though we allow them time to " just be dogs " as without that, a dog can

go insane - any breed - and just like you who may have experienced the loss

of a human child, it is devastating to us. I am usually the one pulling us

up from the quagmire of despair but right now I am in that pit with my wife

and we just need to find out way out. Any help appreciated.

If you are reading this on ACM-FRIENDS, please feel free to reply to the

list but if you are reading this on WACMA list, please reply directly to me.

I am on " read on the web " on the WACMA list and would appreciate emails.

Thanks for any guidance.

chows@... Australia

Chow Addiction Society Founder and Lifetime Member #1

Are you OLD when you enjoy a good headbanger song with others over 40?

[Guest guest]

Hello everyone, I don't know where I got this saying from, but I thought

I would share: When someone dies its okay to cry, the tears are God's

way of melting a heart that is frozen in grief. I thought it sounded

true to heart. God Bless Bev