In loving memory: Alki Fritz, Dec. 25, 2001 – Nov. 17, 2014
Do you ever wonder why you bother? Not just to get up, but to stay up when you know that mostly what you’ll get is hurt?
I’ve wondered that lately. Not because I doubt my work, although it’s hard sometimes. Not because I doubt myself, because we all do a little and most of us manage to get over ourselves while getting in a few laughs at our insecurities.
No, the bigger question is why we bother to love, because love hurts. Sure, we bother because we all matter, regardless of what we do to earn a living or to learn or have fun, it all has one purpose: we are all called to love, no matter what. Even when it hurts. And it hurts at our house right now.
I appreciate the patience of all my subscribers who have stuck with me in a hard, painful year as we dealt with a horrific attack that left me and my dog Alki both injured. I had to re-direct my business to mostly writing, because going out with Fallon wasn’t possible when I couldn’t use my hands. I suffered from PTSD, from the horror and from my inability to save either of us that night. Healing is slow and painful, but I’ve loved the writing and the support I’ve had from so many people has kept us going. I love what I do.
Some of you also know that during the incident that injured us Alki’s heart “went bad.” By March he was on heart meds, by June he was on all he could take, and for the last month I worked to prepare him, and myself, and Grace the Cat for his death. My sunny little boy who loved everyone he ever met, including his precocious sister, Grace the Cat, was always the sweet epitome of his breed. On Monday, November 17, I held my sweet boy in my arms as his beautiful loving heart failed.
I met Alki long before he was born. In those days 13 years ago I was just understanding how energy worked, and I literally experienced pregnancy with his mom. Three weeks after he was born I learned why when I tucked him under my chin and a bolt of knowing hit me like lightning: he was my son, another reincarnation of my beloved English cocker Maggie and Cavalier Murphy, the puppy whose true soul name was Heartsong (too fussy for everyday, so after several tries we landed on Alki).
For almost 13 years he was glued to my side, the velcro Cavalier (the boys are like that). And now he’s gone.
Make no mistake, I am angry and bitter that he had his life cut short by violence. I’m human after all. I also know enough to let that go, because you can’t change what happens to you and your loved ones, you can only choose how you’ll respond. My response is to remind myself that we come into the world to learn to love, and in the end it is only love that matters. Above all, I am grateful that such an extraordinary soul chose to live his life with me.
Alki taught me a lot about love. He was incredibly patient with my inability to love him at first, even knowing who he was. He was rambunctious, demanding, and getting Murphy’s attention (yes I was jealous). He was all happy dog, and I finally realized I wasn’t just being a jerk, I wasn’t seeing the love he kept freely offering me. When I did I was rightly ashamed of myself, and made sure that he knew every single day how much I loved him, how much he mattered. Even now, as he rests at my dad’s Way Station for Dead Things on the Other Side, as he gleefully races through the mountain meadow, healthy and vibrant like he hasn’t been all year.
I used to think Alki wasn’t all there mentally. Certainly he didn’t possess the innate intelligence that Murphy had, but then he didn’t need it. Alki has always been pure chaotic experience, a live in the moment, roll-in-gull-poop boy, the secret energy master who surprised me one day with his raw power, well beyond any energy system we humans know. The dragons were here in his last weeks, because he is their ambassador, a job he and I inherited together at Murphy’s death. And his previous incarnations, Maggie the English cocker and Murphy the Cavalier were here, too, supporting all of us.
I’m sharing this rambling note with you so you know that darkness comes to all of us, no matter how much we love, because in choosing to incarnate here we choose to experience organic life, and that means it will eventually end. But darkness doesn’t have to destroy us: we can choose how we meet it. Have you ever felt grief, worry, doubt, confusion, despair? Of course you have, because you are here. You are not alone. We all have something we have to deal with, like it or not, because we all bothered to love. It matters.
On Monday, November 10 on my radio show at News for the Soul. com I suddenly found myself talking about Alki and death and how we get through it, because I know he was dying. You can find it in the archives. The point is that love matters and it hurts, and that’s a good thing. Grief is good: it reminds us that we were lucky enough to love and be loved.
Part of me has been grieving the loss of Alki all year, because he couldn’t run or play, and I knew his heart was failing. If you are grieving, my heart goes out to you. Remember the good times, hang on to them. I have told Alki that he is always welcome to come back, although I’m quite certain he will choose a household with a lot of land to run on, because that’s the one thing he missed with me, and the one thing he turned down to be with me. Love is a miracle, isn’t it?
And Thanksgiving is the time we celebrate it. It’s my favorite holiday, and this year, like all others, I will stop and remember those I’ve loved and lost, those I’m lucky to still have with me, and the world for making a place for all of us in it. I will give thanks for my clients, who are brave enough to share their journey with me and Fallon, our classes, and their beautiful hearts brimming with love. And I will be grateful that in this difficult year I embraced the darkness and claimed, now and always, love.
I was privileged that my little Heartsong chose me as his partner in his journey. I hope that all of you are lucky enough to love and be loved like that, knowing that embracing love also means embracing the darkness.
Love matters. You matter. Never forget it. Never stop saying it. You don’t know how long you’ll have with those you love, only that it will never be long enough.
Peace.
© 2014 Robyn M Fritz