I wrote to you on Monday how at the end of my marriage I really wanted to keep denying the truth. But truth kept on thruthing all over me and I could no longer deny it. It became more painful to dance with my eyes closed hoping for a fast forward button than to face the music and call a divorce attorney and have a whole bunch of difficult conversations. 

I’ve since learned this is a superpower of mine. To see through my own defenses and desires to deny to feel the truth. I don’t always see it, but I feel it. 

When we feel something to be true in our guts, even if we can’t articulate it or prove it to someone else, we can trust ourselves to know that it’s still true.

I’ve been feeling something deep in my guts that I don’t want to be true. And even though I don’t want this to be true, it is. The truth exists even if we deny it. 

I haven’t shared a lot about my dog Walter Alter recently. I’ve been consumed with Everett, my work, my marriage, COVID, summer, life! But he’s been by my side for almost 11 years. He is my first born son, my soulmate, and the man who taught me what unconditional love looks like. And he’s been suffering. An old back injury has made use of his back legs…unreliable. And what we suspect is brain cancer has affected bowel control, occasional seizures, and a bunch of other things. 

I don’t want this to be true. 

I watch him suffer through each day and I suffer with him. He doesn’t want to be pet and he doesn’t want to go for walks.

I don’t want this to be true.

He mostly goes to the bathroom unintentionally in the house and he cries for no external reason.

I don’t want this to be true.

I know in my guts he is ready to move on and I don’t want it to be true. To deny this would torture both of us and I made a promise to myself that I would never do that to him. 

The truth is still the truth even though I don’t want it to be. 

My sweet Walter Baby’s body is breaking down before my eyes. And I could try to deny it, continue upping his medications and drug him through his last…weeks? Or months? Or I can do what I did which is making the impossible decision to let him go with dignity. 

My eyes are open, the calls were made, and I had the very difficult, impossible conversations. 

I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the almost eleven years we enjoyed together. We lived in Greenwich Village, DC, East Haddam, Bellport, and Park Slope together. We traveled all sorts of places together. We made videos, took photos, and he often joined me at the Pilates studio while I taught clients. 

Most importantly, he showed me unconditional love during the hardest transitions of my life, out of my first marriage, into my marriage with Jeremy, and into motherhood. I believe Walter came into my life with a very important and specific mission. To guide me here, right here. 

And now his job is done. I miss him terribly and I smile knowing I loved and cared for him so well all the way to the end. And as much as I hate that this is true. It’s still true. 

The choice was mine as his owner/parent/advocate. The weight of this responsibility is crushing. The contradiction of knowing you are actively loving someone in the truest form and that meaning ending things. It’s a unique, bizarre, absurd mindfuck. 

The throughline is that I never once doubted the truth once I see it. The truth that ending the suffering is the right, most loving next step. 

If you’ve ever been through this, I see you. 

If you’ve been through this and have some supportive words to share with me, I would love to hear them. 

If you’re questioning your ability to feel, see, or know the truth, trust yourself. 

And if you have any memories with my sweet Walter Alter, I’d love to hear them 🙂