Who do you mean to be when things get hard?

We navigated a big, hard change at our house last week. Our amazing 12 ½ year old dog, Yofi, jumped down less than 2 feet and broke her leg. And that’s how we learned that she had osteosarcoma.

Whenever people face a change, the question I ask is “Who do you mean to be in the face of this?”

The hardest part of terrible news is that who you want to be in the face of it is usually, simply, who you were before it happened. Someone who didn’t know this was happening. But we’re not rubber bands, we don’t “bounce back” when there is change. We go forward – or get stuck.

We were offered a few options for Yofi’s care, from euthanasia on the spot to amputation and even chemotherapy. My guys and I talked it through from where my 17 year old and I were at the emergency vet’s office to where they were around the world. Chemo for a dog this old seemed too much to ask of her. But my youngest and I were seriously considering the amputation until he said to me “Doing that would be for us, not for her.”

We all agreed – who we wanted to be in the face of this was loving her as selflessly as she loved us. And believe it or not, that did actually make it easier to be resilient.

Resilience doesn’t take away the sad. It just helps us be true to who we want to be when things are so dang hard. And she’s gonna be the doggie standard to which we hold all future dogs we love. May there be a lot of them. A friend told me she heard someone say one of the things pets teach us is about loss. But they teach us a lot more about love, and I’d add they teach some about resilience, too.

Wishing you joy and unconditional love.

All my best,

Dr. G