Michael F. DuBois

As many of you have probably noticed, I haven’t written a new post in a while. I had thought about it, thought about what I could write, how I could say it. But it wouldn’t have been real, I wouldn’t have felt it. I was stuck for a little while, Ive been stuck.

Its funny, the things we feel. Looking in on other peoples lives we sometimes see the things they take so seriously as just silly, as unimportant. The things that we feel, what hurts us, some people just find pointless.

Back in December my dog passed away. And, for most people, they would look at that as something small, something that may be sad at the moment but shouldn’t matter in the big picture of life. The truth is, it did matter to me, it does. To anybody else looking in on my life, she may have just been a dog, an animal that roamed my house and that I took for walks once in a while. And looking at it that way, it wouldn’t have mattered that much that she passed away. But the thing is, she was my best friend, not just a dog. She was my sister, a part of my family. She understood me better than anybody else. I could talk to her, she would listen. She would bring me happiness, she was there when I cried, the first one I turned to when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She used to make her way into my room every morning to wake me up with a smile, would find me every night before she went up to bed, and would come to me with an understanding face every time she knew I was sad. Two years before she died I moved away to college. My parents told me that for a while she slept in my room instead of theirs at night, like she was waiting for me to come home. She was everything to me, I loved her so much, and I know for a fact that she loved me back.

A week before Christmas, right when I came home for break, we found out that she had cancer in her leg. The last week of her life she slept downstairs because her leg had gotten so bad she could no longer make it up. And, for the last few nights, I sung her to sleep with the lullabies my mother used to sing to me when I was little. Christmas eve night, my best friend passed away in the loving arms of my family.

See for most people, they wouldn’t see it as a big deal. She was a dog, and dogs die, far before people do. But the thing is, they never knew what I shared with her. Nobody could ever know what I shared with her, just as nobody could ever know what you share with the ones you love.

And that’s when it hit me. That is all that matters, what I share with the ones I love. As sad as I am now and have been for months, the only reason I feel as incredibly upset as I do is because she made me incredibly happy when she was alive. There are these bonds we make when we allow people into our lives, these subconscious contracts of knowledge that at any moment that person could die. Yet still, everyday, people continue to love. Whether or not we are aware of it, we choose happiness in the face of pain and suffering every single day. In our hearts we know that although someday our loved ones will pass, the joy we share with them now is worth the pain we could feel from their absence later.

This idea, this knowledge that people choose love in the face of heartbreak, fills me with hope. It reminds me why I am on the journey that I am on. It proves to me, that no matter what some may believe, we as people are strong. By choosing to continue the love you feel for the ones close to you every single day, you are proving that love still wins, even in the face of the most fearful thing of all…heartbreak.

Put love out into the world, and you will feel love back.

Its as difficulty simple as that.