“The exquisite and usually wrong genie that recklessly whispered to my mom her daughters’ names for once got it right. His success was fatal. There is no need to be right (…) Dawn was The Dawn”
The excerpt above is from the novel “Mama Blanca’s Memoirs” by the great Venezuelan writer Teresa de la Parra. Memorizing this fragment was part of my literature education as a sophomore. This part of the novel tells how one of the protagonist’s sister was correctly named (“Dawn was The Dawn”) by their creative and impractical mom and how very early, like the dawn, this little sister showed her beauty and then departed, dying when she was only seven years old. The moral of this fragment (“There is no need to be right”) impressed me because it went against all my knowledge about how to navigate life.
My dog Grace died this week. And the memory of that paragraph that I memorized long ago keeps coming to
When I met Grace, she was four years old and was inseparable from her life’s partner, my other dog, Tucker, who died in 2012. Grace lived a total of 15 years, a long life of love, service, and recovery. She was my friend, accomplice, and recovering partner at CoDA meetings.
According to my husband, Brad, she’s the reason why I have a sponsor in Codependents Anonymous. My sponsor and, today my good friend, Dick, after declaring that he disliked me because I was too much of a controller, admitted that he loved to play with my dog. By doing so and ignoring my plan for “improving CoDA” (the 12-step program for codependent where we met), he was teaching me how to surrender. Time demonstrated that his first big service as my sponsor was that lesson. Playing with Grace and ignoring my attempts to control.
Grace was born on a puppy farm where she was exploited. She was a beautiful dog of a breed valued for their hunter instinct. When these dogs begin to hunt usually their long-palm-like tail is maimed because it tends to get entangled in the bushes. However, as they did not plan to use her for hunting, her tail wasn’t mutilated. Unfortunately, until she was rescued from the farm, she lived a life of seclusion, mistreatment, and abuse that shaped her character and sensitivity.
In the beginning, my relationship with this dog was not easy. She was very jealous with regards to Brad (who adopted her after her rescue), and I’m convinced that she was also a codependent. Let me explain; she had difficulties with trust, a catastrophic mentality (her first reaction was always based on fear), and she barked hysterically when something changed in her environment, for example, if someone came to visit us.
Additionally, she became unconditional – even against her interests – when she perceived approval. She had a super sensitivity for other’s feelings, didn’t know how to play, had difficulties relaxing facing the unknown, and often found a way to try to control her environment, even if in the attempt she was injured or the outcome was contrary to her desire. I think I’ve made the case that she was a codependent dog.
When Tucker, her partner, died seven years ago, Grace began to have panic attacks. She began sneezing, again and again, looked like she was suffocating, and fainted. I was already quite shattered by my other dog’s death and witnessing these blackouts was too much. Although a friend explained to me that fainting was the nature’s way to deal with panic attacks (by disconnecting the ideas about incomprehensible absence and regulating her breath), I began to carry Grace with me everywhere.
Hence, Grace ended up attending CoDA meetings with me, and everyone mistook her for a pup. Indeed, up to a very advanced age, she had the agility, appearance and nervous energy of a puppy.
When Grace started going to CoDA, I had already tried to teach her how to play with other dogs, something that she never achieved, although in the process she recovered the memory of pointing – as her breed does when hunting – but only when she saw squirrels, bunnies, and even big grasshoppers. She was funny without trying, Grace was Our Grace.
In the CoDA meetings, Grace was lovingly welcome. Amazingly, her instinct guided her to serve, something fundamental in any recovery. She approached anyone she perceived was suffering and either licked them with exquisite softness or let them pet her. She was especially delicate and affectionate with newcomers, and I have heard that she was the instrument that God used to help some people persevere, going to meetings in search of recovery. Grace was Their Grace.
As well as a good codependent, Grace felt threatened by any rejection, so I had to be very aware that she didn’t pester a couple of people that showed her coldness at meetings.
One of my recovery friends always said that he might title his memoirs “Licked by Grace” referring to the affectionate way Grace supported him at meetings during his divorce and struggle for the custody of his children, but also referring to the huge Grace that we find in recovery thanks to the CoDA program. Grace was His Grace.
At Hazelden, a publishing house, school of therapists, and rehabilitation center for drug addicts and alcoholics, they also remember Grace with affection. I usually went to this institution’s speeches with my sponsor and Grace. There, even in her later years, when she couldn’t lie down comfortably because of her arthritis, Grace reconnected with her instinct of love and protection and was dedicated to comforting people who needed it. Grace was Their Grace.
God bless the healing love of another friend in recovery who more than once registered in the Intergroup Acts of CoDA that the meeting was attended by “so many people and a dog”. That dog was Grace.
I don’t know if I will keep missing Grace like I do today “so much pain is grouped into my side, as by pain it hurts even to breath” as described in Miguel Hernández’ poem, immortalized by Serrat, the singer-songwriter. Certainly, I believe today that there is no need to be right. Grace was just Our Grace.
Feeling great thankfulness for your beautifully worded tribute and summary of Grace’s blessing to others. Surrounding you and Brad with loving , gentle thoughts. Lpretta
Thanks, Loretta!