This week was a week full of memories. A week in which I was often thrown back in time, the time when Rowan was next to me, walked next to me and we went on an adventure together. Rowan would have turned 12 this week.
Anyone who has followed my blog over the years knows what Rowan meant to me. So as far as that goes, it will not be that hard to imagine that this has been a 'difficult' week.
And that I still miss Rowan terribly, even though Skipper came to live here since February, and of course he creates the necessary distractions with his young crazy pranks. Makes me laugh loud several times every day, and I really bond with him more by the day. It is not the same as with Rowan. No dog will ever be that again.
No dog ever can copy Rowan
Rowan was unique, if only because of the circumstances I was in when he came into my life. What his presence meant to me back then, what he did for me, no dog can ever copy him. And that is precisely why my relationship with Rowan will always remain unique. What I will never achieve with any dog. For the simple reason that Rowan was the first dog I picked myself, which I bought myself. And the circumstances then will never be the same again. I will never be in such a deep depression again as I was then. Fortunately, I will never have to experience the grief and grieving process of losing both parents in a year and a half.
It will never happen again that way
The desire to be dead yourself because you feel that you are completely alone in the world and have nothing to live for will never rule me as it did then. Watching you blankly all day long and not finding yourself worthy to walk around in this life, living my life as a 'zombie', that will never happen to me again.
I have now a lot to live for
Sadness and the grieving process for my parents is now far behind me. And yes of course I often think back to that time, but I also see that I am so much stronger. That I have learned a lot in the years that have passed. And although not everything is always easy, especially financially ... I have a lot to live for. And despite the fact that finances are a concern, I will not let that rule my life. After all, there are many other things to be thankful for.
Rowan was my reason to come back to life
I have learned to look more positively at what I have instead of living in the past and only see what I don't have. Rowan has gone with me through that process of bringing about that change in my way of thinking. He was the reason for the change!
Rowan gave the support I needed
When I didn't want to go through, when I couldn't see the positive things anymore, Rowan was there to support me. His presence alone was enough to make me laugh again and realize that I was no longer alone! My sister tried to do the same, but of course she also had her own grieving process that she had to go through, and her way is not my way. Not then, and not now. Psychiatrists, doctors and social workers also tried. But I did not feel at all understood by them, a Psychiatrist who is going to ask me; "Where do you feel the pain, how do you feel the pain, what color is the pain and can you move it?", that simply doesn't achieve much with me!
All thoughts in my head played with guilt at that time! An enormous feeling of guilt that I had not done enough for my parents.
Cancer made my father unable to do anything himself
When my father was told in the hospital that his lung cancer could no longer be treated, the question was asked whether he could go home to die or whether he should be admitted to a nursing home. In those days my father was already very confused in his thoughts by the metastases in his brain. My sister lived on her own and had a full-time job. My mother had been a COPD patient for years and needed a lot of care. And my dad would literally need care 24 hours a day. He couldn't do anything alone. My once so strong father was no longer able to independently climb out of bed, go to the toilet, unable to eat independently etc ... He was NOTHING anymore. I was the one who should provide care to both parents. But ran myself in the end of my powers. This battle had been going on for a year and a half and I was exhausted. It wasn't that I didn't want to take care of my dad, and I wouldn't have if they just said my dad was coming home. But it was precisely because a question was made in the hospital that I got the feeling that I had to decide on my father's fate.
I still wanted to see the strong man that had always been there for me
I will never forget the conversation in the hospital! And even now… so many years later, that memory can still bring tears to my eyes. They were asked if he could go home or if he should go to a nursing home. With 10 pairs of human eyes turned to me for the final answer. And there I was, exhausted, at the end of my strength, dealing with the blow that it was really final now and that my father would die in a short time. And then I had to make a decision in just 5 minutes that would determine my father's fate. The man I had always looked up to. A strong man who could do anything that had always been there for me.
My voice had lost all strenght
I was being talked about from all sides and I only wanted one thing ... I wanted to hear from my father what his last wish was. And if he said he wanted to die at home, it would. I would take care of that. Through all the emotions, through all the talking people, I suddenly said softly, my voice had lost all the strength that I normally have, "I want to know what our porridge wants." Everyone fell silent, and I asked my father who had been staring blurry in front of him all along. "Daddy what do you want?" As soon as he heard my voice he looked at me and it seemed like he was thinking. The doctors conducting the conversation filled the silence after just 2 seconds and I was told that my father was no longer able to understand what was happening. That he was no longer able to say what he wanted and that the decision really had to come from me. And all of a sudden out of nowhere my father's strong voice as I had always known him came, "I fucking understand what it is about, and I also understand what's going on."
He wanted it to be 'habitable' for everyone
Tears streamed down my cheeks the moment I heard him say that. All the people fell silent again and I looked at my father. Of course I also knew that he often had confused moments, in the days prior to this conversation he often had moments when he didn't even recognize my sister and me. No, it didn't go well, and the metastases in his brain had certainly affected his long- and short-term memory, BUT he certainly hadn't lost everything, and realized very well that he had given up on and would die soon. He tried hard to put into words what he wanted and finally he said, "I understand that it is too heavy for you at home, you should not go under it and I want it to be habitable for everyone." It took a lot of effort to put it into words. But that was a reason for the doctors to take over the conversation completely again. My sister and my mother continued on this and eventually they decided that my father would move to a nursing home.
And that is where my guilt arose that I had abandoned my father when he needed me most.
I felt like I dropped the man who had always been there for me. In the end he didn't have to go trough the experience from move to the nursing home. He died in hospital six days after this conversation.
3 months after his death we were in the hospital again, now with mom
However, before I had a chance to work on this guilt, before we had a chance to deal with his death, we were startled because my mother had to be hospitalized with pneumonia. And despite the hospitalization, she went downhill. Very quick!
We received a phone call from the hospital that we had to come to my mother as soon as possible to say goodbye. And so my sister and I were again in the same circumstances. Nights with broken sleep because one of the two of us had to be with Mom, waking next to her bed. Startled with every sigh. However, it turned out not to be her time then and she recovered very slowly. After a hospital stay of six months, she was allowed to go home again ... but on the condition that I would take care of her continuously. That I would always be around her, and if I had to leave someone else for a while. She also had to use oxygen permanently.
Again I became a fultime 'nurse'
Everything was taken care of at home and again I was in charge of taking care of a parent. I still hadn't had time to process my guilt. This had simply been pushed away by the circumstances, but remained dormant below the surface.
This situation lasted until my mother COULD no longer be at home. She needed so much care that the resources at home are simply no longer sufficient. And so I had to pick up my mother after the umpteenth hospitalization, and then take her to a care home. Once again I felt like I was abandoning her. The guilt that had been dormant since my father's death was reinforced by the admission of my mother. And that didn't get any better when we went to visit my mother in the nursing home every day.
Guilt grew more and more
I will not go into detail about what we have experienced there, but at least it greatly increased my guilt and I went deeper into depression by the day. Which I didn't notice at all because I just had to keep going every day. I did not even notice that I had no energy left to work on my own life. I was only busy with Mom and survival.
Life went calm, and depression took over
On Friday April 13, 2007 this ended with the death of Mom. And after the hectic cremation was over and my life calmed down, I really fell into a deep big black hole. I was completely thrown back on myself and my slumbering guilt swallowed me. At first I thought that a doctor or psychiatrist could help me with this. But that was not the case. The doctor prescribed me anti-depressants that I was going to take faithfully, which flattened my guilt, but also my will to live, my energy, literally flattened everything until even my self-esteem was completely gone and I walked around numbly. I was a zombie.
I didn't have any feeling at all
The psychiatrist I was subsequently assigned did not even let me tell my story… he was just letting me tell you what color my pain was, but that was far too abstract for me at the time. I needed to tell my story and I couldn't. After seeing him four times I gave up on that. It took too much energy that I didn't have anyway. And well, I didn't care about it anymore. The anti depressants did a good job in that regard. It smoothed out my feelings very well. I no longer knew high peaks in my feeling, no deep valleys either. I just had no feeling. And out of no feeling I easily came to the thought of throwing myself in front of a car. I lay in bed for days, getting up once in a while to eat. Sometimes I had a day when I did what was expected of me, I went to visit an aunt, I went to visit my sister and I pretended that everything was going very well. To stand in the front door as soon as I got home and think, "When the next car arrives I will jump for it".
Dogs Love
There was one thing that still held me back. And that was the love I still felt from Micky despite all that. My sister's little dog that I had spent so much time with in the past. And when that awareness came through me more strongly sometime in 2008, I knew what to do. Apparently I was too cowardly to throw myself in front of a car. That's how I thought then. So if I didn't die then I had to have something to live for. A dog was going to come! I would buy a dog. And once I knew that for sure, I felt something for the first time in a long time.
Kiro ... he was not meant to be my puppy
Internet searches started and I wanted to do something good besides a dog to take care of, a buddy to live with. I decided to adopt a puppy from Spain. After a search through the internet where I threw in my whole soul and bliss, I found that puppy. His name was Kiro. On October 4, 2008, Kiro would land at Schiphol and I could hug him in my arms. Time went by those weeks and suddenly I received an email that Kiro was not doing well. That he had to be admitted to the veterinary clinic in Spain. And two days later I received a message that my puppy had died on the operating table. They had tried everything, but it shouldn't have helped. The puppy that should have become my buddy, the puppy that I loved before I had ever seen him was no longer there. He was only 16 weeks old. That was September 17, 2008. Once again it felt like my world was about to collapse and I called my sister at work. She made me promise that I wouldn't do crazy things and promised to come to me right after work. I made her promise and went back to my PC. With tears in my eyes I went looking again and out of the blue my eye fell on an advertisement without a photo. In this advertisement, white shepherd puppies were offered for sale. Both parents were in the house… AND it was not very far away from me.
Quick decision
In an impulse I picked up my phone and made an appointment to have a look that same evening. I asked about the price of the puppies and if there was still a male available. Called my sister and said I should do something else, assured her that I had nothing crazy in mind and that I would call her back later that night. She was very worried about me in those days.
After I arranged everything I jumped in my car and drove to the address where I would go to see the puppies and ...
There he was! Rowan!
He seemed to understand me
Of all the puppies that were there, 4 males were still available. But immediately at first sight, my eye fell on Rowan. A small white fluff ball with his body under the couch, and only his head was visible. Once he got out from under the couch he looked at me, put his front paws on my knee and seemed to ask me where I had been all along. In his eyes I saw a wisdom that touched me. He seemed to understand me. And of course I know I saw what I wanted to see, that I just fell in love with that little puppy… but he lay down with me and I was sure, this is MY puppy. This is ROWAN.
From that moment on, for 11,5 years we've been together
We went home together and he never left my side again. Together we had many adventures and from a life as a zombie my life suddenly changed back to an active life. I needed Rowan, and Rowan needed me. We were there for each other. And it has remained that way ... all the beautiful 11.5 years that we have had together. I still thank him every day for coming into my life and I will never forget him.
