Steel

You often asked me, “How in the world do you do it? I would get too attached. It would be too hard to say goodbye.” You were referring to how Zach and I foster rescue dogs.

I would tell you about how hard it is of course, the saying goodbye, that final drop of the leash into another’s hands. Watching someone else’s car pull away to another life. Maybe there is a quick glance back through the car window, but maybe there isn’t. However, I would also tell you how rewarding it is to see these dogs that come to you so frail and broken from the abuse and neglect in their lives come out shiny and trusting on the other side. Meeting their new families and seeing the hope these dogs have going forward is addicting. Saying goodbye is still the hardest part, but there is promise in it. Their transformation is more powerful than my fear of goodbye or the unknown.

There is a well-known poem that goes around the animal rescue community that talks about being made of steel from the process of letting go. Not without a tear, but without regret, knowing there is a new beginning.

I can’t say this goodbye to you is without regret. My mind still plays through the same scenes over and over – my last words with you, our final moments together, did I tell you I love you enough? Did I laugh hard enough at your corny jokes? And yes, there is a new beginning in my life, but I’m still figuring out what that looks like. I am trudging through this path, the fog is slowly starting to clear, the brush feels a little less dense, but it’s still hazy and I don’t quite have my footing enough yet to see the top. But even though I’m still fumbling through the process of letting go, with this particular goodbye, I’m the one that isn’t the same this time. I am forever transformed, I’m not who I was before you left this world. Letting go of you completely destroyed me but then has somehow also fortified me from the inside out. The initial days and weeks, even months, felt like hot liquid was gushing through my veins. Now it is starting to congeal and take some shape. I’ve been hardened – not in the bitter, cynical way we are so accustomed to in our society, but in a way that this world can now do anything to me and I will not flinch. Saying goodbye to you has turned me into steel. I am a skyscraper.