A Dog’s Heart

Today in my art studio our exercise was to pick an animal that had qualities we admired and to list them.

I immediately knew I wanted a Rottweiler, the dog that just came into my “real” life. He is a full Rottweiler, his name is Brodie but Bernie is fine with him and he is noble. Gentle. Kind.

I found a dog figurine and I looked it for a long time. I liked the sturdiness, the groundedness, the animal body, primal and unafraid yet cautious and centered in its stance.

And then I didn’t know where to go from there except that I wanted to be loved and love with simple, committed, non-entitled love. Plus a big bonus is that my dog (I have only had him 2 days but yes, he is definitely MY dog and I am his person) never rejects me the way my daughter does.

It is so painful to walk into her room first thing in the morning when I hear her talking to herself and she does not want me to hug her or get her out of bed, she calls for Daddy and tells me no. And when he walks in, she smiles and reaches her little arms out to him as if I am not even there.

Later in the day when Daddy gets in the car, she cries to go with him and when I pick her up to comfort her she pushes my face away with her little hand and shouts “no”.

Painful.  Hurtful.  Innocent.  And I know why she does it. Because I am needy.  I am needy for love and affection. Yes, I am needy.

I look inside myself and I think about this “needy” business. I am needy for her acceptance, affection, love. I am needy for belonging, being loved and being safe. I am needy for being loved, being appreciated, being needed. I am needy for being wanted. But this is not her problem, her job or her responsibility to solve and I will do everything I can to make her feel like less than for not fulfilling that need, the way my mother did with me.

Yet I am not any of these things for her, especially not if Daddy is around. And if he is not around she relies on me passively, as in climbs on me to get to something she needs. She doesn’t need my love or my affection. She does not seem to reply on it. Probably because she senses it fills my own neediness more than it does anything for her. And she has every right to reject this kind of “love”. She has every right to reject me.

Oh how I mourn this. I rejected my mother for the same reasons. Over and over and over, year after year, I rejected her, it must have torn out her heart. I have not spoken to her for over a year since she made my birth recovery about her birth recovery. Her neediness felt so intense, so deep, so desperate that she would try to fill it regardless of what it may have cost me, blind to what it took from me, unable or unwilling to acknowledge how it made me feel, regardless of the appropriateness of the circumstances.

If I can do one thing in this life, I want to stop this generational curse of deprived mothers looking to their daughters for emotional food.

So I got a dog.

Part 1

My childhood ended at age 6. Although I didn’t know it then. I was given a grandmother’s love until age 9 or 10, but life after 6 was never the same because I lost both parents. And they never returned. Not the way they were, together, intact, loving. I mourn that now, still. I didn’t have the chance to naturally evolve out of childhood, to choose adulthood or whatever comes next. I mourn losing that normal transition. And I mourn even more deeply what not having that transition meant I lost – my family. I notice shame and guilt at mourning. I know this happened to others, I know children were soldiers, I know I know I know. But does that mean I am not allowed to grieve?

Here is that feeling again, the feeling that I am building my house of cards on straws. I am trying to build a life on top of not havingness. How does that even work?

I can’t solve it, I can never get it back. I can’t change it. All I can do is surrender, cave into the nothingness of what I think I lost, what I mourn, what I miss the most.

Can a simple dog’s committed, non-entitled love, presence and willingness heal this wound? He must be feeling so vulnerable, new home, new place, new owner, new spot to sleep, new place in a new pack. Yet he loves. He loves. He, unabashed and unrelenting gives every ounce of his precious love.

Reminds me of when I moved continents to be with my mother and I was beaten down, tortured, betrayed (emotionally) by her own brokenness and helplessness. God forbid I so abuse the innocence of his love.

Oh innocent spirit of love, return to me, return to me.

Part 2

Everyone suffered. Mostly alone. Everyone was right in his or her own reality. Everyone deserved more, everyone got less. I mourn for all of them.

Part 3

There are two photos with my parents as a child I placed in my art journal long ago for no good reason. It always hurt so bad to look at them. For so long I wondered why it hurt and today I realized it was a painful reminded of what I had lost too soon. I put the Rottweiler body I traced there, he wants to be there. To love that little girl that is now a mother too. He doesn’t have a head. He doesn’t need one. Just a heart like the image the shaman drew of Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat Pray Love, a body without a head, but with a heart. And I don’t really know of a more loving, beautiful heart than a Dog’s Heart.

Part 4

I can’t change the past but I can change my attitude, be open and receptive to help from the Universe in any way that comes and be thankful for having a Dog’s Heart, one given to me just for me. To love me the way only a Dog’s Heart can. Yes, I liked the sturdiness, the groundedness, the animal body, primal and centered in its stance. But neither of these compare to the power of love in a Dog’s Heart. May I embody this purity of love, may I be graced to be able to give and receive this quality of love. Amen.

Thank you God.