SOLACE: Soul + Grief
This podcast is sponsored by SOULPLUSGRACE serving the San José area, offering grief support and grief journeying with spirituality. I hope to help you travel through grief with God at your side.
"I am a trained Spiritual Director for those who seek to complete the 19th Annotation of St. Igantius’ spiritual exercises OR seek spiritual direction while grieving. I have also worked as a hospital/cemetery chaplain and grief doula. I believe all paths lead to God and that all traditions are due respect and honour. I take my sacred inspiration from all of my patients and companions–past, present and future; the Dalai Lama, James Tissot, St. John of the Cross, the Buddha, Saint Teresa of Ávila, and, of course, Íñigo who became known as St. Ignatius. I utilize art, poetry, music, aromatherapy, yoga, lectio divina, prayer and meditation in my self-work and work with others. I believe in creating a sacred space for listening; even in the most incongruous of surroundings."
BACKGROUND
- Jesuit Retreat Center, Los Altos, CA -- Pierre Favre Program, 3 year training to give the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius
- Centro de Espiritualidad de Loyola, Spain -- The Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola -- 30 Day Silent Retreat/
- Center for Loss & Life Transition – Comprehensive Bereavement Skills Training (30 hrs) Ft. Collins, CO
- California State University Institute for Palliative Care--Palliative Care Chaplaincy Specialty Cert. (90 hrs)
- Sequoia Hospital, Redwood City, CA -- Clinical Pastoral Education
- 19th Annotation with Fumiaki Tosu, San Jose, CA, Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius
- Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA M.A. – Pastoral Ministries
CONTACT ME: candeelucas@soulplusgrace.com with questions to be answered in future episodes.
SOLACE: Soul + Grief
Grieving A Family Pet With Grace And Honesty
We explore the raw, tender reality of losing a family pet and how everyday rituals make their absence feel vast. We unpack disenfranchised grief, memorials, and how surviving pets can mourn too.
• why pet loss can feel as deep as any bereavement
• daily bonds that make absence hit hard
• urgent choices, and easing suffering
• parenting while grieving and holding space for kids
• coming home to an empty house and grief pangs
• disenfranchised grief and finding safe listeners
If you have questions about spiritual direction while grieving, or grief support or grief groups in your community, my contact information is in the show notes.
SPIRITUAL DIRECTION WHILE GRIEVING IS AVAILABLE
Art: https://www.etsy.com/shop/vasonaArts?ref=seller-platform-mcnav
and https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/candee-lucas
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F2SFH4Z6
Music and sound effects today by: via Pixabay
Welcome to Solace: Soul+ Grief. I'm glad you decided to join me today. My name is Candee Lucas. I'm a grief chaplain and spiritual director. I was trained by the Jesuits at Santa Clara University and at the Jesuit Retreat Center in Los Altos, California. When we started this ministry, we'd hope to reach out to those who are grieving. Those with grief and those who've been on the grief for a while. Understanding these groups and those in between have very different we hope to create a catalog of information and helpful messages, meditations, and prayers. So feel free to look at the catalog or revisit the catalog from time to time. Thanks for being with us.
Candee:My son, Dax, is here with us to discuss a little bit of his grief journey in the past year. I think you'll find it interesting because it's something that you have talked to me about in the panel. Keeps coming up as we talk about other episodes of grief and long returns about the loss of a family pen can be something that's really more traumatic than we anticipate. So, Dax, why don't you tell us the story?
Dax:Well, good morning, first off. Thanks for having me here. It's good to be with you. It's difficult to talk about. And I was trying to think of why losing a pet is is a difficult thing to talk about. And it's because it's really the most intimate brand that a family has. And Potter, that the cat we just lost, has been part of our lives for, you know, nearly 15 years. He's just a little black cat that we picked up at the shelter with actually another cat uh that we have, still Luna. And they were the best of friends, and the cat, you know, becomes part of your life. It's it's weird that you still see him in the hall if you in the middle of the night. I've thought I saw him many times because he was omnipresent. And pets are are one of those things that are there when you're happy and there when you're sad and when things are tough or when things are easy. You'll often see the the little guy around. O ne of the things that that was so nice about Potter was the way we would watch football together, which is weird for a cat. But I would sit on the couch and scream and yell and clap and cheer, and he would sit beside my feet, but he would just put his tail on my on my toes while I watch football games. Very weird. And when football season started this year, there was no cat. And uh it's weird when you feel the loss of a pet, when there's a void that you didn't know he filled. The things about pets is they fill all kinds of different things for you. About a year ago, we lost our our dog Ollie. We got both pets about the same time, so we had them for a good length of time, and going back through the pictures, he realized that they were there for all the moments that your kids were there for. You know. Ollie was there the first day of school to greet the kids when they came back. And actually, Potter, funny enough, he was the kind of cat that would come down the stairs to greet you as well. Too silly for a cat, but he was very lonely without uh his humans around. And talk about another piece of uh grief. During the COVID year, where we kind of all lost a year, uh the pets grew very accustomed to having everybody around, and I know they found it difficult when people started going back to school and work and things like that. But it's it's one of those things where there's just a familiarity that's so nice to have pets around. And they don't judge you, they don't they don't hold grudges, and they have that unconditional happiness that you know you find through a wag of the tail or the the gentle purring that you get when you get the cat just in the most comfortable position.
Candee:Why don't you talk a little bit about how you lost Potter and because you guys were out of town?
Dax:Yeah, that was terrible. It was awful. Potter had been diagnosed with diabetes a year or two ago, and him and I got into a good routine of of getting his shots uh morning and night. He uh somehow intuited that I was trying to help him and became pretty used to me. Shot time. But he began to lose weight uh recently, and it's really hard to check the blood sugar of a cat. H e wasn't much of a bleeder. So anytime I would use the lancet to to pierce his paw or ear, he would frequently not bleed, so it would take several attempts. He did not like that. It was easier to give a shot than to get a blood sample. But the wife and kids, Rachel and the kids, were away visiting friends in Tucson, and he just didn't seem normal. And I checked his blood sugar, and it was uh at 45, which is very dangerous for a cat and a human. And I took him to the vet. They did the whole workup on him, and they couldn't quite figure out because he was eating and things like that. We took him home and had an appetite he was an appetite stimulant. An appetite stimulant, but I never used it because he kept eating, so that was good. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I had a trip planned the next weekend where again the kids and I kids and I this time were leaving uh to go to Las Vegas and Rachel was left home with the cat to to tend and and give his shot. That's one thing we we always had one of us home to make sure that uh he got his his insulin. And while we were en route to Las Vegas from DC, unfortunately he took a turn and again he wasn't doing well. And when we landed, uh there was all these frantic text messages from Rachel about how I needed to call right away, and it was about Potter, and I knew that things were were gonna be bad. And sure enough, he was at the hospital and he'd been diagnosed with cancer. And it was in his digestive system, and that's why he was having trouble processing the food that he was eating eating. And the doctor didn't feel he was going to make it painlessly through the night, and that as soon as this the cancer was able to take hold, he he would go into septic shock, and it would be very painful for him. And it was terrible because after a five-hour flight, uh, four-hour flight, we're in the airport, and my son is receiving this news of his cat, it was his cat as much as anybody's, and him losing. My son just having all that that crash of I can't believe this is happening, I didn't get to say goodbye, and everything in the airport. And as the father, I'm trying to hold everything together. And gosh, we've got to get our bags, we've got to get to the hotel, we gotta do this, we gotta do that. But I also have to give space for some processing. After a few minutes, I finally got everybody to kind of calm down, and we decided to get to the hotel, and then we would FaceTime Potter's last moments from the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas. And I instantly thought about the the story that that that would be forever in my my children's mind of dad taking me to Las Vegas and our cat dying, and it added a layer of guilt. Guilt and grief.
Candee:So then how many days was it before you got back home?
Dax:Well, it was about three or four days, but I wanna one step back is because we did finally make it to the hotel room. And again, I'm on that two-track brain of parent and participant in the the passing of the cat because we were all so hungry after flying cross-country. And we got to see Potter's last moments on on Zoom, and uh thank God Rachel was there to comfort him and be with him and pet him as as he left. And um, you know, and then we had to go get food, and it was it was terrible. So I knew as we got home a few days later that everything was gonna kind of relived. We would have to come home to a potterless house. A house without our uh little guy. And he wasn't there to greet us when we got in, and it didn't feel real. Someone left a towel on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night, or in the middle of the night, I went went to to go to the bathroom and I thought it was Potter, and I almost stepped on it, the towel, and I was terrified that I was gonna step on the cat, and then it all hit me that he was gone. And who do you talk to other than the family about uh a pet? And I think that's one of the hardest things, because your extended family, you know, yeah, you have a cat, and your friends maybe they don't like cats. Um, so it's not really one of those uh griefs we get to talk about in our wider community, and that's um because some people just look and say, Oh, you had a cat and he died? Ugh. Okay. He was a family member.
Candee:Did you do anything to memorialize him?
Dax:Well, we we had his ashes, and my son picked out an urn for him, and uh we uh I guess we have it, really. We put him up next to uh the ashes of Ollie, the dog that we lost. And we're still trying to pick a a good picture of him, because I've as our pets have passed, I've framed nice pictures of them so we have like a dead pet picture area. It's classy though. But I guess we haven't really come together and and and done anything because again, it's all spread out, and it just wins the time to do that and bring everybody to together to to do that. And so maybe that's that's on me. So that's kind of hard too.
Candee:T hat concludes another episode. A new one drops every Friday morning. You can find us on Amazon, Spotify, or Apple Music. If you need more information about grief support or spiritual direction while grieving, my contact information is in the show notes. Be gentle with yourself this week. Travel with God near you. Vaya con Dios.
