It is Finished
Hey Dad,
As planned, we put our dog down on Friday. It was a lot harder than I thought. The tears came to my eyes often during the day and a tennis ball was lodged in my throat most of the time. Again, It wasn’t really about the dog for me…it was about my TWO boys, Ike (14) and Abe (13 on Thursday).
It was so sad to see them struggle to say good-bye in their own ways. I knew their hearts were breaking and it broke my heart. Still does when I think about it. We tried to distract them by spending some time at a good friends while I did the deed…but when they came home I could see the hurt in their eyes. Man, they were brave.
I used all my dad-power to give them comfort. I let them deal with it in their own ways. I held them lots, prayed often with them, and let them grieve. It was hard.
I got some comfort knowing that so many dads have already gone through this part of life before…and so many dads wrote, saying they were praying for us. We made it…and we’ll never forget that week.
My little advice for going through a heart breaking time:
1. Let them grieve in their own way…not YOUR way. Some will be quiet, seemingly angry, or bawling messes. Let them.
2. Hold them, rub their back, hold their hand firmly.
3. Don’t ignore the pain or try to keep them so busy that they don’t have time to process it. It’s OK to hurt. In fact, they’ll be better off after having done so.
4. Use it to point them back to God. Truth is we’re all going to die. I want my children to know that Jesus made a way where we can live forever. Death is swallowed up in victory and has lost it’s sting!!! We want our children to be ready and be with us when we ‘cross over.’
Even my little advice won’t make it easier, because it’s never easy. But you are key to the process, Dad. You’re children need you so much during those hard times and will love you more because of them.
Enjoy your children, my fellow familyman.
You ‘da dad,
Todd
PS – Just a side note: I was worried about digging a hole in the frozen ground. I looked up varying ways and then settled in on using a pick to break through the frozen layers. I was surprised. Once I got down about 8 inches, it was loose, easy to dig, soil. Not nearly as difficult as I thought it might be.
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Thanks so much for this article. We just had to put our dog down on Saturday. He was 16 years old, and my kids are 12,11,8 and 6. All my kids have ever known was their dog Jake, so it was extremely hard. We all stood in the room while they put him down and had the chance to say our last goodbyes to him. My heart grieves when I think about my kids being so heartbroken. One thing I said to my kids was asking them to remember all the times we and people at Church have told them to let God help you through tough times in their lives. Well, this is one of those times, and a great oppurtunity to really put their faith in action and trust in God, even when weare extremely sad. I feel that we have already grown closer as a family and ultimately will grow closer to God and our relationships with Him. Jake will be sorely missed, but God blessed us with one of the best dogs we could ever hoped for.
Read this with tears for those broken hearts, for that parent heart it is so hard to watch your children hurt.
I remember our last (military family and it for really the last) move, my boys had such broken hearts leaving some amazingly special friends. I cried more on that move than any of the previous ones over that past 20ish years. I cried because I knew how broken their hearts were, because I knew we were leaving some broken hearts behind. At one point I told my oldest to call his best friend to say hi, see how things were, yada yada, his reply, “I can’t it would be too sad to talk to him”
I remember my mother in law saying shortly after we lost our first born son to a terrible event at three years of age, I miss my grandson, and it hurts, but watching theses two grieve and hurt is almost unbearable.
Oh, grieving with our children is hard.