Her big brown eyes filled with tears as she peered over my horse’s neck looking quickly at me and then back at the ground.

“But Aunt Shelley, she was there.  She’s always been there.”  A quiet sob muffled from my horse’s neck as she buried her face in Buffy’s coat.

It was there that I realized it was not just me dealing with grief.  Without any more questions, I knew what my niece was referring to.  And honestly, I had forgotten…for a moment.  Maybe I had wanted to forget.

It was a cold, rainy October day.  The weight of what was coming seemed to hang in the air.  My mom, my siblings, and I waited at my parents’ house by my father’s side as he meandered towards home.  It had been a series of days that were long, hard and painful to watch.  My son and my niece were present by our sides as best as two young children could be; largely because they had to be.  It was where life was at that moment.

As the time drew near, as best as we could tell, we had sent them outside knowing that my dad did not want them to see him in those final moments.  He had always been full of positivity, finding the silver lining and clinging to it.  Of the few things he expressed as he drew near the finish line was how he did not want people to remember him with the cancer or in death, but instead, who he had always been in life.

There was a knock at the door and a shuffle just inside the house as my dad drew one of his last breathes.  It was hospice and we motioned for them to stay in the hallway.  Without fully realizing it, as he took his last breath, both kids were behind the hospice workers in the foyer outside of his room as he passed away. They had just come in from outside. Inside his room, just a few steps from that foyer, we gently and lovingly told my dad it was okay to go.  That we loved him and knew that he loved us.  All the words you say to help someone let go of what is so difficult to say good-bye to.

I don’t remember the exact span of time, but shortly after he was pronounced dead and hospice came in to do what they needed to do, I felt very overwhelmed.  I knew I needed to go outside to catch my breath and my strength.  There in her own confusion and pain stood my niece.  Hugging her, I asked if she would like to go outside with me.  She had mentioned something about my promise that I would get Buffy out to walk and pet as soon as I had a chance.

Looking for anything else to do but face the tsunami wave of pain that was building inside of me, we walked to Buffy’s paddock and I brought her out.  We walked her around the yard while she ate grass.  The sky was gray and the wind was blowing so incredibly hard.  Leaves were falling from the trees as a light mist covered us.  There I stood with my niece, my horse and my broken heart…fittingly, in a barren landscape of a bleak looking autumn day.

I knew I needed to be strong as my father had been an integral part of my nine-year-old niece’s life.  For much of her life, grandpa lived only a mile away and for the last two years, they had all lived together as so many families have had to with the terrible fall out of our economy.  We talked about my horse.  I let her hold and walk Buffy though she was a little scared.  I did my best to keep my grief at bay as I helped her have something else to focus on than grandpa’s passing.

Time came for Buffy to be put back in the barn.  And time returned to the arrival of her dad, my husband and saying good-bye one final time to my dad.  The house filled with loved ones and friends.  Funeral plans, pictures, clothes, debates, meals, and more people that kept us so busy in those moments that followed.

“She was there…” choked out of her sobs.

She quietly shared with me that not only after my dad’s passing, but also before…Buffy had been there.  That was what the kids were doing right before they came into the foyer; they had been visiting with Buffy and had come inside to see if someone would help them get her out to pet.

“I know,” I said with tears in my eyes realizing that my niece was finally processing through the memories of my dad’s passing in this letting go of my horse.  Her mother had told me several times over the last two years that my niece had not yet cried about my dad.

That morning, my sister and I had talked about what was the best thing to do with our kids and the passing of Buffy.  Should we allow them to be present or find a place for them to be?  My niece had been especially vocal about not being allowed to be present in my dad’s last few moments.  We knew we had made the best decision for them all (including honor my father’s wishes) and that it was not one they would necessarily understand–but now, maybe they needed to be present in ways we couldn’t fully understand and needed to trust.

“You had a lot of times with Buffy and grandpa, didn’t you?” I prodded with my words hoping that it would bring her closer to her grief.

Her brown hair bobbed up and down to signal yes as she buried her head more into my horse’s neck.  I reached over and touched her hand noticing that my horse was turning into my niece almost in a way of trying to comfort her.  Not moving her feet, but her craning her neck into this child as she sobbed so tenderly and passionately.

“I think, honey, this is so hard because you feel like you are letting go of grandpa too?”

Her head bobbed some more.  And so I began to share with her what I knew about grief.  How it is good to let these sobs out.  To not hang on to them but to cry as hard as she could.  To go with her feelings and not fight them.  That this needed to come out.

There the three of us stood together…again…as she cried for quite some time.

So much of this world tells that we have to be strong…to stay strong.  And sometimes, there is a place for such moments, but often, we are not served by avoiding the hurt.  It becomes trapped inside and though, we may think we are over it…we are not.  And each time we are faced with letting something go that we love or cherish, the part that we didn’t deal with will try its best to come to the surface to be let out.

Think of it this way–if letting go involves creating a hole for the pain to release through, imagine how much more painful processing becomes when dormant pains try to escape through the hole designed really for just that hurt.  Can you see why processing through pain, hurts and fears is so necessary rather than burying them and having them explode to the surface with the next hard spot in life?  How denial and avoidance only magnify the pain and make it much worse when we are finally faced with letting go?

After time passed and her crying slowed, I shared with her the privilege it is to let something go.  To walk it home to God.  But in that privilege is also pain and a big responsibility…it is one of the hardest things to do.  It is where you must be strong and remain strong.  Not in the sense of holding back tears or emotions, but being steady in the rain of them.

We gave our children the choice of going inside or staying near as Buffy was put down.  My niece was torn.  Part of her wanted to be by her side, but the other part was afraid…of the pain, what she might hear and see, and what she couldn’t control.  She chose not to go inside but to wait by the fire pit in her mother’s arms.  My son also chose to stay with us.

The vet asked me to hand over her lead and insisted that I move far away in case she decided to fight what was happening.  As an attorney, I understood the liability issue but as her friend, I struggled with being that far from her.  My husband comforted me in his arms as I buried my head in his chest crying as they began the process.  Asking him if she was beginning to go, he said yes and I quickly turned around.  And there she was, looking to me as she began to fall.  Discarding the vet’s instructions, I ran to her as she gently fell over into the grass.  A muffled groan escaped from her as she laid down on her side.

It was there that I cradled her head and reassured her as best as I could with my words and my touch.  The tranquilizer had brought her to her knees, but the drug meant to kill her had fallen out before it had fully dispensed into her.  I could see her heart beating in the vein of her neck.  I shooed away my husband, son and brother-in-law as I knew they didn’t need to see the next few moments, but within short order, my niece was at my side.

“Aunt Shelley, the sound was horrible!  I could hear it…” as she began to cry, not realizing that Buffy was not fully gone yet.  I had purposefully shifted my position to hide the movement of the beating of her heart in the veins of her neck as my niece approached; somehow understanding, despite my pain and concern for my horse, that she needed to be a part of this process more than anyone else.

“It was not what you think you heard.  She fell very gently and not violently.  I watched and saw with my own eyes.  It only seemed bad because you couldn’t put a picture with the sound.  Trust me, it was very gentle as big animals are going to make noise as they fall.”

With this, she seemed to calm.  “Is she still here?” she asked through her tears.

To that I struggled to answer.  I knew Buffy was.  I had my hand on her heart and I could feel it racing.  I surely didn’t want to lie to my niece–not in this moment as it held so much for her.

“No matter what, she can hear you.  She needs us to help walk her home and this is the hard part of letting go.  All creatures, including grandpa, can hear and see for a bit.  We don’t know exactly when they depart.  She has taken her last breath, but her heart may still be going and we just need to keep talking to her and telling her it is okay to go.”

And she did.  She petted Buffy’s face as she tearfully talked to her.  We spoke of grandpa waiting and the beauty of where she was headed.  The calming of the wind and the beautiful day we had been blessed with.  How different it was from when we said good-bye to my dad.

As the moments passed, she became aware of the fact that my horse was still alive.  Though it frightened her for a moment, I told her there was only one role we could play at this point as she was dying and would die…that wasn’t going to change.  Our role now was to comfort her.  Despite her fear, pain and grief, she found the strength to calmly reassure Buffy as stroked her face.  I stayed back at Buffy’s side with my hand on her heart and neck as her heart beat finally faded away.

While Buffy played a huge part in my life, she was a strong connection to love, faithfulness and dedication in my niece’s.  She was what drew my dad and her parents out to the barn.  She was the most exciting animal to see.  She was a companion in the backyard while my niece played and swung on her swing. Buffy was always present.  In the good times, and in some of the most painful times…

Letting go of something is almost never easy, especially when it contains a strong connection to something we very much loved.  Sometimes it is not so much the “thing” as what it is they represent…freedom, love, good memories, fun times, or even comfort during something painful or frightening.

While my niece wasn’t letting go of my horse in the same way I was, my horse was one of the last living representations of her grandfather.  And though that grief had always been there for her, letting go of Buffy meant she had to let go of that part of her connection to someone she loved so much.  That portion of his representation was no longer going to be here in its physicality…now it, too, would be only in memory.

It turns out that God knew that she very much needed to see this connection through to its end.  For it is in the hardest part of letting go that we can truly begin to heal…and He and Buffy gave her the opportunity to do just that.

“He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.  Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…”  Psalm 23:4