I am now aware, in a way I wish I never had to learn, that loss is loss is loss, whether it’s a divorce, losing a job, having a beloved pet die or enduring the death of a family member. In that respect, I am no different. But my wife gave me a gift at the end of her column when she left me that empty space, one I would like to offer you. A blank space to fill. The freedom and permission to write your own story.
Here is your empty space. What will you do with your own fresh start?
Humbly, Jason
17
Burning
The journey has been hard, but some really exciting experiences have blossomed because I was willing to dip my toe into new waters.
—Howard Stern
It’s very common to describe the grief process as a journey, and yes, it’s most definitely that—a rough one, with no straight lines, and you find yourself believing you’re always going to feel like this. It’s very different for everyone who goes through it, and very much the same. Perhaps that’s why in hindsight it’s so surprising that part of my journey led me to Burning Man.
I suppose it makes a certain amount of sense. After all, Burning Man had been on Amy’s and my Empty Nest list from what seemed like a lifetime ago. Both Amy and I had been very curious about Burning Man, based on a vague notion of what it was all about. Why not give that a try?
Burning Man is an annual late-summer event held at Black Rock City, a temporary community built in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. It started as a small beach party in San Francisco in 1986. It’s grown into a nine-day gathering of around eighty thousand people from all walks of life, there to engage in communal experiences of art, transformative change, participation, overcoming the barriers that stand between us and our inner selves and those around us, and, in the end, head back to their lives leaving no physical trace behind, out of respect for the environment.
I talked about Burning Man with an old high school buddy I’d reconnected with at a reunion, and later at the TED conference. He had been the previous year, and we agreed that I’d meet him and his girlfriend in their RV in Black Rock City. I had no real idea what to expect; I just followed instructions from the intense suggested packing list for the potentially severe extremes of the Nevada desert between the scheduled dates of August 26 to September 3, 2018. I made one and only one promise to myself: No expectations, just go with the pace of what the experience has to offer and take full advantage of the Burning Man grieving temple.
The public perception of Burning Man seems to be that it’s a huge, hedonistic nine-day party. I’m here to tell you that it was much, much more than that for me. It opened my eyes, my mind, and my heart to a whole new kind of adventure I wasn’t sure I’d have the courage to survive. It was hot, dirty, dusty, cold, dirty, uncomfortable, dirty, and loud. It was also beautiful, deep, moving, intense, loving, open, welcoming, and new. I attended talks about relationships and new political parties and tapping (a combination of acupressure and psychology in which you tap your fingertips on meridian points of the body while talking about upsetting memories and other emotional issues) as well as a lecture about ayahuasca (a centuries-old herbal drink used in religious and healing ceremonies). I danced in the cold at sunrise. I grooved to the art cars blaring DJ sets at night. I drank a Bloody Mary at two in the afternoon.
I was also exposed to a new language at Burning Man. I began to notice that people were using words that they all knew, but I had no idea what they were saying. My friend quickly noticed my bewilderment at these new terms. I began to write these new expressions in my journal. As Rob picked up on this process, every time a new concept was introduced, we would crack up as though we were back in high school doing something inappropriate behind a teacher’s back. (Actually, Rob would never have done that back then, but I definitely was inclined to drift in that direction.) Here are some of the new words and concepts: drop in, juicy, the field, co-creation, weaving the web, divine masculine/feminine, resonance, sacred container, feeling known, integrating, and state change. What had I gotten into?
And I found the most incredible community grieving spot I’ve ever seen or read about. The Burning Man grieving temple is devoted to acknowledging, reflecting on, and learning from grief. The walls bear offerings to the deceased. These ranged in complexity from the mere scrawling of a name on the walls of the temple to complex art pieces constructed in their memory. I brought my own versions for Amy, my dad, and, most freshly at the time for me, our dog Cougar.
The community grieving spot at Burning Man.
It had been less than a month since Cougar died, on July 26, 2018, a year to the day after my dad died. I was at my downtown office when our dog walker called to say that something was going on with Cougar—he’d lain down after their walk and refused to get back up again. She was right, that sounded nothing like him, and Cougar and I were at the veterinarian’s office within the hour.
Another thirty minutes later the vet gave me the news. It seems Cougar had suffered spontaneous internal bleeding. I had two choices: Put our cherished fourteen-year-old dog through a major, life-threatening surgical procedure with no guarantee of success, or let him go.
It’s a decision every pet owner dreads, and I knew I couldn’t make it by myself. I needed Amy—she would have known what to do. I didn’t have her to turn to, but I had Miles. He should be here. He had to be here, if only to say goodbye. Cougar had joined our family when Miles was only nine years old. It was Miles who took the reins and trained that big spunky puppy when he first arrived; and while we all adored that dog, no one loved him more than Miles did. It didn’t take long for the two of us to agree that, excruciating as it was, we loved Cougar enough to spare him major surgery and a long, impossible-to-predict recovery and just let him quietly, painlessly go to sleep.
The vet couldn’t have been more sensitive and sympathetic. She asked if we wanted to be in the room while Cougar was euthanized. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t watch another family member essentially die in my arms. Miles heroically stepped up, and was there with Cougar when he took his last breath.
Amy is stuck in my brain at age fifty-two. Relatively speaking, that’s a youthful, beautiful age; but I have a lasting different image of Amy from the final two months of her life. I wish that freeze-frame was a healthier one. Cougar, on the other hand, will always be a playful, happy black Lab mix, even with the gray goatee he’d been sporting for the past couple of years.
If you’ve never loved and been loved by a pet, it’s hard to describe how devastating it is to lose one. If you have, you don’t need me to tell you. Whoever coined the saying “I hope to become the person my dog thinks I am” knew exactly what they were talking about. For fourteen years, no matter what the rest of the world seemed to think of me, every time I walked in the door, whether I’d been gone for two weeks or two minutes, Cougar greeted me with an insanely wagging tail and a busily sniffing nose as if seeing me was the most joyful thing that had ever happened to him. And all he asked for in return was some kibble, a good scratch behind the ears or on his belly, and a nice walk. He was treasured by each and every member of our family. He was there as the kids and cousins grew up, right there to protect them as they learned how to swim and play in the pool—there he’d be, pacing up and down at the edge of the pool, agitated, thinking they might be in danger, and he wouldn’t relax until they were safely out of the water again.