Last week, our Chihuahua/Pug mix Lello passed. We got him from a rescue shelter several years ago, in February after my mother died in January. My wife had decided that our family needed some new life to help us work through our loss. I was against the idea, but she had found Lello online and showed me his picture. He reminded me very much of my first, much-loved dog, Brownie. I don’t remember getting Brownie. We grew up together; her death when I was a teenager was my first experience of grief.

When we met Lello, then, my objections melted away. He was cute, cuddly, feisty, and fearless. What’s more, he had been mistreated and needed reassurance and the proper attention, which made us feel an extra level of compassion for him. Soon, he became a principle source of entertainment for us. He did not like change and would bark at a misplaced pillow on the sofa; he liked to “sing along” with my wife and daughter; he objected to the existence of the chipmunks that frequented our yard, although he never came even close to catching one. In short, he was (usually) a delight.

Poignantly, Lello died just over a month after my mother-in-law, who had lived with us for the last years, succumbed to Parkinson’s disease. His passing hit us both hard: although he was “just” a little yellow dog, his passing somehow incorporated our fresh grief and griefs from long ago. Lello’s life with us spanned the period from my mother’s death to my mother-in-law’s death and recalled for me Brownie’s death and for us every loss between. It has been hard.

My wife shares her state-of-mind and heart much more openly and honestly with friends and acquaintances than I normally do. We had already noted in the weeks between her mother’s passing and the end of Lello’s life how often people have encouraged her, effectively, to hurry to the end of her grieving. Some have suggested that since her pain is still profound, weeks after her mother’s death, she might want to seek professional help. Her reaction to Lello’s death so soon after has resulted in even more encouragement, as my wife phrases it, “to buck up” or to get help.

She asked me whether I think she needs help. She is sad, in mourning, grieving. Yes. She continues, however, to function at work and at home. She can laugh. Her sleep is normal. She knows very well that she is grieving and why. She knows, too, that she cannot and will not “get over it.” Almost a decade after losing my mother, I still have moments when her absence feels like a black hole in my emotional universe. In sum, if my wife were experiencing something other than the pain she feels, I would be concerned about her emotional health. As her husband, I share her grief: my mother-in-law and I loved each other and everyone loved Lello. I share her grief and I can be with her in it, but I cannot help her “handle” it or “get over it.” She certainly does not need professional help.  She needs time and space. She needs people who respect her honesty.

We have pondered why people seem eager for her to hurry (artificially) through her grief. Our hypothesis has two postulates: (1) people are uncomfortable with other people’s grief because it reminds them of their own; and (2) grief disrupts our societal practice of the cult of “happiness.” The first, almost self-evident, postulate needs little explication, but the second invites exploration.

Jesus, speaking of the importance of John’s ministered, compared that generation to children  who would not dance in response to piping or weep in response to wailing” (Luke 7:32). In other words, Jesus accused his opponents of the inability to respond appropriately and authentically to a given stimulus: with sorrow to a sorrowful event and with joy to the in-breaking kingdom of God.

On another occasion, Jesus pronounced blessed “those who mourn,” because “they shall be comforted” (Matt) or, in Luke’s version “those who weep because they shall laugh.”  One thinks of the effects of the pre-frontal lobotomies once performed to relieve the symptoms of extreme emotional dysfunction. The patient no longer experienced the extreme highs of mania or the extreme lows of depression. Instead, their emotions were flattened. They could not feel either sorrow or joy.

Contemporary culture prizes inauthentic and virtually indefinable “happiness” over authentic responses to the sorrows and joys of life. “Happiness” functions like an inoculation against the many sources of sorrow that surround us. Authentic sorrow might motivate us to take action against hunger, poverty, violence, deprivation, injustice, inequality. Our efforts could produce the profound joy that comes with setting a wrong right. Yet, we prefer the comfortable, level plain that produces the shallow “happiness” that can be ours if we drive the right car, live in the right neighborhood, wear the right shoes, or go to the right therapist to make the loss those we love easier.