02/01/2024
TW: Pet loss and grief
It's with a very heavy heart that I'm sharing with you that we sent our beloved Luke over the rainbow bridge 🌈 🐶. I'm sharing this with you not to elicit sympathy (though of course the warm energy is welcome), but rather, to connect with you about the human experience.
I've been so fortunate to not have to grieve much in my life so far. My floral account and calendar is usually full of ✨ weddings ✨ ,💖 baby showers 💖 and events celebrating new beginnings and happiness. While I love this about my profession, I think it is important to step back and recognize that there is another side to life. The side that is full of the 5 stages, hard conversations, tears, therapy, and loneliness. Through grieving Luke, I've been able to develop a more profound understanding of what it is to embrace and walk through sadness. Sadness and loss is a part of our experience here as humans.
In the floral industry we joke about it being a depression proof job because people will always get married and people will always die. I think it's quite beautiful that traditionally, we celebrate death with flowers. We celebrated Luke's passing by surrounding him with a ring of daisies. Flowers are truly the ultimate representation of life and death and I love that about them.
My animals make my world go round so to lose one has shaken up my entire understanding of life. I don't know about you, but this encounter with death has caused me to spiral a couple times about my own mortality. It's such a funny feeling right? I'm pressing on knowing I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing with my life and hopefully making the difference in peoples lives that Luke made in mine.
Luke was just shy of 17 when he passed. He had a beautiful life full of sunshine, swimming, and majestic air sniffs. He loved his accessories and unapologetically gave kisses until you made him stop. He most likely had some sort of internal cancer that was rapidly draining him and we had come to our house and help us see him across the rainbow. I could not be more at peace with this experience and will continue to embrace all that comes with it.
