Separation Anxiety
Although the summer of 2022 was "one for the books" in many happy ways, it ended on a sad note with my dog's unexpected passing in late August.
She had been my constant companion for fourteen years, and I had trouble falling asleep that night as I missed her beside me. And because fresh losses tend to harken thoughts of past ones, memories of lost loved ones joined my thoughts, marching across my mind in a sad parade. Before long, I felt an intense resurgence of the separation anxiety I had experienced as a child.
The first time I recall facing the misery of separation, I was very young, and it wasn't a person or animal that I mourned, but my "attachment object," an old teddy bear. While riding with my family down the interstate, I kept sticking him out the car window to watch him flap in the breeze. My dad warned me that I would lose him, and we wouldn't be able to go back, but the temptation was too strong. Moments later, I watched, horrified, as the wind ripped the stuffed bear from my little fingers. He flew through the air, landing in a puddle on the side of the road. I still remember the sorrow and regret as he disappeared from view.
A year or so later, the first day of school arrived. It was a day I had anticipated since my older sister began kindergarten two years earlier. I couldn't wait for the bus to come that morning. But as it rolled to a stop in front of my house, I burst into tears, refusing to board. Despite the months of excitement, I suddenly couldn't imagine leaving my mom and the security of home to head into the unknown. She ended up driving me to school and felt like I would never see her again as I watched her pull away through the classroom window. Thankfully, with maturity came a greater perspective, and before long, I was bounding out the door to catch the bus.
But soon enough, I learned about a new kind of separation anxiety that comes from losing a loved one on earth. At some point, everyone is schooled in the fact that death is an inevitable part of life, and my first lesson came at age 13 when my grandmother died unexpectedly. Being torn from the people, objects, or even places we love feels especially harsh when the tearing away is in the form of death. In our souls, we have this unshakeable knowledge that we were made for life, and everything in us recoils when it ends.
We were also made to connect and to love; it's a struggle to accept the brutal divide of permanent earthly disconnection. On my grandfather’s last night of life in 2005, I stayed with him, and as he passed away in the early morning hours, the dreaded curtain that separated the living and the dead felt so real between us that I could almost touch it.
The night my dog died, I not only lamented her loss but also the scourge of death. I even began worrying about future losses, feeling increasingly inconsolable as the night wore on. Then, just as I wondered if I would ever sleep, comfort suddenly appeared, bringing the kind of relief a lost child feels when a parent finally finds them. It arrived in the form of truth, pushing past my emotions and shining a light into my mind with these words:
"For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39)
Although I already knew that fact, I suddenly felt it. God will never leave me, no matter what comes or who I lose.
For the first time, I recognized that accidentally dropping my bear out the car window wasn't the source of my separation anxiety – I was born with it. We all are. As a child, being unreconciled to God led to a vague, sometimes acute sense of fear and bottomless need. It's what drove me to seek Him out at age twelve. The unease caused by separation from the people and things that I thought were my security – even my childhood bear – pushed me to Him, the true source of security.
The anxiety that results from losing earthly loves – including beloved pets and treasured comfort objects – illuminates our most significant need and longing – to be connected to the Creator. And even after reconciliation to God through Christ, every fresh experience of loss has the potential to stir a reminder of that inborn fear of separation from Him. But thankfully, those heartbreaks also help us remember God's assurance of His presence and constancy.
When my kids were young and too scared to fall asleep, I would pray Psalm 4:8 with them:
"I will both lie down and sleep in peace; for you alone, O Lord, make me lie down in safety."
When that ancient anxiety resurged in me the night my dog passed away, remembering God's promise that He would never leave or forsake me didn't take away the genuine sadness over losing her. It didn't keep me from freshly mourning my lost family members and friends. And it wouldn’t protect me from the future pain of loss and separation from the people (or pets) that I love. The fact that nothing can separate me from God’s love doesn't remove the human sting of death for Christians – even Christ wept when His friend Lazarus died. But as I suffered that night, the assurance brought immediate and deep consolation and, with it, peace. And I slept.
Cover photo credit: Danny Lines, Unsplash