The word for 2025: Doggedness

 

Definition — persistence in effort; tenacity or perseverance.

 

I have been reading essays and blog posts about choosing an action word for 2025. Being someone who doesn’t respond well to new year resolutions I decided to try a word of intent.

 

Looking back on 2024, I accomplished many good things with my husband by my side. We also felt the strain of transition. Leaving our home of over thirty years and relocating to a different State and the death of my retired guide dog, Bailey left us reeling. Jerry and I occupied ourselves with managing the house and we both acclimated fairly well in this respect. But as we settled into our new home and routines, the pain of losing Bailey became almost unbearable for me. Not only did I miss him in a physical sense, but I missed the loss of independence he provided being my guide dog. His illness and death cut me off from pushing ahead and taking full advantage of our new life here and what the community offered.

 

Bailey died on March 16, 2024. My heart has recovered enough to welcome my successor guide, though, only a few months ago I wasn’t ready and questioned if I was sufficiently healed to open my heart so soon.

 

Parting with our lives back in New York and embracing Pennsylvania and the quieter lifestyle and less frantic pace we both longed for many years was the expected, watching Bailey suffer and pass from complications brought on by lung cancer was the unexpected.

 

The depression and grief resulting from losing Bailey dragged me down, at times the light at the end of the tunnel dimmed to a pinprick.

Losing Bailey was like losing my eyesight – again –And had doubts about the mental effort it would take to step out of the darkness into the here and now, to feel the warmth of the sun on my soul.

 

Some days I wanted to sleep the entire day away but I didn’t. The motivation to get up and fight off the sadness kept me from giving up. I got back out using my white cane and regained some lost confidence. I am still avoiding going places on my own, though. The irrational fear of being dropped off in front of a strange building with no cell reception floods me with anxiety. I don’t have my dog to keep me safe if I get lost. I don’t know where I am. The entire geography is unfamiliar, unlike New York. In New York, if I didn’t know where I was, I still knew where I was.

 

Yes, it is March, my birthday month. I’ve reached the tunnel’s end, evident by this post tapping my chest and telling my heart to get ready for dog three. Telling myself I will hold onto a harness and fly again.

 

Here is where doggedness accents my life during 2025. I will be dogged about pushing past my fears, work towards training with another guide dog, and allow myself to remember Bailey, his big yellow labbbiness, big personality and tongue, and honor him by taking a chance on another canine partner.