What does it mean to trust life when life breaks your heart?
Chris Lombard is back on The Empathetic Trainer, and this time we’re talking about his new book, Warrior Horse: Living and Dying With Animals in a Soulful and Heartfelt Way. I loved this book, but I don’t want to tell you too much about what happens in it. What I will tell you is that it led Chris and me into a really honest conversation about loving animals, losing them, and figuring out how to keep living when they’re gone.
We talk about grief, guilt, letting go, the awful second-guessing that can come after a loss, and whether it’s okay to be happy again. We also talk about giving ourselves some of the same grace we so easily give our animals, and about the possibility that sometimes the animal we lose somehow makes room for the one who comes next.
And underneath all of it is the question Chris and I keep coming back to: after everything, can we still trust life?