Welcome to Back from the Abyss. I'm Dr. Craig Hecock. This is a place for stories of hope and healing, recovery, and redemption.

Back from the Abyss is psychiatry and stories.

And I'm really excited to be back here to start season two.

And we're going to be trying some interesting new things,

including next episode where I bring all of you listeners into my office

to eavesdrop on a therapy session.

I'm a little nervous about this, maybe the most

vulnerable thing I've tried, but I think it's going to be fun and hopefully informative.

But today's episode was inspired by my most recent loss. We put our dear old golden doodle to sleep a few months ago. And although I'd sketched out my

thoughts for this episode just before he died, it was our last day with him, taking him on this

little walk around City Park, cooking him some special chicken and letting each of my girls say

goodbye to him on FaceTime and then inviting the vet into our house to help him pass as we

held him in the living room. And it was really the grief of his death that pushed me to record

this episode the next day.

But then, just after recording, COVID broke out.

And Chris and I agreed that it would be tone deaf to release this episode in the middle of a pandemic.

So after a few months on hold, I'm now going to share with you some thoughts on loss and living.

And goodbye, Dooley, you rascally dog.

We really miss you a lot.

When I go to my patients memorials, I sit alone in the back.

I'm sitting in the back of an auditorium, and people are streaming in, filling most all the seats.

And I'm thinking how he said that day in my office, the day he died, that he was alone in the world, alone, except for his mom.

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