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Friday, April 15, 2005
On The Night Before
You put it off as long as you can. We all do; though it leaves no scar, of all the necessities of life, it's the one that hurts the most.
In the past, when it's risen to your thoughts, you've thrust it away. Can't happen, you say to yourself. He's immortal. Nothing that good and selfless could possibly come to an end. But in the recess in your mind where the closet monsters once lived, you know that you'll have to face it one day. And you know it will be a very bad day indeed, one of the worst you'll ever know.
He grows quickly. The frisking infant matures, graduates to more complex games and ways of communicating. You run with him, run after him, throw things over his head just to give him the pleasure of fetching them and carrying them back to you.
There's a joy in that face. He can't form the words, but he can say I love you, Dad as clearly with his eyes and his toothy, drooly smile as any human ever could or did. You can feel it in a special place in your chest, where all the joys of your life first pierce you before they seal themselves into your soul.
The time goes by quickly. The energetic yearling is soon a full-grown adult. The adult paces himself more carefully. Sometimes he runs as fast, but not as often. His walk develops a stately cadence. It's the prime of his life, you love him like a firstborn son and he returns it in full, but the signs are already clear. Like all that lives and breathes, this creature is mortal. He's at his peak, and a glorious thing it is to see, but it also means he's about to start coasting downhill.
More years pass. He slows down ever further, sleeps more and more. A milky film dims the shine in his dark eyes. His joints grow stiff; perhaps a tremor enters his walk. He doesn't always eat his meals. Sometimes rousing him for a yard visit takes everything you've got. But he's still there with you, on the couch beside you in the evening or by your bedside at night. It still seems impossible that he might ever go away.
But the clock, that two handed engine at the door, stands ready to smite once, and smite no more. It will not stay any man's destiny...nor any dog's.
He grows frail, feeble. He moves less and less. The light in his eyes is all but gone. The flame of life that once burned within him has dimmed to an ember. His time is running out.
And one evening, when you find him lying in a puddle of his own urine, or ragged with holes from his own teeth, or moaning faintly because even his breath no longer comes without pain, you know you can put it off no longer.
You make the appointment for the following day.
Somehow, he knows. He can tell from your manner, or your tone on the telephone, or perhaps from the special meal he gets that evening. He wouldn't fight it if he could. He knows it's for the best.
But you don't. You made the decision and the call, but you haven't yet allowed the imminence of the thing to wrap itself all the way around you. It hasn't yet found that tender place in your heart where your love of him lives. And a little while later, perhaps a few minutes, perhaps a few hours, it strikes home.
By this time tomorrow, he'll be gone.
You fight the surge in your chest, but Hercules himself couldn't hold it down for long. First comes the gasping, then the tears, and then the howl.
The tears run in a flood. You can't stop them, you mustn't stop them, they're pain in the liquid state, distilled to 200 proof, and if you were to keep them in they'd eat right through your flesh, leave you incapable of holding anything good or generous in you ever again. Same with the howl. It's going to come out of you no matter what you do. Fighting it is pointless. It's bigger than you are, much bigger, and it will have its way.
This is the primal response to incompensable loss. This is the cleansing that seems to come near to killing the one cleansed, which he has no alternative but to endure. Rending one's garments, pouring dust and cinders over one's head, pounding one's fists against whatever's available and screaming imprecations at the injustice of it all. The source is always the same.
This is grief.
He knows that, too. He would comfort you, if he could. He always did, before.
For you, there is no comfort. There is no refuge. There is no surcease. There is only pain.
You always knew that one day, you would lose him. Now you know exactly when, where, and how. You can do nothing about it except endure it. Anything else would make it worse.
This, too, shall pass away. All things do; that's the glory and tragedy of life. And when the pain recedes and the tears and howling have stopped, there will be peace. Your memories of him will coalesce into a handful of bright images, a highlight show you'll carry in your heart forever.
But do not stint that awful moment. Embrace it fully; it's of a piece with the rest. Be grateful for it. If you felt not his loss, it would mean that there was no love.
Still, by this time tomorrow, he will be gone.
Good-bye, Bruno. May God take you to His bosom, where you've always belonged.
Don't expect too much from your Curmudgeon this weekend.
Comments
I understand your grief, friend…
My sympathy and my prayers are yours…
Posted by mostly cajun on 04/15/2005 at 07:26 PMBeen there… twice, in the last two years. Agreed, it sucks.
Let the tears flow, you’re right, they’re Important.
Somehow, I managed to get through 48 years, almost always having pets, yet never had to make the call until last year. Somehow, it always happened offstage. But now, I was with each of them when the deed was done… rough, but I couldn’t imagine it being any other way.
Nothing more I can add really. Please accept our condolances.
-l
Posted by on 04/15/2005 at 07:57 PMJees. My thoughts are with you, and Bruno Da Newf. Sleep in peace and painlessness, Bruno.
Dang. Now ya got me wet-eyed.
Posted by og on 04/15/2005 at 08:19 PMI’m a dog lover too… I know it hurts. Best condolences to your family and to you.
Posted by on 04/15/2005 at 08:40 PMOnce years ago I went to the vet with a St. Poodle named Dersu Uzala and came back without him. Felt just the same…
Posted by Kerry on 04/15/2005 at 09:19 PMCondolences to you, Francis.
Posted by Head on 04/15/2005 at 09:42 PMI’ve thought about these times that lie in the future, and get sad and teary thinking of them, even now, years before hand (I hope). I can’t imagine how much worse the reality is.
My condolences, and best wishes,
TJIC
Posted by TJIC on 04/15/2005 at 10:07 PMFor me, it was a Golden Retriever named Molly. The sweetest, kindest, most loving creature on this Earth. And I was out of commission for a week.
That was a few years ago, now. I still miss her sometimes.
All our condolences go out to you. Come back when you feel ready. We’ll wait.
Posted by Matt on 04/16/2005 at 12:10 AMSo sorry. I had to make that first call when I was 14. I hope the good memories ease things for you.
Posted by Jason on 04/16/2005 at 01:04 AMA few hours after bidding good-bye to my Bebee, I went out onto the side porch to shake out a throw-rug and the wail/howl caught me so fast, and surprised, that I couldn’t get back in the house before it got away.
So sorry, Fran.
Posted by on 04/16/2005 at 06:48 AMDamn. ::sniff::
...um… ::straightens::
I’m very sorry for your loss. Take heart in the memories of a life well-lived.
M
Posted by Mark Alger on 04/16/2005 at 11:18 AMI’m terribly sorry.
James
Posted by James R. Rummel on 04/22/2005 at 04:38 PMI live at the foot of a mounatain. Every morning when I left Ziggy roam free, he had a regular route he would travel and then return to the door and wait to be left in.
Then the day came when a decision had to be made that I had always prayed would be cancelled out by a natural quick death.
I was retired and my wife still worked. She called to me that Ziggy was out and would need left in. It was the day that I was to take him to the vet. As I washed and dressed, I watched from the window to see when he was ready to come to the door.
But, at the end of his route, he started out on it anew. Five times he did this. It was like he knew what the day held and he was trying to take in every sensation of his surroundings one last time.
I stayed with him and talked with him as the doctor administered the first injectiion which was the same as he would use to operate. I talked and petted until I was sure that he neither felt nor heard my voice anymore. I could not bare to see the final needle put in an walked away with instructions to be called back when Ziggy was gone.
I took his limp body home and wrapped in a blanket, I buried him in the woods behind my home. The woods that he had walked so many times, that he had walked that morning.
I lettered a wood plaque and coated it many times that it may stand against the weather. I placed it at his grave 11 years ago and it stands straight and as good as the day I put it there.
I also had a cat named Rocky and she seemed to go downhill very fast after Ziggy went and I had to live it all over again with her. She and Zig were the best of friends and often curled up on the floor against each other. I loved her as much and miss her as much as I do old Ziggy “with the little seal lip and the little lamby jaw.”
And I miss him and her terribly even now. Damn, how can anyting that can’t even talk worm its way in to your heart so deep?
I know your grief and I am so sorry for you and for myself, and for Bruno and for Ziggy and for Rocky and for every pet that has to die. They are the one good thing on the face of this earth and for that God should let them live forever.Posted by on 07/02/2007 at 03:57 PM
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