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ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own, live within a fragile circle,
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">clickPosted on 02/01/2007 1:37:18 PM PST by Calpernia
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ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own, live within a fragile circle,
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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.
I’m so sorry, backhoe. I’m sending a prayer for you and a hug to you.
I thank you.
Much has happened since we set Taffy free from that prison her tired old body had become- we went to Animal Control, and got a puppy to fill those empty silent spaces-- my wife's Mom died, and we were the only ones who cared to take her very old, very fat, and very neurotic dog... so we seem to be awash in dogdom.
And still, sometimes when I pull up to the gates, I expect to see my old white wolf, standing there waiting so happily and patiently for me...
I have a recurring dream- I'm driving an old Cadillac convertible, and it's full of all the dogs and cats and birds I ever had, and we drive through every place I've ever been, trying to get home.
We pass through every city and town and place and space I've ever seen, the ruins of New Orleans after Katrina- and just when it seems like we'll never find home again, we see it...
...and the dream ends... always.
Let's hope "we all find our way home again."
Anyway, he was dying. I'd just hand fed him a couple pieces of fresh turkey and some milk. I'd gone into the kitchen to clean some dishes, Mr. A was sitting on the floor next to him.
I was looking out the window, water in the sink running, when he appeared in my head!!! He spoke with an aneme cat voice, he was with a ton of cats, he was happy, and he told me he'd be there when I passed. That he'd be there waiting.
My eyes popped huge, I knew I hadn't been thinking it, I knew I hadn't invited this, ran into the room, and sure enough this blessed beast had passed.
I'll never forget this experience.
He's waiting to cross the Rainbow Bridge with me, and now I know.
That was WONDERFUL!!! Egads, it’s Christmas morning, and I’m wiping tears from my eyes.
God bless Taffy.
I lost my dog Jack the 26th of Dec two years ago and it almost killed me.
Now I have two adoptees who were rescued from a shelter as was Jack. These dogs always know you did something special for them and offer a lot of love.
My sympathies to you and her family.
Your loss is great.
So sad for your loss.
Less than a year before my male cat passed, the cat next door brought me two orphan kittens, one at a time. My kids, of course, pled for their adoption. As my male cat began to weaken, the adopted Hemmingway cat (currently curled up right next to my keyboard) would wrap himself around my elder male cat, to keep him warm and to comfort him.
Oh heck, let me tell you one even weirder thing...
As we were moving across the nation, CA to here, and we'd rented a one-way RV out of the state in order to get our elderly pets out of the state (no airline would take them), we were in Arkansas.
Beautiful, beautiful campsite/rv park. The foliage and greenery were breathtaking. It was very early morning, and I was taking my coffee outside to cherish my surroundings.
When a cat stepped out of the woods and was meowing at me, trying to get my attention. It was trying to tell me something. I nodded my head, murmured something to the cat. The cat acknowledged my response and turned tail and walked back into the woods.
I think "that was unique" and go and sit down to enjoy my coffe, once again.
I looked off into the distance, and there I was, about a 1/4 mile away, a cat striding across a lea. I thought, wow, that cat has the same stride as my elder male cat. And so I was set upon ruminating upon cat history and cat migrations and ancestry.
The cat was striding towards me, in my direction. I continued my ruminations.
I'm looking up at the trees, when, voila!, there was my male cat right in front of me! I chastised him for escaping (as we'd be hitting the road in an hour) and opened the door to the RV and he marched right in.
He'd somehow popped out the screen in the bedding area over the cab, and had taken a stroll during the night.
And that cat that had come out of the wood to tell me something? Ah, yeah. I understood NOW what he'd be trying to tell me.
Thank you- I always liked that story-- I'm not going anywhere my pups aren't welcome.
They give so much, and ask so little in return. Zoe'-- my late mother in law's dog- seems to have adopted my wife as her new "mother." Old and slow though she is, whenever she sees her she breaks into a lumbering run and just butts her head into her, and rolls for joy.
I appreciate your kind words. The “little” ( he weighs 70 pounds now ) dog we got from animal control, and my mother-in-law’s huge old dog fill up the house and yard, but sometimes I still expect to see Taffy, waiting like she did for nearly 14 years.
And, like you, I could never imagine a heaven without my loved ones and my blessed beasts.
I think often of Eden pre-the Fall. It was heaven, man and beasts together.
I think that our blessed pets are entrusted to us in their lifetimes to remind us that Eden is yet very real.
Backhoe - sorry to hear about your loss. A pet can be ones’ best friend, and I know that you’ll miss yours.
Thank you for the kind words. They do leave a hole in your heart, when they go.
I’ve always liked very large dogs, especially the cuddly mastiff, so dignified and alert with strangers, and so silly with the grandkids...
Here's Cole, who the shelter claimed would become a 40 pound Collie ( he's still growing, 70 pounds, and seems to be a Field Retriever- like a Golden, but a hyperactive ball of lightning )--
And Zoe' my late MIL's huge, shy hound:
Sixteen years is a long time for a dog, but it's never long enough for us humans.
Ain't that the truth?
We still have Jake, although his is 13 which is an advanced age for a Corgi.
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