I put Max down yesterday at about 3 o'clock at Dr. Amos' office. The dreaded hours leading up to the appointment time weighing on my body like an avalanche, anticipating the action that every fiber of my being wanted to resist - letting him go. Maybe "let him go" is the right way to put it, rather than "ending his life." But giving consent to end his or any being's life seems - wrong (is there a stronger word?). We tell ourselves and each other that it's the right thing to do, the humane thing to do. In fact, we ask, "how could you NOT do it?" Is that right? Do we humans have the right to make decisions about another being's life? I think the shocking, traumatic part of this for me is that if I'm really brutally, painfully honest, it's a relief in the end. I don't have to bear and abide with the suffering, and the messy inconvenience of illness and dying. I no longer have to mix up a "slurry" (even the word is gross) of food to inject in his mouth. I don't have to clean out the food trapped in his mouth around the vicious and predatory tumor there, or follow the blood laced drool droppings to clean them up. I don't have to endure the fears that come with checking his breathing through the night. So is it my heart that I'm being 'humane" to, or his? Is life only worth living when you have the full ability to enjoy it? That's what they say too: "if he has no good quality of life, then it's time." Really? Is that right? Maybe it's true for animals and there are different rules for humans? (And maybe that is obvious to everyone and I'm missing it?) I am obviously perplexed by this dilemma, or, I mean that I find it to be a dilemma, and I feel guilty because I know it was the way to relief for me, and that feels awful. (Oh, but what I'd give for another chance to give him his water with a squirt bottle and hold his little body while there, on top of the washing machine, while he gratefully lapped it up, or mix up that slurry for another meal, and the blessings and joy that comes with nurturing another.) But...
Can I tell you that as the tumor bloomed on that jaw and into that tiny mouth, so also did our intimacy, this dog's and mine. This plucky little Jack Russell, left at the shelter at almost 12 years old, who bonded with me immediately - my shadow really - started needing me in different ways. And in the ways that giving and receiving are seamlessly intertwined, we entered a more "divine exchange."
Because of the growth in his mouth, it became harder and harder for him to eat and drink, tongue displaced and mechanics of lapping upended. So, I started using a squirt bottle to give him water. I would put him up on top of the washing machine (he was so portable) and spray water into his mouth. Now there's an interesting side note to this squirt bottle. It is the one I used to scold him when he would snarl and growl when Harold (the elder Jack Russell Terrier who's household this was way before little Max entered the scene), tried to claim some space and closeness with me! Rude, right? But that trusting little guy seemed to know that I was no longer scolding him with water squirts but was allowing him to hydrate. I have to say I loved those moments every day, stroking him and holding him while he seemed to know exactly what to do with these new mechanics. I can't really describe that sweetness and the way it was coupled with heartbreak, but it was deep, and it felt like a privilege, a gift. Other interesting "delights" (to borrow from poet Ross Gay's illuminating Book of Delights) were mixing up that smelly canned food and Max feeling well enough to chow down! And the days when it must've just been too hard to eat, and I used a syringe to get it closer to his swallowing. There were the days when I would take him to the vet's office to get fluids, and the delight on the faces of the vet techs and receptionist (and vet too if we saw him) when Max arrived - delight despite the drool-y, and yes, smelly appendage, bigger each time we dropped by; the "magic" of fluids that made him feel so much better, hungrier and ready for more walks...until it didn't.
We had days and days - more than I thought we'd have - of saying good-bye and also of saying hello...to each morning. So many woods walks, with his being a dog. Just...being...a...dog. True to his dogness.
(Written on December 23, 2020): Christmas eves eve, a favorite day for anticipation; for waiting; for communion. The sunrise is gold and pink, glittering, shimmering layers of clouds on the egg shell blue sky. The morning comes again and I wake up with the coming sun, not at 5, 6, 630 or 645, but 7am - right before the dawn, when the light is coming. I have hopes of waking up way before that, to anticipate its coming in the darkest dark of the night, right before dawn. But I'm cocooning then, and dreaming dreams, and checking on the warmth and breath of "puppy" next to me, feeling his warmth and the sweet softness of his tiny, wirehaired belly which just fits in my hand. All those years of giant dogs, bigger than me, me hanging on and spooning those two giant lumps of fur. Now, I tuck this tiny loaf of Jack Russell bread next to me- maybe small in poundage but a mighty magnificent presence. A sturdy, toughness, accompanying me through different chapters of grief, "rescued" from the SPCA after Maggie, the last of the Pyrenees died; grief of Harold, the longest, faithful, companion who was with me through thick and thin for 14 years; and now through COVID, job loss, and awakenings - new beginnings. This dog has accompanied me to the woods, to the earth, to the ground where I've revisited and re-cognized my place in it, and on it. Walking and walking, we've felt the earth beneath us, layers and layers of falling leaves released from the trees as part of the circle, laying down more earth and dirt and ground that carries us, envelopes us. We felt that welcoming, me and this pup - the pup who firmly requested that I stop and look and absorb our surroundings as he sniffed and marked and padded one place on the path after place. Because of his insistence, I stood and looked, not just at the path ahead, but at a 360 view of the patches where we stood, and stood, and stood. And every time I had to force myself to stop. I was already so far down the path in my mind, and so driven to get farther down the linear line of it that I didn’t even know where I was. I wasn't seeing what was accompanying us, ever changing through photosynthesis, the moving air, the trees, life cycle of contributing leaves to the carpet of ground, the critters. But because of the pup who's ever embedded in his very, every moment I slowed down, stood nearer to still, turned around, gazed up, gazed down, took breaths with intention to pick out a scent, watching the tiny canine show me how to be in communion with his moments, nose buried in the leaves to pick up those scents, paws padding on all the textures of the patch of ground, making a physical mark to say "I'm here too" joining all the "previous nesses" of being here, ears attuned to anything below the surface or around the corner, tree, rock, creek. Only in my impatience, only in my captivity to linear time seducing me to accomplishment, achievement, social media proof through photos to communicate that "I'm here" and "look what I did today" does that pup heed my bidding by the pull of the leash, and in loyalty and trust he follows me in a straight line down the path, the well worn path made by all the other humans bidden by linear time, yet, seeking soul time.
We came closer to soul time in our hammock, by the water, pup so easily settling in with me, as I tried to slow down and "be found" by the life around me - life that was before me and will be long after me and maybe life that I've been in union with before, during and after earth life. Life that birthed me to earth life - from which I come, live and go.
No comments:
Post a Comment