August 26, 2014
August 25, 2014
August 22, 2014
DOG DAYS
Until a couple of weeks ago I measured my life in dog-shaped days. Not my entire life. But the past five years of it. And now that Fred is dead my days are haunted by shapelessness. I expected to miss him but I didn't expect this.
We had Fred for 14 years and he was diabetic for the last five years of his life. When diabetes happened, insulin happened, needles happened, blood sugar testing happened (but only after catching Fred's first morning pee in a ladle). It gave a pronounced terrier shape to the day.
Which was not an altogether bad thing because around that time my days needed shaping. I'd recently lost my job at the mismanaged company where I worked for most of our time in Texas.
That wasn't an altogether bad thing either because the bombastic, myopic, erratic, neurotic, narcissistic mismanager of the company had me desperately seeking therapy in lieu of suicide. I wanted to quit the job. My very practical wife thought I meant quit in a couple of years when I could retire. I meant RIGHT NOW! before it kills me. I didn't make myself as clear as I needed to. She had worked hard, earned her Ph.D., had things she wanted to do and said she wanted the time to do them. Because I love her, I agreed, but we lived on separate psychic timelines for a while after that. We'd never done that before in our long and happy life. But I kept working, kept going to therapy (so I could keep working). Besides, the erratic, neurotic, narcissistic, etc. mismanager paid pretty well and the health insurance was good (the therapist liked that part).
Then suddenly, surprisingly, the job ended. A guy called me at home to tell me. It was good old Darryl, the ever faithful company guy who would lose his own job to the same mismanaged mess not long after that. Mr. Erratic, Neurotic, Etc., who recently had assured me that he couldn't imagine the company without me and that I could work there as long as I wanted to, never did his own shit work. I was out. And that was that. It was all over but the unemployment checks. I was too furious at the duplicity of it to feel relieved.
I suppose my anger gave my days some shape, but it didn't last. While my wife worked I sank into shapeless days of television, seeking narrative relief for the interrupted job-shaped story of most of my life. Then Fred became diabetic and ladling pee, testing blood sugar and poking needles gave me something to do every day. It still left plenty of time for television. Then, on a day when my wife was away working in Rhode Island and I was watching rerun after rerun of Law and Order on cable TV and eating peanut-buttered saltines, Fred looked up at me from his bed beside my chair and I watched him go blind. It was among the saddest things I'd ever seen and there was nothing I could do to stop it. It was over in a few minutes.
That's when my days took on the dog shape they kept until a couple of weeks ago. They were noisy days from the first. Fred was a good blind dog, but he was a blind dog. He had a talent for understanding words and following directions and I talked him through his blindness. He listened and was remarkably independent for a long time, but grew more and more insecure and dependent as time passed. My days became smaller and smaller as Fred's needs grew larger. He lost his sense of direction. I had to talk to him more and more to get him through his days but he seemed to understand what I was saying less and less. When I got out of bed in the mornings I stepped into a deep terrier-shaped hole. At least that's how it felt by the end.
That was two weeks ago.
Now when I get out of bed I step onto unexpectedly unfamiliar ground. I have been spending my shapeless days lost in a bigger and sadder place. And there have been some days too devoted to TV (narrative relief of the Law and Order sort), but I know they will end. And I know I am not really on unfamiliar ground. I've been here before. I am standing in that undefined and too quiet spot where the dead always leave the living. It is the place where life goes on and things shape up. I know that. I just don't know what new shape my days will take when that happens.
 |
Eric munches, Fred watches |
Which was not an altogether bad thing because around that time my days needed shaping. I'd recently lost my job at the mismanaged company where I worked for most of our time in Texas.
That wasn't an altogether bad thing either because the bombastic, myopic, erratic, neurotic, narcissistic mismanager of the company had me desperately seeking therapy in lieu of suicide. I wanted to quit the job. My very practical wife thought I meant quit in a couple of years when I could retire. I meant RIGHT NOW! before it kills me. I didn't make myself as clear as I needed to. She had worked hard, earned her Ph.D., had things she wanted to do and said she wanted the time to do them. Because I love her, I agreed, but we lived on separate psychic timelines for a while after that. We'd never done that before in our long and happy life. But I kept working, kept going to therapy (so I could keep working). Besides, the erratic, neurotic, narcissistic, etc. mismanager paid pretty well and the health insurance was good (the therapist liked that part).
Then suddenly, surprisingly, the job ended. A guy called me at home to tell me. It was good old Darryl, the ever faithful company guy who would lose his own job to the same mismanaged mess not long after that. Mr. Erratic, Neurotic, Etc., who recently had assured me that he couldn't imagine the company without me and that I could work there as long as I wanted to, never did his own shit work. I was out. And that was that. It was all over but the unemployment checks. I was too furious at the duplicity of it to feel relieved.
I suppose my anger gave my days some shape, but it didn't last. While my wife worked I sank into shapeless days of television, seeking narrative relief for the interrupted job-shaped story of most of my life. Then Fred became diabetic and ladling pee, testing blood sugar and poking needles gave me something to do every day. It still left plenty of time for television. Then, on a day when my wife was away working in Rhode Island and I was watching rerun after rerun of Law and Order on cable TV and eating peanut-buttered saltines, Fred looked up at me from his bed beside my chair and I watched him go blind. It was among the saddest things I'd ever seen and there was nothing I could do to stop it. It was over in a few minutes.
That's when my days took on the dog shape they kept until a couple of weeks ago. They were noisy days from the first. Fred was a good blind dog, but he was a blind dog. He had a talent for understanding words and following directions and I talked him through his blindness. He listened and was remarkably independent for a long time, but grew more and more insecure and dependent as time passed. My days became smaller and smaller as Fred's needs grew larger. He lost his sense of direction. I had to talk to him more and more to get him through his days but he seemed to understand what I was saying less and less. When I got out of bed in the mornings I stepped into a deep terrier-shaped hole. At least that's how it felt by the end.
That was two weeks ago.
Now when I get out of bed I step onto unexpectedly unfamiliar ground. I have been spending my shapeless days lost in a bigger and sadder place. And there have been some days too devoted to TV (narrative relief of the Law and Order sort), but I know they will end. And I know I am not really on unfamiliar ground. I've been here before. I am standing in that undefined and too quiet spot where the dead always leave the living. It is the place where life goes on and things shape up. I know that. I just don't know what new shape my days will take when that happens.
August 12, 2014
FRED: THE INSUFFICIENCY OF TEARS
Our dog Fred died a couple of days ago. He was about 15 years old - ours for 14 of those years - blind, diabetic, arthritic, incontinent, he trembled, had trouble standing, limped when he walked, had to be carried outside, was disoriented, confused, sometimes (often) needed to go outside in the middle of the night but sometimes still peed on the carpet because he couldn't help it, had begun to pant when he walked even short distances. After years of living fearlessly as a blind dog in a big world, his world grew smaller and more insecure by the day over the past few months. Many days lately he seemed to labor at simply staying alive and by the end he didn't have energy for much more than that. We decided it was time to take that little bit away too.
We think people who call themselves pet parents insult both pets and parents. We are dog owners. Ending Fred's life would not be like killing one of our children. But it would be killing something we loved, something we had worked hard for years to keep alive. It was not an easy decision.
I do not believe the dead go to a better place. This is the place and this is the one life any living thing has. After that there is nothing. Of course, the good thing about nothing is that we do not know we have arrived when we get there. But taking away life is taking away everything. Forever. That is not an easy thing to do. We wrestled with it, discussed it, worried it, measured his life and ours, measured his pain and ours, measured his loyalty and ours. "It is what I would want you to do for me. I expect it," Dauna said. I expect nothing less from her. There comes a time when the best thing to do is an act of terrible kindness that never can be undone. We decided it was the best thing we could do for Fred.
We made an appointment for 11:30 last Saturday (making such an appointment was disconcerting). Fred loved to ride in the car and we decided that is where it would be appropriate for him to spend his final minutes. He was calm as we drove him to the veterinarian's office. We parked in the shade of a juniper tree. His bed was in the back seat. Dauna sat beside him. We petted him, talked to him. He was quiet. He never particularly liked strangers touching him, but he remained calm when the vet leaned into the car and petted him, too. She explained the process and made sure we knew what we were doing. It was clear that she understood the difficulty of our decision. She gave Fred a sedative. He slept deeply, quickly, and we could only hope he heard our final goodbyes. The vet came back about 10 minutes later with an assistant, found a vein, gave him another injection - at any time up to that very moment we could have stopped what was happening, but we had agreed it was time to do what we were doing and had labored over the decision for weeks, even earlier that day. Neither of us said stop. In a few minutes, peacefully, quietly, his heart stopped beating and we were in tears.
I had dug his grave between two cactuses the day before. It seemed an appropriate place because Fred had a knack for stumbling over cactuses when he went out hiking with us (something else he couldn't do any longer). It wasn't easy because there is so much disintegrating granite in the soil here and my back still aches a little from swinging the pick and hoisting the shovel, but I dug it deep enough and wide enough, comfortable enough (that's how I thought about it). We brought Fred home and gently put him in the grave wrapped in a favorite blanket and covered him up. My wife fashioned a marker from dead cholla cactus branches, attached his tag to it and we walked away. It was a sad afternoon.
A little later I walked across the arroyo and up the hill alone. Why? I wasn't sure. But it felt like the right thing to do. I stood over the grave and made sure the dirt was snug around him one more time, pressing, packing it with my foot. I turned to walk away. Stopped. Looked down and said, "I'm sorry." I didn't intend to say that, but it was all I could do with my sadness when tears were not enough.
 |
| Fred begging for cucumbers |
I do not believe the dead go to a better place. This is the place and this is the one life any living thing has. After that there is nothing. Of course, the good thing about nothing is that we do not know we have arrived when we get there. But taking away life is taking away everything. Forever. That is not an easy thing to do. We wrestled with it, discussed it, worried it, measured his life and ours, measured his pain and ours, measured his loyalty and ours. "It is what I would want you to do for me. I expect it," Dauna said. I expect nothing less from her. There comes a time when the best thing to do is an act of terrible kindness that never can be undone. We decided it was the best thing we could do for Fred.
We made an appointment for 11:30 last Saturday (making such an appointment was disconcerting). Fred loved to ride in the car and we decided that is where it would be appropriate for him to spend his final minutes. He was calm as we drove him to the veterinarian's office. We parked in the shade of a juniper tree. His bed was in the back seat. Dauna sat beside him. We petted him, talked to him. He was quiet. He never particularly liked strangers touching him, but he remained calm when the vet leaned into the car and petted him, too. She explained the process and made sure we knew what we were doing. It was clear that she understood the difficulty of our decision. She gave Fred a sedative. He slept deeply, quickly, and we could only hope he heard our final goodbyes. The vet came back about 10 minutes later with an assistant, found a vein, gave him another injection - at any time up to that very moment we could have stopped what was happening, but we had agreed it was time to do what we were doing and had labored over the decision for weeks, even earlier that day. Neither of us said stop. In a few minutes, peacefully, quietly, his heart stopped beating and we were in tears.
I had dug his grave between two cactuses the day before. It seemed an appropriate place because Fred had a knack for stumbling over cactuses when he went out hiking with us (something else he couldn't do any longer). It wasn't easy because there is so much disintegrating granite in the soil here and my back still aches a little from swinging the pick and hoisting the shovel, but I dug it deep enough and wide enough, comfortable enough (that's how I thought about it). We brought Fred home and gently put him in the grave wrapped in a favorite blanket and covered him up. My wife fashioned a marker from dead cholla cactus branches, attached his tag to it and we walked away. It was a sad afternoon.
A little later I walked across the arroyo and up the hill alone. Why? I wasn't sure. But it felt like the right thing to do. I stood over the grave and made sure the dirt was snug around him one more time, pressing, packing it with my foot. I turned to walk away. Stopped. Looked down and said, "I'm sorry." I didn't intend to say that, but it was all I could do with my sadness when tears were not enough.
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