Darklands

A post on Gut Rumbles led me to this post – Orion’s Belt – at the Dax Files, about his long friendship (and I use that term intentionally) with his dog.

I posted the link here for three reasons:
1. As a dog person through-and-through, I’m a sucker for any well-written dog story.
2. Like many serious posts, Orion’s Belt provoked a number of thoughts and reactions from me.
3. Dax’s post reminded me that, despite several attempts, I hadn’t written anything about putting my own dog down earlier this year. Granted it’s a topic of interest to about, oh, zero percent of my readers, but it’s a story that has been struggling to get out of me for months. I just hadn’t found the right approach.

Grief is an odd thing, in that it can make other people uncomfortable. Some because they’re self-centered, and don’t want to be bothered by other people’s troubles. But many more, I think, because they’re simply unsure how to react, how to behave around the person who’s grieving. So they say and do nothing at all. They may make the obligatory ‘sorry for your loss’ comment or gesture, but after that, they do their best to pretend nothing has happened. This tendency is exacerbated when you’re dealing with the loss of a dog (or any other pet I suppose, but I only know dogs). Folks who are not dog people, who have never bonded closely with a dog, simply can’t comprehend the magnitude of the loss of what to them is simply a dumb animal. And that makes them only more uncomfortable around you.

How do I know the above? Having been through two deaths in the last two years, one a person, the other a beagle, I’ve noticed how people reacted to me and treated me as I grieved. I’ve received nothing but stone silence from folks I never dreamed would be so cold.

But I’ve also been blessed with gifts of compassion and warmth, sometimes from the most unlikely of sources. While there will be many who avoid the topic of your loss and the accompanying emotions, there will be others who will understand implicitly. They may not comment directly – sometimes words are futile – but you will know them by the way they look at you, by the way they treat you, by the simple gesture of comfort they offer. Sometimes a companionable silence says more than any flowery words.

If you bring a dog into your life, you know that odds are, the dog will depart this life long before you do. You will accept this intellectually, but you will not be prepared for it. Even if you’re dog is old and ill, you will not be ready, and though you should have seen it coming it will happen seemingly out of the blue.

You will be asleep in the small hours of the morning when the beagle, who normally slumbers peacefully, curled up against your legs, wakes you up by coughing a vile black fluid all over you, herself, and the bedding.

You will sit up and snap on the lamp next to the bed, blinking in the sudden harsh light. Part of you will know this is finally it, the beginning of the end, but you’ll ignore that troublesome thought.

You’ll carry her out to the kitchen, clean her off, and then place her gently quietly in her dog bed under the table. Then you’ll clean yourself off and change the sheets on the bed. When you’re done, you’ll flick off the lights and call to her to follow you back to bed. She won’t move – she’ll just look at her. You’ll see her eyes glinting in the dark from under the table.

So you’ll pick up the dog bed and carry her and it back to the bedroom. You’ll put her down next to you and drop off into a fitful slumber. Often during the remainder of the night you’ll wake up and check on her, maybe pat her and talk to her. You’ll notice that despite her usual insistence on sharing your body heat she hasn’t stirred from her own little bed.

In the morning you’ll call the vet and make some noise about having her being ill and needing to be looked at right away. By now the troublesome voice will be louder, and in your heart you’ll know this will be a one way trip for her. But you’ll carry her out to the car – still in her bed – pretending otherwise.

The vet will see you as soon as you get there, and you’ll briefly discuss what can be done. He can get her back on her feet, but soon – very soon, all three of you will be right back in this examining room. So you’ll say enough is enough. You don’t want her to hurt anymore.

The vet will ask if you want to be in the room when it happens, and you’ll say yes because you wouldn’t dream of letting her die with strangers. And he’ll ask you if you’d like a moment alone with her and you’ll say no, because you’ll realize you already said your goodbyes.

The vet will leave the room briefly and return with a syringe. And then you’ll hold her and say go ahead and he’ll kill her. And you’ll always think of it as killing because you hate canting euphemisms like ‘putting to sleep’ or ‘putting down.’ Killing it was, and killing you’ll call it.

When it’s done you’ll thank the vet, who has been a very good vet indeed for the last ten years. And you’ll settle up your bill and take care of other things that need taking care of, and then you’ll be ready to go. You’ll step out of the same door you walked in through a short while ago, except this time it’s just you, and you’ll blink a little in the morning sunlight, because this time it’s the end and not the beginning.