Today's the day

*I'm not exactly consistent when it comes to trigger warnings (which is now a thing), but this post deals with the loss of a pet. If you're balancing on an emotional razor's edge or not looking to harsh your happy, this may not be for you today.

Shower, get dressed, pack up necessary items, drink coffee, eat breakfast. Go about your ordinary day in the regular way. Today wasn’t even supposed to be like most Fridays in our house because my husband had taken Thursday and Friday off & we had plans to visit the mouse’s magic house both days. But the morning ran like groggy clockwork.

Halfway to the parks, my husband checked his phone and noticed a text message from my dad. Later, I would realize how odd that was. My dad tends to message or call me directly out of 30-something years of habit. The message simply asked where we were. My husband replied back, finding it a bit humorous that my dad must have forgotten our plans to see fake castles this AM. Ordinarily I would wait for a response, but I felt compelled to call.

Our older dog was having some kind of trouble, he said. Went outside for a morning constitutional, came back to the porch and laid down outside. He refused to get up. My dad sounded concerned, but uncertain about the severity. I asked if he wanted us to come home as I gave a brief (& silent) thought to the lunch reservations I had made weeks ago & the penalty payment if we missed it. My husband bowed out of the conversation and said it was up to me. My dad sounded a little more uneasy and confessed he’d feel better if I came back.

So I got off the expressway at the next exit and turned around. I felt completely, weirdly, uncharacteristically calm. Deep in my gut, that calm tipped me off at what was about to come. I am a chronic overthinker and deluxe worrywart. If I think of every possible catastrophe at a given crossroad, surely I can ward most of them off. But this honest to God inner calm? I knew the day I’d been dreading for more than 13 years had come, that the little baby dog I’d raised since puppyhood was about to leave us. Today’s the day. The lunch reservation no longer mattered.

We got home and were greeted by our other dog, who all but backflipped at our arrival. “Oh thank God you’re here! Something’s going on!” I dropped everything in a chair and went straight to the back patio. There our older dog lay, my dad sitting near him. Our other dog bolted out the door with us, bypassed the ill dog, then returned inside. Normally she would do something to annoy the crap out of him. I was more calm than I could believe. My poor buddy was stretched out of the floor, his back legs twitching and his eyes not quite focusing. He didn’t even sniff us as we approached. There was a little drool on the floor.

He’s had a stroke, I thought. Or a severe seizure. Calmly but efficiently I grabbed two towels and had my husband lift him off the floor. I spread out the towels & rested him on the bed. His stomach was hard, his breathing labored. Sometimes his eyes would focus on us but mostly not. They darted from side to side. My husband sat with him as I called the vet. My dad waited anxiously nearby. I told them both it was time. For a moment or two, he would shift around a bit, seeming to come back to himself, but then fall back down. I wondered if whatever this was would pass as I waited on hold with the vet’s office. The inner calm gently reaffirmed it was time. My husband quietly agreed that he thought the dog had had a stroke and that the time had come, I think trying to prepare me for the worst. He didn’t realize I was already in handle-it mode. I think he didn’t realize he was in shock.

The vet’s office has been waiting for this phone call for more than six months. Each time I would call-in and then pick up refills of his medicines, they were all quite surprised he was still with us. Sometimes I think they wondered if I’d gone crazy and he was long dead.

When they finally answered (what a time to be on hold), I told them who I was and gave a brief explanation. He’s had a stroke or something. I think it’s time to come in and have him looked at and take care of this. I couldn’t say the words. I was impressed my voice didn’t break. It’s a vet’s office. They got my meaning. They told me to come in an hour and a half later. It seemed like an eternity.

With nothing better to do while on hold as my husband sat with him and my dad occasionally came over to pet him, I used the magic of apps and changed our lunch reservation to a dinner one. I suspected we’d need to get out of the house later or risk going mad.

After I got off the phone with the vet’s office, my husband and I switched places. I sat with our dog on the bed. Our other dog came up on the bed at this point of her own choosing. She sat a respectful distance from the senior statesman, but still close enough I could put a hand on her. She wagged as I petted him and didn’t do her best to redirect the attention I showed him back to herself. Which is what she’s spent the last four years of her life doing after the honeymoon phase was over. Eventually she shifted out of arm’s reach but remained on the bed a while longer, just keeping him and I company.

My dad herded the rest of the older folks into my room to say goodbyes. My mother has had a difficult time knowing the dog was on borrowed time and I truly believe it’s contributed to part of her current mental instabilities. She petted on him, leaning down to kiss his head and talk to him  before sniffling a bit. It was a smoother exchange than I expected and I was grateful. My father-in-law, blunt but with a hidden sentimental side, couldn’t bring himself to pet the dog. He kept saying how he’d been fine this morning, just fine. He left the room quickly. We were all a little surprised.

I figured we’d load up the little guy a half hour before his appointment. He’d gotten a little restless in the last 15 minutes or so and would try to sit up or shift only to flop back down. His eyes cleared for a bit and he angled his head off the bed, which helped him breathe a little easier (probably from the large tumor inside him). But then he started to press forward as if to slide off the bed, so I’d rearrange him to keep him from falling. We’d turn him on occasion, from laying on one side to the other, as this seemed to help him be more comfortable for a few minutes.

As I was about to get up and start prepping for the car ride, I noticed him sort of… retching I guess. My father mentioned that he’d done that a little after he’d collapsed earlier. His head stretched out as his jaw worked like he was going to throw up, then he relaxed. It happened two or three times now and that inner calm told me to check his breathing.

He wasn’t.  He deflated ever so slightly. I looked up to my husband, who stood beside the bed and I told him “He’s gone.”

My husband, bless him, had a hard time with that. He rested a hand against the dog, called his name, then looked for a pulse, mumbling something about it being harder to find one because of the fur. I slowly, calmly repeated several times to him that he was gone. He wasn’t here anymore. My husband shifted him gently. The dog was completely limp, even his paws. “He’s gone,” I said again. My husband looked at me to do something, anything. Finally it registered in my husband’s eyes, his heart shattering.

My dad came in and I told him. My husband kept asking me if I wanted to hold our dog. No. He’s gone. He’s not in there. I’m okay. My husband just stared at me, as much in heartbreak as looking for guidance. He declined wanting to hold his body as well, but when I got up to call the vet’s office, he took my place immediately to sit on our bed with our dog. Dad let the rest of the house know as my husband and I had quick but somber back and forth:

Hubby: Had I ever called the local pet crematory places I’d researched? No.

Me: Did he want to bury the dog in the backyard or have him cremated? Cremated. He couldn’t bear putting him the backyard, digging the hole or leaving him behind if we ever moved.

Hubby: Would the vet’s office handle anything like this since he didn’t die there? I didn’t know, I’d ask when I called.

Me: Do we want the ashes or let the vet dispose of them? Long pause that ultimately lead to him saying it’s up to me but he didn’t see the need for them.

So I called the vet. He wouldn’t be needing that appointment after all. I asked about ‘aftercare’ services. Yes, they could handle that and gave me the pricing for keeping the ashes or not keeping the ashes.

I admit, I’ve been undecided on the ashes situation for some time now. The first dog in my adult life who passed away, we did not get her ashes. I didn’t even think about it at the time, as I think I just blindly nodded through tears as the vet offered to handle everything when she died after surgery. (Cancer, again.) I have her last collar in a memory box. But this time, this dog, is a little different. I knew his end was coming and he’s lived in every house my husband and I have shared. I didn’t want to bury him somewhere and move away but I also didn’t know if I wanted to carry around his ashes the rest of my life.

In the end, we did not choose to get his ashes. Part of me feels like I’m going to regret that the rest of my life. Part of me feels like it was the right decision because he was long gone before we took his remains to the vet’s office today. Someday everyone who loved him will be gone and his remains would end up discarded anyway. I’ve already started looking for the right memory box to hold his last collar.

My husband and I wrapped our beloved dog’s body in the towels we’d rested him on and loaded up in our car. My dad offered to drive, but I said I’d be okay. And I was. I also knew he needed a private moment to grieve his bestest buddy & first granddog.

When our other dog died several years ago, my dad was adamant that we not replace her. He didn’t want two dogs in the household in the first place before we got her, and her death was as painful for him as it was for us except he refused to show it. This afternoon my dad made an offhand comment, which for him wasn’t anywhere as casual as he’d like me to believe, about the next dog we get when it’s time.

My husband didn’t talk on the ride over. He had cried a bit, fighting the tears the whole time, when I got off the phone with the vet after our dog had died. Seeing him cry guts me. His laugh sends me into hysterical fits of laughter. His tears send me to pieces. He stayed in the car as I went inside to make the arrangements. I was at the tail end of my overwhelming calm. I broke for a moment on the phone when I let the office know he passed on his own. I held it together as I paid for his cremation in the office. But when the vet tech came out to collect our beloved dog and kindly asked what happened, I broke. Not horrible, wrenching sobs, but tears flooded and I couldn’t hold back the stilted words through sniffles as she carefully and gently scooped his body up into her arms. She remembered how sick he’d been. She’d been the one to give him the x-ray that first saw the tumor. I told her I thought he’d had a stroke and died on his own just before we were going to bring him in to be put down. She remarked how she’d never had any pets die at home that they’d always had to be put down, but how she wished they had been able to be comfortable at home. I said it was a first for us as well. She offered her condolences, I’ll never be able to recall anything else because I was lost by this point. I got in the car and cried for a few moments. I blew my nose and kept the tears at bay the whole way home.

My husband and I held hands the whole way back. I felt an overriding sense of things working out as best they could. It’s still a ridiculous injustice in the world that such wonderful creatures have such short lifespans. And cancer is the ultimate fucking bullshit in life. But it happened on a day when my husband wasn’t at work. It happened on a day our little guy wasn’t alone and we could get to him before he passed and make him comfortable. 13 years isn’t enough, but for a dog it’s pretty good. The extra 7 months were a gift. Though I had called the vet to have him put down, he died relatively peacefully, relatively quickly and at home. He hated going to the vet. I dreaded having his last moments alive being ones of terror at the vet’s office. I felt relief in that I kept my promise to him. I would be there, til the end. And somehow, by grace or luck, I was. We all were.

I’m sure I’ll struggle in the coming days, weeks and possibly years with coulda, shoulda, woulda. I should have let him eat the pizza he was begging for last night. I should have picked him up and snuggled him until he headbutted me to stop when the thought occurred the last time. Would anything I didn’t do have been better for him in his last day, his last morning, his last minutes?

When we got home, I was fine until I walked through the door. The air in the house felt oppressively empty and the sense of loss was momentarily smothering. Unlike our arrival a few hours earlier, our girl dog didn’t greet us at the door. She noted our return as we walked past her,  but remained in full nap form. It will be interesting to see how her personality will adjust to being the only dog in the house now. As much as she wanted to be the star of the show around him, I can tell she’s sad.

Hindsight tells me things unfolded in a way that worked out for the best given the circumstances. As I said earlier, he wasn’t alone today. He was fine this morning until he suddenly wasn’t. It was over quickly, before the vet’s office could even get him in. He didn’t seem to be in pain, and for that I’ll just have to learn to live with the disorientation he experienced at the end. Nothing is perfect. I’ve read and heard about animals pulling away from their humans and other pack members at the end so they die away from the rest of the group. Near the very end, he tried to get up and move away and our other dog left the room and gave him space. I soothed him until he relaxed against me and sighed. Sorry puppy, my promise to you overrided your instinct.

Hindsight (and a few internet searches) also make me think now that it wasn’t a stroke. His belly was rigid, his gums white, the eyes darting back and forth. I had been warned by the vet upon discovering the tumor, that his own dog had something similar recently. The end could be brutal with things rupturing and blood being everywhere. Most likely? The tumor finally made something rupture and he was bleeding internally. Quick, mostly painless. That’s why he was fine one minute and then he wasn’t. It couldn’t have been stopped, it was inevitable but it was blessedly less horrific than it could have been. A stroke is a polite censoring of events my brain ran with to keep me calm and focused. If I had realized that what the vet warned me about was happening, granted in slightly less visually graphic terms, I may have come undone.

It's strange to think from the time I called my dad to leaving the vet's office was barely more than 2 hours.

My husband is napping now. Much needed without question. There is an empty sadness in the house, so most everyone is napping. I on the other hand, felt the immediate need to process this with the written (typed) word. Knowing it was coming, it still hurts. But a shard of the damn near otherworldly calm still resides within me at the moment. Could be that I’m just numb though. I am relieved that we came super close to the best case scenario. Best case scenario, he lived 40 more years. Next best case scenario, he died peacefully in his sleep after he finally caught the bunny he’s been sleep-chasing for 13 years. 3rd place isn’t too bad. Especially considering what the vet offered as the worst cast scenario.

On the way home from the vet’s office today, I realized I hadn’t said a proper goodbye. I didn’t send him off with words of love. Maybe it’s the shock and this idea will become guilt alongside other shoulda, coulda, wouldas, but as I said to my husband when it happened, he’s gone. He wasn’t in that body anymore. He came to me when he was sick. He came to me when he was scared. He wagged his tail when he saw me. He knew I loved him. He knew I would protect him. My presence at the end, keeping that promise I made to him, there wasn’t anything more I needed to say that he didn’t already know.

So now, I hope our first girl dog was there to meet him. I hope the squirrel chasing is optimal. I hope bacon is plentiful. And I dearly hope he’s one of the first things I see after my time has come.