So, the time has come.
After years of friendship and loyalty, my dog, Shadow, is showing his ripe old age. He collapsed today, and he can hardly stand without crying in pain. I remember a childhood experience that branded my perspective of life forever. A dog collar hangs from a nail in room, reading "BUTTERSCOTCH." I was incoherently young, and I had just come home from the pound, after naming my new best friend after a theme from a Muppet Babies episode I just watched. For years, that girl warmed our hearts at the foot of the bed, and served as Mother Pup when the new flush of life reigned after her. Abused as a puppy, she would never bark or lick anyone. I don't blame her. Her tail would drum a beat on the wall when she heard my footsteps reverberate against the foyer walls.
Until that sad, scarring day. I had been playing games at a friend's house when my mom called me in tears, telling me to come home and spend the last priceless moments with a dear friend. I rushed home, to find her on her side on a yellow blanket; worn, tired, and tacit. The joints in her knees were so inflamed and ground that she had accepted her fate, and simply enjoyed the last few moments of her family, and felt the last few strokes through her thin, grayed hair. It would be selfish to hold her, we agreed, through such tumult and agony. The poor creature couldn't even see the doctor in front of her. Strapped down, ready to go, she faced her fate with honor and trust. In the snap of a finger, she was gone before we had left the room.
I guess it's just nature to rob me again. My feeble mind, embracing a new-born pup, with skin black and sacred as the night sky; a fresh start. Laughing and smiling, refusing to accept the reality that such a dog must die too; and, hopefully, before me. Like any relative, it's only times like these when you feel how much of your life you've shared with them. Life is a clock ticking down, and I've shared some big numbers with this creature.
It's just that look, that presence, that mental bridge; this animal is going to die. I watch him battle his frailty. I see him push with every ounce of his emaciated, sagacious figure to rise once more, but find his body the limit of his spirit. Like an old coal engine, his fire may burn bright as ever, but his gears chug slowly with rust and wear. I watch him cry in pain, and rise slower, and slower, and slower still, until he finds himself on his shameful side once and for all. It's the pain in his eye that he's given up; that he sees the end, and he can't escape it. He wants more than anything to spring into the air, tug his faithful rope, and tackle me to the floor with his friendly licks, but it just now occurred to him he can't, he won't. It's the pain in his eye that kills me. It's the indisputable message that pierces my heart. "Help me. Please. I'm sorry."
Sometimes it makes me wonder if the juice is worth the squeeze; if embracing a life form into your family, knowing that every blessed moment you share with it will drive the blade deeper into your heart as you watch it collapse under it's own weight, is worth even enjoying. Like a relationship you know will fail dramatically, why bother? The love I share with that animal is priceless to me, but I'm not sure if I can even choose a dog from a circle of choices. I don't know if I can just replace such a wonderful friend with a new, cute manifestation of its more fruitful years.
I think, deep inside, I worry that I will die in such a way. My deepest fear is to lose my battle with death, and embrace it alone in my bed. I fear that my friends might replace me in such a way. I fear that very moment when I realize that I can no longer circumvent or extenuate my maker. I don't want it. I know it, but I don't want it! It is this very passion I see in my old friend's eye. Those who claim that dogs are incapable of emotion can go to hell; they don't have my Shadow. Like a toddler or youngster who wants nothing more than to go outside with his friends, I don't think he fully understood until it was too late, to add insult to injury. I don't know to what degree he could feel the bones within him hollow, or see his ferocious mane thin to mere gray patches. He's lived a good life, and we owe him a good death.
So, we'll be off in a matter of days to a routine we're so contemptuously familiar with. We will drive as though made of glass, avoid the slightest jerk in motion. We will deal business with our veterinarian, who undoubtedly knows us by name, and we will pay our last respects. And then, as I stare the shy, flawless puppy in the face through the steel cage between us, I will see nothing. I will see but a hollow shell of life that will never amount to its predecessor.
Leave as you lived, old friend, with vivacity and warmth.
Until that sad, scarring day. I had been playing games at a friend's house when my mom called me in tears, telling me to come home and spend the last priceless moments with a dear friend. I rushed home, to find her on her side on a yellow blanket; worn, tired, and tacit. The joints in her knees were so inflamed and ground that she had accepted her fate, and simply enjoyed the last few moments of her family, and felt the last few strokes through her thin, grayed hair. It would be selfish to hold her, we agreed, through such tumult and agony. The poor creature couldn't even see the doctor in front of her. Strapped down, ready to go, she faced her fate with honor and trust. In the snap of a finger, she was gone before we had left the room.
I guess it's just nature to rob me again. My feeble mind, embracing a new-born pup, with skin black and sacred as the night sky; a fresh start. Laughing and smiling, refusing to accept the reality that such a dog must die too; and, hopefully, before me. Like any relative, it's only times like these when you feel how much of your life you've shared with them. Life is a clock ticking down, and I've shared some big numbers with this creature.
It's just that look, that presence, that mental bridge; this animal is going to die. I watch him battle his frailty. I see him push with every ounce of his emaciated, sagacious figure to rise once more, but find his body the limit of his spirit. Like an old coal engine, his fire may burn bright as ever, but his gears chug slowly with rust and wear. I watch him cry in pain, and rise slower, and slower, and slower still, until he finds himself on his shameful side once and for all. It's the pain in his eye that he's given up; that he sees the end, and he can't escape it. He wants more than anything to spring into the air, tug his faithful rope, and tackle me to the floor with his friendly licks, but it just now occurred to him he can't, he won't. It's the pain in his eye that kills me. It's the indisputable message that pierces my heart. "Help me. Please. I'm sorry."
Sometimes it makes me wonder if the juice is worth the squeeze; if embracing a life form into your family, knowing that every blessed moment you share with it will drive the blade deeper into your heart as you watch it collapse under it's own weight, is worth even enjoying. Like a relationship you know will fail dramatically, why bother? The love I share with that animal is priceless to me, but I'm not sure if I can even choose a dog from a circle of choices. I don't know if I can just replace such a wonderful friend with a new, cute manifestation of its more fruitful years.
I think, deep inside, I worry that I will die in such a way. My deepest fear is to lose my battle with death, and embrace it alone in my bed. I fear that my friends might replace me in such a way. I fear that very moment when I realize that I can no longer circumvent or extenuate my maker. I don't want it. I know it, but I don't want it! It is this very passion I see in my old friend's eye. Those who claim that dogs are incapable of emotion can go to hell; they don't have my Shadow. Like a toddler or youngster who wants nothing more than to go outside with his friends, I don't think he fully understood until it was too late, to add insult to injury. I don't know to what degree he could feel the bones within him hollow, or see his ferocious mane thin to mere gray patches. He's lived a good life, and we owe him a good death.
So, we'll be off in a matter of days to a routine we're so contemptuously familiar with. We will drive as though made of glass, avoid the slightest jerk in motion. We will deal business with our veterinarian, who undoubtedly knows us by name, and we will pay our last respects. And then, as I stare the shy, flawless puppy in the face through the steel cage between us, I will see nothing. I will see but a hollow shell of life that will never amount to its predecessor.
Leave as you lived, old friend, with vivacity and warmth.