rest her soul

For a little while yesterday, her body was shaped like a crescent in her bed beside the desk.  I would stop my work and look at her and hold completely still and, unblinking, watch for movement.  Marty was standing in the doorway, and we confessed to each other that we both could see her body rise and fall in a regular rhythm, the black coat playing tricks as the radiator heat and leaky windows blew her hairs gently.  Cleo’s eyes were open—a result of the anesthesia—but they were dark enough to seem closed.

Where did she go, Marty wanted to know.  Her body got cold almost right away, all that leftover heat from circulating blood and physical energy just dissipating in the air like vapor.  We’d all like to think some clump of soul goes first, intact and at some perfect age of wisdom and agility.  If Mary Roach couldn’t prove it in Spook, I’m not inclined to believe in that perfect soul leaving the body’s building at thirty-four seconds past death.  I think it’s the job of your memories to reconstruct the souls of the departed.  They visit you sometimes via the corner of your eye, when the light hits just right, and a shadow flits, or when a heavy truck goes by and shakes your house and your bed, and you sense an impression on the mattress; the apparition, the disappearance—there’s your ghost, their soul.

I’m moving slowly for a few days.  I’m missing the sound of Cleo’s labored breathing, the struggle of her toenails against the wood floor.  I can pull my kitchen chairs out at will.  Chance is missing her, too.  We put his bowl where hers used to be, and he looked at us as if to ask for permission, and he ate cautiously.

In the early afternoon, against yesterday’s bitter cold, Marty finished digging and wrapped her in my old electric blanket.  He covered her with garden dirt and tears, and then it was done before I even knew.  Marty came inside, and I went out to stand with her and thank her. 

More than sadness and grief, I feel relief.  We can live with pain or indignity or loss of senses or limited mobility, but should we have to live with all of them, even when our ability to make that choice—especially when the ability to make the choice—is gone?  For all this talk of “quality of life,” why is it still the quantity of life that we attempt to preserve in the face of all of these ills? 

For some, it’s a religious belief.  It would seem that a major world religion was borne of the suffering of one man.  “It’s not the Christian way,” someone at the Catholic school said of euthanasia. Then she leaned in and whispered, “I don’t care; I wouldn’t want to live like that.”  Sometimes man learns the wrong lessons from history.  For me, the sin is in the suffering, the godliness in the compassion.

to sleep, perchance to dream

I haven’t slept in six months. If there wasn’t a dog beside my bed, snoring through thickened airways or panting heavily with pain or wandering the hallway, clunking the water bowl with her collar, pacing, peeing on the hallway rug, then there was a dog at the bottom of the steps, scratching at the barrier to come up, panting so heavily I could hear her through a closed door, above the din of the 1:00 a.m. TV. I’d get in bed and watch some cop show or The Good Wife, and I’d hear clunking and have to run downstairs, where I’d find Cleo stuck under a table or in a corner, trapped, frustrated. I could feel her panic and embarrassment.

My hearing and smell are already hypersensitive (something that happened when I was pregnant and never left me), but from the moment I got into bed each night, my whole body would tense up with anticipation. I knew she’d want to come up or need to go out or something just as soon as I’d start to drift off. Getting in bed has not been relaxing for a long, long time.  And despite the frustration I've been known to express  and the tears I've shed, I never once resented my dog. 

I lie here now, some lame singing show (why are the women in these shows too lazy to think of words for things [“you owned it, you killed, you rocked it]?) on the tube, just an hour after saying our goodbyes to Cleo. Her limp body is lying in her bed in the dining room, and she looks more comfortable than I’ve seen her in two years. Yet my body is still tense, my ears still pricked, waiting for the panting and the moving furniture.

At eleven every night, when the news started, I would go down and lie with her, whisper loving things to her that she couldn’t hear but I’m sure felt, make sure she was comfortable, check that the basement door was closed and the barrier was up. I won’t have to do that anymore. I won’t get to do that anymore.

I poured a shot of brandy while Marty threw back a last sip of beer. “I’m going up to bed,” he said. Already? “And you should go to bed, too. You need to sleep.” I do need to sleep, I said. I haven’t slept in six months.

But first, one last goodnight.

RIP, Cleopatra Queen-of-Denial Miller.  You were a very good dog.

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Thank you, everyone, for keeping my family in your thoughts.  We appreciate it more than you can know.

the queen of denial, part two

In the summer, we thought it might be time. Cleo was sleeping 23 hours a day, snoring loudly because of a thickening in her throat. She was suffering from arthritis, maybe a disc or other neurological issue. She was deaf, sometimes disoriented, incontinent with increasing frequency. It was difficult to wake her sometimes, and she was having trouble keeping her footing on the slippery tile floor. Then she couldn’t get up the steps by herself. Then she started falling down the stairs. We got a barrier and kept her on the first floor at night, but she’d stand at the bottom step and scratch on the makeshift gate for an hour. We'd sometimes give in, depending on the strength of Marty’s back. But she grew more restless at night and wandered the hallway, panting and knocking over things. She seemed to suffer from dementia and would get herself stuck under chairs or in corners, unable to back up—she’d just stand in the corner and pant.

My living room is now full of barriers—big foam core walls—to danger. I feared she’d burn herself on a floor lamp or start a fire with electrical cords. She got her head stuck between the fridge and the wall, where we stored some folding chairs; they tipped a little and seemed to pin her head—gently, but she didn't know the difference.

Still, she seemed to enjoy going to the park and would often perk up to see Chance and Marty getting ready. She was always hungry, too, and didn't that mean she still wanted to live? So that made it hard for us to agree on the time. Perhaps my family felt that my fear of a second back surgery (the first a result of having to lift Cleopatra each day to put her in the truck for a walk at the park) made me more eager to be rid of this physical burden—pulling her out of corners and lifting her onto her feet. And who could blame them for their love?

From the moment this five-month-old puppy wandered into our back yard in April of 1996, Cleopatra Queen-of-Denial Miller has been a loyal and delightful companion. Where Beowulf King-of-the-Geats Miller was a favorite among certain menfolk in our lives, Cleo was one of the most beloved dogs at the park. This is no hyperbole. Our dogsitter never charged us to watch her. My sister, who is highly allergic, would often bury her face in Cleo’s fur. My brother-in-law would have taken Cleo for his own, despite his wife's allergies. In fact, we got a lot of similar offers. People loved our dogs so much that when Cleo had Beowulf’s puppies, our vet took one. A neighbor took two. We kept Buddha.

Cleo’s always told us what she wanted or needed. She’d scratch at the back door to go out or come in; she’d fetch sticks and drop them at our feet or put balls in our lap. She didn’t take no for an answer, either, and would bark at us or paw us until we played. She spoke in a sweet little trill, slept on her back with all four paws in the air, licked our faces, played a mean game of tug-o-war (often snatching sticks from other dogs). She never bit us, not even by accident. She was only really sick once—with Lyme disease. And she took care of us, waiting for whomever was trailing behind.

In the last few weeks, it’s been clear to me in her pleading eyes. I’ve been waiting for my husband’s realization to catch up with my own. We’ve done this before—lost three dogs and two cats during our twenty-eight-year relationship, never mind those pets that came and went before we met. So it was never a question of whether it was the right thing to do.

When our daughter, Serena, was born, Beowulf was dying from kidney disease. We were waiting for the sign that he was done, and it came on a cold February morning. Marty took Wulf to the picnic table outside and covered him, spoke to him, kept him warm with hugs while we waited for the vet to come to the house. The shot that usually goes to work in a few short seconds took more than two minutes to work. Wulf let out a howl that is forever etched in our memories. I let it get to me sometimes, let myself believe that Wulf was trying to stop us instead of thanking us for his wonderful life and saying goodbye. His body had completely shut down; he couldn’t even metabolize the euthanasia agent. No question it was the right thing.

I had a feeling this final image was clouding my husband’s judgment, just as it haunted me. But Cleo’s decline over the last few days has been swift. She can no longer stand on her own and is often found trying to scramble away from her puddle of pee. When we stand her up and put her in the yard, she wanders around in crooked, slanted circles, stumbling. At least once every day, I am alone and having to wrap Cleo’s pee soaked body in my arms to move her. And she has finally lost her appetite. On Saturday, she refused her bone, and I called the vet.

It took that, I think—the indignity of lying in one’s own urine and excrement coupled with lack of a desire for food—to make her condition urgent. I have been crying, with small periods of clear speech (usually to yell at someone), since Saturday. Last night at midnight, I heard some furniture moving in the kitchen and rescued Cleo from what I hope and wish is her last puddle. I slept fitfully.

This morning, before he left for work, Marty stood in the kitchen and cried. If you think something is already a big pile sad, set a crying man on top. Serena left her homework in the dining room, so I took the opportunity at school to inform the staff that my people are fragile today. As if they couldn’t already tell.

The vet will come tonight, and we will bury Cleo in the morning. This is as right as our hearts are broken. Our dogs have always been beloved members of our family. They celebrate our joys and comfort us in times of grief. When they go, pieces of us go with them.

Their people will be fragile for a little while.

queen of denial

I’m about to lose another pet—my fifth as an adult. Their pictures, two cats and two dogs, sit together on the fireplace mantel; the shot of Cleopatra sits at the other end, waiting to join the group. Cleo is snoring on the dog bed next to my desk. Her eyes are open, but she’s asleep. She is deaf but feels my footsteps on the floor beside her and looks at me with one eye, the other still rolled back. She’s fifteen. Her hair mats in painful lumps behind her ears and back legs, and she’s too fragile to brush, so we sometimes cut the pieces out. A pink skin tag peeks above the black fur between her eyes, which have a blotch of black in each. She’s stiff from arthritis, and a bad disc in her neck makes her walk on her toes. Sometimes her back legs slide out from under her, and sometimes she stands as if gathering strength to lie back down.

I didn’t think she’d make it through the summer. Last week, she didn’t go to the park two days in a row, but on the third, she had a bounce in her step. She hasn’t moved all day today until Marty’s voice boomed, “Cleo, want to go for a walk?” and she bolted upright. She took baby steps to the back door and followed him and Chance outside, went to the park, and walked up a hill.

Cleo wandered into our yard in March of 1996, fell instantly in love with Beowulf, and had five of his babies in August of 1997, while I was pregnant with Serena. (Buddha, the first born, stayed with us. He was hit by a car when Serena was five; before that, hardly a photo of her exists without all or part of Buddha in it.) Wulf, a.k.a. Dogfaceboy, died, shortly after the puppies were born, in Marty’s lap while Serena was a new-born infant.

We all like to think our pets are the smartest, most soulful beasts, but Cleo has always been spectacular, in that border-collie-meets-black-lab way. She chortled and purred and engaged us in incessant rounds of fetch; she caught flying discs and balls high in the air and from a long distance. She played tug of war with sticks, tricking other dogs into letting go of their toys and stealing them. If she wasn’t finished with your affections, she would paw you for continued rubbing or push the ball toward you with her nose, barking until you caved in and threw it. She was always our protector, too. When we went for walks, she wouldn’t follow until the last person had caught up. She liked to bring up the rear, to herd us. This is the last trait to go, though I can’t tell if she’s waiting or just too tired to go on.

Every night, Cleo has to be carried up the stairs, and every morning, she must be carried down. She has twice fallen down the stairs at four a.m. in an attempt to relieve herself on the beautiful rug. Now we have a makeshift gate made of a cork bulletin board, so she pees on the bathroom tile or the hall carpet. Sometimes she poops on my bedroom floor—several hard lumps scattered here and there, and I can’t avoid the late-night landmines as I drag my groggy self to the bathroom.

Cleo pants, but she doesn’t whine. She snores when she sleeps, but she grunts when you rub her right. It’s been ages since she’s wagged her tail or barked, even at the mailman. But she eats. She eats like a crazy old lady with Alzheimers, like Marty’s grandma Ginny, who would sit at the table and finish a large breakfast at 8:30, then come back and yell, “Well, golly, it’s almost 9:00! Isn’t anybody going to feed me?!” Every time I open the refrigerator, she stands in the way, looking and smelling.

Our vet, the one who put Beowulf to sleep when he was moaning and unable to move because of kidney failure, took the last and second best of Cleo’s puppies, named him Timber. I’m sure he would come to us to spare his doggy mommy the frightening drive. But how will I know when she is ready? Every time I think she’s done with the world, she walks up a hill; every time I think she’s improving, she falls down it.

Beowulf’s health declined during my pregnancy, and I sat with him every day, begging him to hang in there until the baby was born. He did it for me, but he didn’t last long after Serena was born. Wulf had never been too sick to snarl at the mailman until one cold February day. His body was limp, and he moaned in pain, so Marty took him outside to the picnic table and stroked his fur and comforted him until Dr. Andrew arrived—on the heels of close friends who loved our dog. The dog lay in Marty’s lap. Andrew took out the needle, and Wulf let out a howl—a long, piercing, pitiful lament. I don't know if that howl said I love you or goodbye or thank you. I don't know if it said take care of the little one. I just pray, whenever I think about it, that it didn't say no, please don't, I'm not ready to go.

I can’t make this decision for Cleopatra, Queen of Denial, no matter how sad she seems to me. Each night, I lie with her on the floor and tell her that we will all miss her so very much, but that it’s OK to stay asleep if she is ready to be done with this world. We will understand.

I whisper into her deaf, matted ear that she doesn’t have to wait for us to catch up anymore.