It was a year ago today that Sam took his last walk, and his last breath. Time has done that weird elastic thing time sometimes does, and that year feels like a lifetime and a heartbeat at the same time.
For awhile there, he remained imprinted on my senses all the time. His almost-thereness echoed in the empty space where he wasn’t. He was an invisible, empty, pulsing shape. He was my phantom limb.
Now, I don’t even miss him anymore.
But I remember him. My screensaver at work is a slideshow of photos of various people I know, and one of them is a close-up of Sam staring straight into the camera. He’s stoned from a sedative to control his demented anxiety. It’s the Diane Arbus of dog photos. Sometimes when I come back to my desk and that picture is displaying, I am overwhelmed by profound fondness and I want to just cup his snout in both hands and kiss his soft wet nose and tell him it’s going to be okay.
But the rest of the time? I don’t even miss him anymore
Except this winter, when there was all that snow. He would have loved this winter. He loved to roll in snow and to plunge his whole head into deep soft snow and then pull it out and look at me intently with his head cocked slightly to one side. His whole being would radiate pure energized joy. For a moment I would know in my heart that the meaning of life is to plunge your head in deep soft snow. I wish he could have lasted for one last winter.
I remember how much I agonized over the timing of the decision to have him put down. It is a terrible responsibility to have to decide whether someone else’s life is still worth living. The trajectory of his decline was not straightforward – he had good days and bad days, sometimes even good weeks. Two steps forward, one step back, one step sideways. A slight improvement in one symptom would often be accompanied by a marked decline in another. His arthritis and mobility would improve, but his dementia might intensify. His anxiety might diminish a bit, but his tumour would become infected again.
In retrospect, I realize it was the forest and the trees. You get used to each deterioration, each step of decline. “Normal” keeps changing, and you keep adapting to it. Towards the end I was wiping blood off the walls and cleaning excrement off the floors on a daily basis, while still searching for signs that “it was time.”
But even now, as I look back at the pictures taken one year ago today, I hear the little voice of doubt. He looked okay. He walked to the vet’s office. He wasn’t on death’s doorstep until I delivered him there. “Are you sure it wasn’t premature?” The little voice is not a kind one. But it’s okay: the little voice is wrong.
I worried about inflicting lifelong guilt on myself by making the wrong decision (or, more accurately, the right decision too soon). But I am confident I made the right decision, and in retrospect, I think there is no exactly right time: there are large brackets of time, and I was well within the brackets.
I kept a few things to remember Sam by. His collar and leash. Two ziplock baggies of fur. An avocado tree that I planted from seed the day he died. Some memories.
In the end it’s enough, because it’s all there is.
Yeah, I had to make that decision for mine too just last month. It’s tough, but toughest if you stop to think too much. I think you’ve expressed it well.
I’m with you, we had to put our sweet boy down 1 year ago. and it was so hard. He had a stroke so it had to be done. we have his ashes that will be with ours wen we go, he knew no one else but us so he will lay with us as well, he was a shih tzu best dog ever his name as Chato, it means flat nose in Spanish.
A beautiful post, Zoom. I look at Kenya, young as she is, and know that one day it will be a decision I will have to make, and all I can do is love her as much as I can until then. Our dogs teach us what it is to love unconditionally, and we do our best to repay that love in kind.
What an eloquent elegy on a life well lived. I hope that feeling of fondness stays with you always.
I cannot believe it has been a whole year. Uma died in 2005 so this summer it will be 3 years. I can’t believe that either.
You agonized over that decision for months and months and I believe you made the right decision at the right time. We can still celebrate the good anniversaries – when we got the dog, when its birthday was, things like that. It’s good to remember some things.
Zoom, you did make the decision at the right time. I, too, had to take “the” decision. Ahneena also walked in, greeting everyone. But she was very, very “not well” Thank God for wonderful vets like Dr Rodgers who helped thoughout. Julia is right. We can indeed celebrate the special moments. Having the strength to do the right thing is also a special moment. Consider yourself hugged.
It is coming up seven years since we had to make the decision to send Brutus ‘home’ – he was only 11, a lovely red Italian Greyhound, and he definitely did not ‘deserve’ pancreatic cancer. For three weeks after his death my thoughts alternated between ‘too soon’ and ‘hung on to him too long’. One night I kept waking up in floods because I kept dreaming about him gallivanting around on the lawn – so vivid, but each time he came near he would vanish just as I reached for him. A couple of weeks later I had a similar dream, but this time he did not come to me, he just slowly went out of focus, and I think that was when I accepted his death. Most of the time it is just a matter of fondly remembering (not a day goes by…) but once in a while something will trigger off ‘missing’ him. They give us their entire lives – we only give them part of ours.
sad
Big hug to you…
Thank you all for your kind words and virtual hugs. I know it’s a common experience so sadly a lot of us know how it feels. My heart goes out to all of you too who have been through it in the past, and especially those who can see it coming.
What a lovely friend you had. I can see the trust in his eyes in the picture. You know the saying, I strive to be the person my dog thinks I am. I think you are living up to that saying by writing this post.