Is, and Was

Two weeks ago I wrote about the guilt I felt about even thinking about euthanasia for our blind, deaf, cancer-riddled fifteen-and-a-half year old dog. At the time I was still not ready to make the decision.

Then, last Monday night, we found her lying in a pool of blood. The skin over her tumor had been stretched too far and broken open. The bleeding eventually stopped on its own, but when this happens, there is nothing they can do. It will never get better. And so, the next morning, my husband called the vet.

Did you know that vets will do house calls now? You take the animal in, early in the day, and they insert a catheter into the leg that they can use to deliver the drugs. Then you take your pet home and spend the next few hours saying your goodbyes, and then they come to you, so that you can be at home when it happens.

It makes a horrible situation so much better.

The college kids both came home, and we all sat around the kitchen, chatting and petting the dog. Imminent death zooming in and out of focus as the conversation meandered. We talked about when the kids were younger, in our old house, and would drag her up the ladder of the play set and then send her down the slide. She never complained.

And we talked about classes, and school, and summer jobs.

And about how they used to get her to climb through a downed basketball hoop and call it a ring of fire.

And we talked about my daughter's upcoming choir tour to Disneyland. And...

I remember a preschool picnic, way back when my college freshman was four. I brought Felice to the park. She was normally quiet and calm, but when she saw a field full of birds she leapt away, yanking the leash out of my hand. And she was off, barking joyously, her feet barely skimming the grass, making the birds fly off in loud, annoyed flocks. She returned to me only reluctantly.

When the time came, the vet was an hour late. But it was okay. How can you want to hurry this?

This was the first time I had been through it, and I was amazed at how quick it was. The vet and her assistant arrived. They flushed out the catheter with saline, injected the solution... And she was gone within thirty seconds. She was that ready to go.

No dramatic gasps, at the end. No visible signs... Just the cessation of heartbeat. A transition from "is" to "was."

We cried. And we said our goobyes. And the vet wrapped her in her blanket to carry her out.

And as the vet lifted her up, she began to drip, her bladder relaxed in death.

When they were gone, I cried my way to the linen closet, and cried my way back, and tossed a towel on the puddle.

My thirteen-year-old son, voice husky, murmured, "The last act of Incontinentia the Wonderdog." We laughed, even as we wept.

This is my family.

We went out to dinner afterwards, mostly talking about other things and just glad to be together. Later in the dinner I found myself saying, "I feel bad. She's been so difficult lately that I don't feel like I gave her enough love."

My youngest gave me a startled look. "That's what I've been thinking!" he exclaimed. "I would kick her out of the TV room and the computer room because she kept getting into stuff!"

"You know," said my husband, "It's the same with people. You always wish you'd given them more time and loved them more."

I wonder if that's not the message pets are sent to teach us, with their shorter lifespans. When death comes to the living things that you love, human or animal, you don't want to wish you'd given them more.

I've spent the last week imagining her in that field again, barking joyously, feet barely skimming the grass. If pets get what they deserve, that's where she is.

Sending birds into the sky and knowing she was loved.

Good night, sweet girl.