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Immortal
Becky drove from the house to pick me up this evening at BART, a fifteen- or twenty-minute round trip. We returned to find Zeke lying on the floor, shivering. His back feet had gone out from under him on the hardwood, only a foot from the carpet runner I put down for him. He had pissed himself while lying there, I expect out of fear at his immobility.
I put my hands on his sodden belly and lifted him. He looked at me gratefully, gave me two wags of a painful tail. Becky led him outside for hosing off as I mopped up.
Yesterday he decided not to attempt the front steps. There are three of them, typical concrete porch steps, and he’s never had trouble descending them before. I assumed he was hurting too much for his walk. Becky is home these days and we leave the back door open, so I went to work feeling only a little guilty at the lack of walk. A bit later Becky tried again, and he balked again, and she carried him down the steps. They went to the park.
On Friday I came home and the house stank. There was not a square foot of the carpet runners unmarked by his shit. He couldn’t have helped it. He was sick. We have gotten almost used to the stray turd here and there, two or three some weeks, that seem to tumble out unnoticed, sometimes while he is sleeping. They are discrete and easy to clean. This was not. Successive scrubbings with soap and carpet cleaner could not remove it. We suffered the smell until the next day, then I scrubbed the dried shit out of the rugs with a wire brush.
He is happy still, aside from the pain. He still cherishes the mornings, the cats he wheezes at where they perch above him on the fence, the squirrels he runs those five stiff steps toward, barking. His nose buried in the low Pittosporum hedge on the way into the park, and then again on the way out, every bit as absorbed as four minutes before though no new dogs have come by in the interim. I get down on hands and knees and slap the floor, a play bow, and something in his eyes sparkles for a moment until he remembers, until he remembers. He stands with his left rear foot tucked beneath him and out to the right, a constant cycle of pelvic slump and straightening, staring for hours at the rabbit in his cage or pacing from hallway to bedroom and back all night.
He is ancient at fifteen and a half years old, and I am three times his age. I have changed much since we met, but mainly on the inside. Those changes cannot easily be sniffed out. I am an oak to him, a rock face. He surely no longer remembers the days before we sprang a lithe nine-month whelp from stir. I have been his world forever. My life stretches on past his for perhaps twice his allotted time or more, our time together the center of it. I am immortal to him and yet I find no comfort in it, nor in the prospect of a tidier house next year, an extra hour in the mornings. Were my lifespan flesh I would give him half. His expectant stare has always worked on me. I never managed to teach him not to beg.
Posted by: Chris Clarke
I’m so very sorry.
By: By Roxanne on 2006 08 16
Much of this could have been written word for word about Max, who left our lives 2 1/2 years ago, but is still very much with us. God, I miss him. And for all the sorrow and shed tears his last days brought, I wouldn’t give up that memory for anything.
Whoever thought (or thinks) that “dog” is an insult…well, no violent thoughts here.
Courage, mon ami.
By: By Rob G on 2006 08 16
Oh Chris. I’m crying for you, here at my desk. I’m so sorry.
By: By Stephanie on 2006 08 16
All I can say is that I understand. Tober passed away one year ago yesterday.
By: By Charles on 2006 08 16
Don’t! You! Fucking! Do! This! To! Me!
RIP Douglas Funbody, the best dog, best friend and only boyfriend ever.
And right now, Miss Patsy and I have our mattress on the floor because our fucking old poodle tumbled off one time too many. He’s now known as Uncle June (from the Sopranos) because he’s crazy as a bat too.
But he’s a damn fine dog.
By: By bdaggerlee on 2006 08 16
With respect to the rear end weakness, are you aware of the “Bottom’s Up� Leash? I’ve not yet purchased one (probably in the next year), but it looks like it might help with Zeke and the steps.
kabbage, thank you so much. I hadn’t heard of that, and I just now ordered one for Zeke.
By: By Chris Clarke on 2006 08 16
Chris, I’m sorry, my comment was pretty self- centered. What I was trying to say was that I know exactly what you’re going through. We did lots of cleaning up, too. I recall at least one occasion on which our carpet runners looked just like what you describe, and I know what it’s like to look in your dog’s eye and know that he didn’t want to do that. Dogs bring out who we truly are; your kindness to your faithful mortal friend is a testimony.
By: By Charles on 2006 08 16
I thought your comment was perfectly appropriate and empathetic, Charles. And I’m lighting a little yahrzeit candle in my brain for Tober.
By: By Chris Clarke on 2006 08 16
Zekey’s the best. I hope that leash helps him. If it does he’d be happy.
By: By craig on 2006 08 16
I looked up “yahrzeit candle” and I see that it’s a beautiful tradition. Thank you, Chris.
I really miss Tober.
By: By Charles on 2006 08 16
Chris, as everybody else has said, there are no words to do justice to the situation. Other than to say, some of us know EXACTLY what all this is like.
There were moments after Ranger died, and then watching as Tito slipped away, that I felt betrayed by my own life. Watching a love slip away like this, and then finally losing it, should break you into little pieces, blow you apart like a tree struck by lightning, and the shards should die sobbing. But the pain never reaches your traitor cells, which live on and on, forcing the rest of you to stagger away and continue to live.
Not often these days do we see stories of the Great Loves, those legendary affections that survive everything, that transcend aging and even the death of one of the partners. But I’m convinced they happen. And just as they happen to man and woman, I’m convinced they happen — sometimes, for a lucky few — to man and beast.
Nothing ever makes the pain of losing them go completely away; it forms a membrane that separates the you of today from the you who lived in that extended Golden Moment. But beyond that barrier of remembered pain is a rich well of happy memories, a warmth you can tap into for all the rest of your life.
Thinking about this from Zeke’s viewpoint, we can even feel envy for this part of it: Think of how great it would be to have a beloved friend who never leaves you, so that you live your entire life enfolded by love.
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FYI: You may not want to make the same choice, but I called Genetic Savings & Clone ( http://www.savingsandclone.com/ ) and had tissue samples of Tito stored after his death, for possible later cloning. I thought about it for more than a year prior, and grappled with all the possible objections.
In the end, only two things mattered: One, would I get a puppy of Tito’s if I could? And Two, am I taking anything away from Tito, or from my memory of him, by doing this? The answers were yes and no, and every other issue (and believe me, I thought of ALL of them) was negligible.
By: By Hank Fox on 2006 08 17
Zeke’s said better than I ever good. Shit, you know? Just shit. I’m so sorry.
By: By Siona on 2006 08 19
