Indian Summer
Your breathing is rapid, shallow, and noisy. Yet you stare at me, silently demanding that I take out your little rubber bacon flavored bone. It is, quite possibly, your most favorite toy ever. It is the third such little bone as the previous two were destroyed by the youngster.
You play with this toy as a cat does – batting it about – chasing it into corners of the living room, and inevitably under a piece of furniture. You then bark at me, ordering me to dig it out for you.
For the last couple of months, I have played with you every evening, seated on the living room floor, my legs extended out for you to jump over as I toss it from one side to another. If I stop, you bark at me to resume the game. The others are forced to watch; this is our special time together.
Tonight, however, there is no jumping. There is a little chasing of the toy, but you are soon breathless and panting. I put it away. We will play again tomorrow.
Or maybe we won’t.
And that will be okay. I am learning to accept that this is how it is.
We’ve had a wonderful couple of months. I like to think of it as your Indian Summer. When your breathing first started sounding odd, it was autumn. The days were growing colder and shorter. I felt overcome by darkness as the vet found the new large mass in your lung. I wasn’t sure I could bear it. The tears flowed frequently and furiously.
Slowly but surely I came to accept how the only constant in our lives is that of change. When the youngster joined our family earlier in the year, he represented the beginning of a new chapter. And recently I came to realize it is a chapter that will not include you. This is how it is with dogs and for those of us who love them. You now have come to represent the past. You were the dog who bore all of my rookie training mistakes and excessive nerves. You were the dog who introduced me to so many new friends, competitions, and adventures. When I am training the youngster, I am reminded of your extraordinary drive, but also your sensitivity, thoughtfulness and the need to get it right. Training him is much like training you was, only now I’d like to think you helped me to do it better.
As autumn was nearing its glorious apex, I planned to take the youngster on a weekend road trip. My plan was to teach him how to be a decent traveling companion. There is an art to road tripping – how to relax in the car for hours, how to be mannerly in strange places and how to stay in motels without barking one's head off. The youngster is still in that formative time of his life and thoughts of the future with him are exhilarating. When your tumor was discovered a week prior to the trip, the plan was revamped. You came along as a chaperone of sorts, to help me keep the youngster on the right track.
It was a magical weekend. Bright, sunny skies provided a perfect background for the grand autumn colors. We mastered a difficult hike down to a waterfall and delightful meandering stream. You picked your way down the rocky incline gracefully, almost like a cat. You were confident, yet did not pull excessively. The youngster was more tentative, but respected the idea of staying close. The three of us worked as a team, navigating the slippery, uneven rocks. As we reached the bottom, the calm beauty of that woodland stream made the challenging descent so worth it.
We continued on, without a map, but I just knew we would make it out. And after that, you and the youngster did a little water retrieving. You had wonderful stamina that weekend.
We returned home to near normalcy, which lasted almost three more months. We took walks. We drove around visiting future land and home sites. And we played nightly with the little rubber bone. But as winter set in, time continued its relentless march, dragging unwanted change along with it.
These recent days have challenged me much like that hike first did. There is an uncertainty within which I must sit. I fight furiously not to feel overwhelmed by grief. I don’t know what’s around the bend, but I know the end is in sight. Each day my heart breaks a little more.
You have the advantage in that the future is not a concept you understand or contemplate. You are also fortunate in that you don’t attach emotion to your physical condition. It is what it is. You only know that it’s sometimes hard to breathe and sometimes hard to sleep. You don’t always like your food. I have come to believe that you are preparing me for an inevitable future without you. You spend more time laying in a spot out of the way where you can watch me and your overly energetic brothers as they compete for my attention. You don't jump into my lap as often as before, but when you do, I try hard to memorize the feeling of the weight of you in my lap as I read the Sunday paper.
Without you knowing it, you have also put your trust in me to do the right thing when things become too difficult for you. This is a burden that sometimes feels unbearable, but it is one I know I signed up for when I took you in my arms as a tiny puppy almost twelve years ago. We survived two significant medical crises in your short lifetime, and I feel incredibly fortunate that we got those extra years to enjoy together. In fact, they helped me to focus on living in the moment.
I know you couldn't stay with me forever. I remind myself that it is the epitome of selfishness to hold you hostage here for my benefit. The future will always be undefined. As such, I must focus on each precious moment you are still here with me and watch carefully for that moment when it would be unfair not to let you go.
And so we play with the toy. Or we just sit together. In each moment, I savor the very essence of you.
And I promise you that when the time arrives, I will let you go. By doing so, I can demonstrate my gratitude to you for all that you have given me during our time together.
It has now become my hope that in time, just like arriving at the beautiful woodland stream after we mastered the challenging decline, I will fill the hole in my heart with all the joy-filled memories of us.