LAST DAY: August 29, 2016 (Afternoon)

In the end, it was over very quickly.  It actually took more time to cook the cheeseburger than it did to administer the two shots that stopped his breathing.  

Kathy got home at four p.m., understandably a bit shaken.  She changed out of her work clothes and joined Flash and I on the deck, where we have enjoyed so many good times these last three years.  It’s crazy to see the timing of his passing.  I had written a blog three years ago when he began losing his sight, forwarding the theory that Flash wanted to hang on until the children got out of the house, to help ME get through the transition.  Dan moved out two weeks ago.  Flash went into serious decline almost immediately.

Still, when the veterinarian and her tech arrived promptly at 4:30, it felt too soon.  Rationally, I knew they were right on time.  For Flash’s sake, perhaps a little overdue.  For me, emotionally, it was the closing of a chapter.  Children no longer run through the sprinkler, turning the grass near the porch into a mudhole.  When Flash came to us, three of my grandparents were still alive.  They are all gone now.  My hair was long and just beginning to thin in the back.  It is completely white and sparse today.

They took the money and had me sign a paper right after they met the dog.  While I read over the contract, they curried his favor with bits of cooked chicken from a Ziploc bag.  I’m certain he smelled the other dogs on their clothing…did he smell death, too? It was eerily quiet in the backyard.  No birds chirped, no squirrels chattered.  It remained that way into the darkness.

If he did sense his demise, he was okay with it.  He was placid and compliant when we coaxed him onto a pillow covered with a bed sheet.  The sheet was my idea.  Twice before, bringing the body home after the euthanasia, I had carried the body from the car to the garden.  Twice before, I had seen the dog’s tongue loll from their lifeless mouth.  I didn’t ever want to see it again.  I wish I could forget it even now.

The process moves along at a pace.  It isn’t haste, but it is efficiency.  They explain the first step and perform their duty.   They assure you that they are in no hurry, but it seems like a practiced approach, a rhythm most of us wouldn’t be able to nail on a first (or even a third) try.  The dog is likely suffering, which is why they’ve been hired.  The humans are suffering, because they see a member of the tribe in pain.  You’ve signed the papers and they’ve explained what they are going to do.  Your only job as the pet owner is to keep the patient calm.  When the sedative from the first syringe hit, Flash didn’t need a lot of help staying calm.  Shit, I hope he was as high as a kite.  His head was in Kathy’s lap.  I stroked his back and his flanks, running my hand over his chest, feeling his heart beating.  Slower, but still beating.

When they prime that second syringe, you have a minute or so left.  If you can keep your sockets dry at that moment, then either you or your dog is a dick.

The needle gingerly enters the vein.  The plunger is pulled back and a freshet of blood appears in the syringe.  Then the tech’s thumb pushes down.  If you were to shout at that moment, “No, wait!” you would have waited too long.  We did not ask for a reprieve.  Flash’s face is serene, as if he had just arrived home from that long-ago trip to the lake and found his favorite napping place.  I feel no heartbeat.  The vet places her stethoscope several places around his trunk and hears nothing.  She shakes her head, ‘No.’

Truthfully, I don’t even remember them leaving.  That’s why you take care of the business part first.  After we covered Flash’s body with the sheet, I cry into the right side of Kathy’s neck for a moment.  The right side of my neck is wet with her tears.

As we carried his body to the garden, I remember a conversation we had when we moved the hosta.  After Brooklyn had passed, I placed a hood ornament from a Cadillac on top of the stone marking his grave.  Kath asked me, nearly twenty years later, “If Brooklyn was the Cadillac of dogs, what is Flash?”  I told her Flash was a mini-van.  My wife was somewhat offended by my comment, but I stand beside it.  There are police dogs, service dogs, show dogs, hunting dogs, rescue dogs, there are dogs for many applications.  Flash was a family dog.  He existed to be a member of a family.  That was his job.  It’s not flashy, like a Cadillac.  It’s sturdy and long lasting and utilitarian, like a mini-van.

When the old family vehicle goes to the junkyard, you don’t remember much about the trim and the stereo or the fold-back seats.  You remember the places you went with it and how you felt at that moment.  Flash brought us to here.  I am a very grateful man.

EPILOGUE: August 30, 2016

The story isn’t over, of course.  The reminders will keep coming.  We will find dog hair in long-unused rooms, like pine needles six months after Christmas.  We may be arrested for an instant, or perhaps be in tears for longer than that.  But for Lucy and Dan and Kathy and me, Flash will always live in our memories, a vibrant pooch that wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.  He was going to keep at it until you loved him back.   

When I think back to the days when I wished he lived elsewhere, it shames me.  But I know he didn’t hold it against me.  After all, he won, right?  I did love him, I do miss him, and when I came in this afternoon after work I cried when there was nobody to greet me.

It was simply his time.  Flash knew it.  We all knew it.   

This winter, when the snow falls, creating a blanket around our sleeping boys, we will know that we made the correct decision when we chose to seal Flash’s glorious past.  When the spring comes, and the first crocus pops up through the soil, we will know that it was a gently wagging tail that sent it to us.

R.I.P. FLASH 

August, 2001-August 2016

LAST DAY: August 29, 2016 (Morning)

When I drag myself out of bed and make my way to the living room, the first thing I see is my wife sitting on the floor with Flash in her arms.  She’ll have to be at work in an hour, but some things are more important.  “He got out of his bed last night at four in the morning and moved over to your side of the bed,” she explained.  “And after that, I didn’t sleep.”

Flash moving around at night is a fairly recent development, a manifestation of his blindness and dementia, the vet believes.  In his uncertainty about where he is and how long it is until morning, he’ll lay on my side of the bed because I am usually the first one up.  I’ve learned to put that first foot on the floor gingerly, as the first thing I feel some mornings is a furry ribcage beneath me.

He eats, he goes outside, he takes a nap.  Kath goes to work.  And then, Nap Part Deux, the nap of naps, where it gets good and quiet.  He doesn’t stir when I begin to assemble my chores for the day, a quick trip to the grocery store, the bank and the library.  Pretty much a standard list for one of my writing Fridays.  When I return an hour later, he doesn’t appeared to have moved, but he still greets me with a wagging tail that strikes the living room area rug with a muted thump.  He slowly gets to his feet and makes it about five steps before he throws up his breakfast.  I usher him outside and clean up the mess before I join him on the deck.

In a few hours, I will give my consent to a person that will administer a medication that stops Flash’s heart, and I don’t know how I will be.  Still, I worry more about the children.  Will there be a good friend, or even a big-hearted stranger, that will offer them solace at a low point in their young lives?  I have to hope that there is.  I will have Kathy, Kathy will have me.  When we are parents, we want to shield our children from this kind of hurt and there is no chance of doing that today.  I feel like a big part of my stoicism is in response to their grief, in that I feel I have to be strong for them.  When it is all revealed as a façade this afternoon, will I be able to get through the burial without a breakdown?  I am hoping I can. 

So I go about the task of making a dinner for after, and a bacon cheeseburger for before.  The vet says I can feed him up to the very last minute.  I would be okay with that if the last minute wasn’t coming so fast.

DAY ELEVEN: August 28, 2016 (Evening)

We always seem to be surprised when someone we love dies, even if we’d known they were ill.  One moment they’re here, the next moment, they’re gone.  We lament the things we didn’t say or do with them and wish for just ONE MORE DAY to do all of those things.  If you wanted to take Grandma on a roller coaster, you’re probably shit-out-of-luck.  

And so it was with Flash, as his days of playing fetch are long passed.  I think we put away the Frisbee after I clocked him in the side of the head two years ago.  He was thrilled to see the children, of course, but seemingly mystified by the sudden rush of affection.

Lucy had memories of the first two dogs, little snatches of days gone by.  At least that’s what she says.  I remember after I had Brooklyn put to sleep, she amended her evening prayer by going off-script with an ad-lib, asking, “And God, help me forgive Daddy for killing my dog.  Amen.” 

Dan, at 20, had only traces, the sort of remembrances that make you wonder if you REALLY remembered, or if you’ve seen the pictures and heard the stories so many times that you ASSUME you remember.  There were tears before dinner.

Because all of us were together and because it was a day devoted to memories, we enjoyed the pancake feast that used to be a Sunday morning rite.  I crisped up the bacon (setting two strips aside for Flash) while Kath readied the chocolate-chip infused batter and the scrambled eggs with hot sauce.  We sat down to a meal.  We laughed as we remembered Flash camping out under Dan’s chair, as he was the smallest, the messiest, and the most indifferent of eaters.  Sure, there was a chance someone else would drop a tasty morsel, but with Dan it was a sure thing, whether it was carelessness or just looking to clear his plate when no one was looking.  Dan revisited those days by accidentally-on-purpose dropping one of his bacon strips.  It appeared that nostalgia of the pork variety was Flash’s favorite kind.

After dinner and many reminiscences, we retired to the living room.  There didn’t seem to be a lot left to say and for a change, I didn’t feel the need to fill silences with the sound of my voice.  I think I was taking strength from the kids in the way they bravely faced the situation.  I was able to hold it together for most of the evening.  The hardest part about it, Kath and I agreed later, was seeing how bad the kids were hurting.  Still, they’d come to mourn together with us, when it’s a lot easier to beg off and say you just couldn’t get away from your adult responsibilities.  In the midst of family chaos, it’s such a gift to see young people with character.

While Lucy just let the tears flow when they came, Dan tried to deflect his feelings in profanity-laden outbursts while pacing angrily through the house.  It was almost like a person looking for Wi-Fi in a dead zone…he was just looking for a hot spot…some place in the house that hurt less.  I followed him to the kitchen.  There was no hot spot there, either.  I held this big man in my arms as he cried, his thick chest bouncing off of mine as he sobbed, inconsolable.

The hour grew late and I knew they had to get home to get back to their own lives.  I assured them that as soon as they left, Flash would lay down and go to sleep in his bed, thrilled with the special day he had had.  There was time after the collection of car keys and purses for another hug, another kiss, not just for the dog, but for each of us.  Together we had raised him, together, we were saying goodbye.  Together, we grieved and celebrated.

Tomorrow, Kath and the kids will all be at work, though my wife plans to be here when Flash departs.  I have taken the day off, to lend a normalcy to his last day.  Though tomorrow is a Monday, it will be like my writing Fridays where we rise early, nap freely and spend a lot of time outside.  Both of us will need that normalcy, even though there’s nothing standard about it.

DAY ELEVEN: August 28, 2016-(Morning)

Gravedigger

When you dig my grave

Won’t you make it shallow

So I can feel the rain

-Dave Matthews

By the time I ventured out of the house today, the mercury was already most of the way up the tube.  The corner of the garden where Flash will rest needed to be dug out, squared up.  His antecedents had passed so fast, their fates sealed so quickly, that I wound up digging last-minute graves.  I was also sixteen years younger the last time I did it.  I knew I couldn’t let it happen again.

When it was deep enough to step in the hole, I climbed in and took a moment to wipe the sweat from my brow.  With just that turn of my head, I spied a creature in the foliage behind the fence.  He jumped and I jumped.  I’m not sure which of us was more spooked.

It was my neighbor’s cat, a feline that answers to the name ‘Chicken’.  He has not, to date, produced an egg, nor is he a coward.  To me, he seems rather fearless, going after anything up to groundhog-size, but on this occasion we were both surprised to see the other.  I wondered if this was one of those weird, sixth-sense moments with a cat, his piercing eyes somehow seeing into my psyche, aware that I was readying a pit for a body.   The flip-side would suggest that Chicken was peering into the hole, musing over the size of the turd he could bury in the very convenient opening.

I covered the completed grave with a tarp and showered off the sweat and dirt.  In a normal year, anytime I dug four feet of dirt out of a hole would be the sum total of a day.  But that won’t be enough today, as the children come back one more time to visit with their childhood companion.  I wonder if they remember the holidays.  I wonder if they remember the day at the lake.  I wonder if the day will end with a tear or two and a gentle pat on Flash’s head, or if they may suddenly lose it as a major part of their childhoods ceases to exist in a sentient form.  It’s beyond my control now.  I am hoping for the best for all of us.

The family will assemble for a late meal tonight.  We will cook a little extra bacon for Flash, for tomorrow.  Still, the celebration, if we can call it that, goes on.  I can hear his jaws working the latest offering of bone meal into a life-sustaining paste.  Flash is ready to come outside again.  Dan Dickerson speaks of the Tiger’s inevitable comeback from a run deficiency against the Angels, yet there are many things we can’t overcome, foremost among them the passage of time.  It is true for the Tigers.  It is true for Flash.  The Tigers lose.

Kath and I have done everything we can to make this moment pass quickly.  But moments don’t care what we think.  They exist in their own time and evolve as they are supposed to.  A late evening feast promises moments that will unfold on their own.  We set the box of Kleenex beside the dinner napkins.