"...practice these principles in all our affairs..." I woke up in the usual manner, this morning - with a large nose and hot breath in my face, a heavy body sinking the bed, and a nearly imperceptible whine in my ear.
W, one of my shepherds, comes to the side of my bed each morning and lightly rises up, to put his front end up on the side of bed. He sticks his nose in my face, and whines ever so quietly, tail slowly sweeping behind him in gentle arcs.
He's a dog that is utterly tuned into me. Everyone who meets this dog loves him, even people who are deathly afraid of large power dogs. He's just a great guy, and I've often thought if he were a human he'd be my ideal significant other. I just love this guy, from the depths of my heart. He has a special story of coming into my life, that perhaps I will write about another time.
A low-key type, he will lay himself down in sight of me, ever sensitive to my movements. In the middle of the night, if I get up, he smacks his tongue, as if licking peanut butter off the roof of his mouth. This lets me know where he is so I don't step on him - because he's right underfoot, always. If I need him to come in the dark of night, I have only to rub together my thumb and fingertips, making the most whispery of sounds, and he is there, by my side.
He has never had a resentment, that I have known. And so far as I can tell, he lives only in the moment, and is ever optimistic that the best is just about to happen.
We could learn a lot from dogs.
He's getting up there toward ten years, this year. His eyes are getting cloudy, and his muzzle is long since greyed. He is still fit and active, loving his games of tennis ball, where I lob the balls out with a racquet, for him to retrieve.
But I am cautious. Number Three shepherd, JJ, was chasing balls and doing flying leaps the day before she died, no sign of what was to come the next morning.
W is the fourth of five shepherds I've had over the years, and I have yet to have one make it to ten years. So of course this causes anxiety for me, because I am not so good at living in the moment, and I fear for pain - my pain - in the future.
The past months, he's developed tumors. He's got one on a nipple, one on his tail, and a small one on his head.
Two of the three shepherds I have lost over the years I had to euthanize due to cancer. The third died of a brain blood clot or stroke, following surgery to repair a gut torsion.
At this stage in the game, I have come to Acceptance - that these beloved friends of mine live short lives. I have come to Accept that when their bodies start to go, I will not do drastic interventions, anymore.
I don't believe they understand such interventions. I don't believe they desperately want those extra months of life, patched up by chemistry and technology. When it calls for more than moderate pain management, it's time for me to start letting go, and not keep them around for my sake, tired and impinged by illness, buoyed by modern medicine.
I have no poor opinion of people who go to the nth degree to save their pets. But the truth is, they rarely do. They buy a month, or two, or six, and the pet lays around, tired, the extra time, not feeling well.
In the early years, I did the same. I held on with fervor, paid the vet religiously, tried to buy a life back, using money, and technology. In the end, it didn't work. I prolonged what was to come, out a few more weeks. It did not bring me back the past, or lengthen a quality of life.
It prolonged a dying process, and the dogs endured it with patience, but would have been just as content to go earlier, before all the treatment and discomfort came their way, in the end.
And so, my heart seizes, as I think of the tumors, and my W. He's my boy. I fear the knowledge that ten years is coming up - that number where I have met "failure" and separation, and pain, before.
We think that love should be easy, but it's rather the opposite. It is the hardest thing we'll ever do, to love freely.
Because to love freely means to hurt bottomlessly, when it's gone.
And when that day comes - that last morning when the big nose and heavy paws rest on the bed's edge for the last time?
Will I have the ability to turn it over, to God, and give up my W to him?
Will I have Acceptance?
"...practice these principles in all our affairs..." calls for a lot of courage. My life, and my will, turned over. But, God, not my boy. Can I turn him over, too? Not my boy.
I won't have the courage, I already know this. But, I'll ask for it, from the Source. I'm willing to ask.
I just hope I do OK. And Accept life, and death, on life's terms.
-The Traveler
W, one of my shepherds, comes to the side of my bed each morning and lightly rises up, to put his front end up on the side of bed. He sticks his nose in my face, and whines ever so quietly, tail slowly sweeping behind him in gentle arcs.
He's a dog that is utterly tuned into me. Everyone who meets this dog loves him, even people who are deathly afraid of large power dogs. He's just a great guy, and I've often thought if he were a human he'd be my ideal significant other. I just love this guy, from the depths of my heart. He has a special story of coming into my life, that perhaps I will write about another time.
A low-key type, he will lay himself down in sight of me, ever sensitive to my movements. In the middle of the night, if I get up, he smacks his tongue, as if licking peanut butter off the roof of his mouth. This lets me know where he is so I don't step on him - because he's right underfoot, always. If I need him to come in the dark of night, I have only to rub together my thumb and fingertips, making the most whispery of sounds, and he is there, by my side.
He has never had a resentment, that I have known. And so far as I can tell, he lives only in the moment, and is ever optimistic that the best is just about to happen.
We could learn a lot from dogs.
He's getting up there toward ten years, this year. His eyes are getting cloudy, and his muzzle is long since greyed. He is still fit and active, loving his games of tennis ball, where I lob the balls out with a racquet, for him to retrieve.
But I am cautious. Number Three shepherd, JJ, was chasing balls and doing flying leaps the day before she died, no sign of what was to come the next morning.
W is the fourth of five shepherds I've had over the years, and I have yet to have one make it to ten years. So of course this causes anxiety for me, because I am not so good at living in the moment, and I fear for pain - my pain - in the future.
The past months, he's developed tumors. He's got one on a nipple, one on his tail, and a small one on his head.
Two of the three shepherds I have lost over the years I had to euthanize due to cancer. The third died of a brain blood clot or stroke, following surgery to repair a gut torsion.
At this stage in the game, I have come to Acceptance - that these beloved friends of mine live short lives. I have come to Accept that when their bodies start to go, I will not do drastic interventions, anymore.
I don't believe they understand such interventions. I don't believe they desperately want those extra months of life, patched up by chemistry and technology. When it calls for more than moderate pain management, it's time for me to start letting go, and not keep them around for my sake, tired and impinged by illness, buoyed by modern medicine.
I have no poor opinion of people who go to the nth degree to save their pets. But the truth is, they rarely do. They buy a month, or two, or six, and the pet lays around, tired, the extra time, not feeling well.
In the early years, I did the same. I held on with fervor, paid the vet religiously, tried to buy a life back, using money, and technology. In the end, it didn't work. I prolonged what was to come, out a few more weeks. It did not bring me back the past, or lengthen a quality of life.
It prolonged a dying process, and the dogs endured it with patience, but would have been just as content to go earlier, before all the treatment and discomfort came their way, in the end.
And so, my heart seizes, as I think of the tumors, and my W. He's my boy. I fear the knowledge that ten years is coming up - that number where I have met "failure" and separation, and pain, before.
We think that love should be easy, but it's rather the opposite. It is the hardest thing we'll ever do, to love freely.
Because to love freely means to hurt bottomlessly, when it's gone.
And when that day comes - that last morning when the big nose and heavy paws rest on the bed's edge for the last time?
Will I have the ability to turn it over, to God, and give up my W to him?
Will I have Acceptance?
"...practice these principles in all our affairs..." calls for a lot of courage. My life, and my will, turned over. But, God, not my boy. Can I turn him over, too? Not my boy.
I won't have the courage, I already know this. But, I'll ask for it, from the Source. I'm willing to ask.
I just hope I do OK. And Accept life, and death, on life's terms.
-The Traveler
1 comment:
I wish every pet owner who ever misbegottenly prolonged the life of his pet would read this.
Of course you'll survive his loss just like you did the previous losses, what's the alternative? The fear of the pain, I think, is as bad as the pain itself. But THAT is an emotion you have some control over.
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