Today
I’m thinking about pets. I probably should be focusing on the promise of 2019 - the garden
I’ll probably plant in a few weeks, the trip up the Danube in April, or the
cataract surgery my darling will have in two days. But instead I’m thinking
about pets.
It
started this morning when I was in the doctor’s exam room waiting for her to
finally show. They had a new calendar on the wall with beautiful pictures of
farm animals. I was bored, had forgotten to bring a book. The March photo was
of a border collie with intelligent, brown, soulful eyes that reminded me of
Lulu, the part border/part shepherd rescue dog that stole my heart eleven years
ago. We lost her last year and I miss her still. Lymphoma -- the scourge of
well-loved, well-cared-for animals these days. My eyes were teary when the
doctor came in, so I had to explain about the dog in the calendar, the one that
looked a lot like Lulu.
In
my life I have had many pets: nine dogs, five cats, a myriad of aquarium fish,
a few turtles, and because of my children, a handful of hamsters and one
cottontail that my boys saved from the jaws of another special dog, Little Missy
Prissy Rae.
Missy
was a hunting dog, the only purebred, registered animal I ever owned. She was
sweet-tempered, had a “smart knot” on her head, and so fearless and focused
when she got the scent of prey, mostly poor helpless things like tiny
cottontails or frogs. She was affectionate, devoted, all the things a family
dog should be. We loved her and cared for her -- well, I did that more than the
rest. She and I had a special bond. It was me who had to make the decision to
end her pain, when she began to develop tumors and stopped eating. I cried so
hard I could barely write the check to the vet. When that canceled check came
back in the bank statement, there were big tear blots that nearly obliterated
my signature. Missy was a month shy of her 12th birthday. I still
have her AKC certificate in my keepsake box.
And
then there was Trouser, the cat who came into my life a decade later. He was my
special pet, the one who loved me best and only. When I discovered him in the
backyard, mewing and howling, he was a tiny, single handful of gray and white
fluff, struggling, I believe, to find me, too. We became best friends, and went
through a lot together: My halcyon days of living the writer’s life, on the
road all the time, out promoting books, leaving behind my sweet Trouser to wait
patiently for my return. He helped me survive my divorce, which nearly
flattened me. Once when I was grieving for my lost 34-year marriage, my wasted
years as I saw them then, Trouser came over to me and bit me gently on the leg
- as if to say, “That’s enough of that nonsense. Get it together, you are
embarrassing yourself.” So I laughed, dried my tears, and we soldiered on
together.
Trouser
and Lulu never loved each other. Once they saw the other one wasn’t leaving,
they learned to live together in peace. Lulu had come with a tall man, and
Trouser wasn’t happy with her attempts to pull me away. But he ended up liking
the tall man well enough, and so we became a family - Wayne and Lulu, me and
Trouser.
Shortly
before his fourteenth birthday, Trouser got sick. Really sick. I hurried him to
the vet’s office where he was diagnosed with lymphoma -- that scourge. The vet
thought he probably wouldn’t make it two weeks. But our vet had a kind heart (what
vet doesn’t?) and she described a treatment we could try. We tried it. And by
golly it worked. In a couple of days he was chasing lizards again. And it
lasted awhile, too, before it stopped working...and we were back in the vet’s
office, and she was giving Trouser another treatment. And wow! he perked up
again, just like the first time -- and then he slid back down again, a little
sooner than before. And we carried on with this seesaw for another five months.
Then
on September 25th, 2011 -- a Sunday so as usual he and I were watching
MASTERPIECE THEATER in the bedroom together -- I was holding him on my
shoulder, flat against my chest, and I looked into his sad tired eyes, saw his
misery, and asked myself who I was keeping him alive for -- him or me? I knew
the answer and what I had to do. The vet had told me I would know when it was
time. She was right. We spent a last long night together, with me holding him
limp and thin in my arms.
The
next morning, September 26th, we took Trouser one final time to the
vet. She agreed he was exhausted, would not get better again, and administered
the power shot as I held him. It broke my heart. Someone wiser than I once
wrote that we make a contract with sorrow when we bring a pet into our lives.
Truer words were never written. I had him for 14 years, but it wasn’t long enough.
It’s never long enough.
This
would not be the only tragedy to come on that day. It was the same day Wayne’s
only child died. His son. Forty-two years old. The aching sorrow of losing my
pet, and the grief I felt in my sore heart, had to be put on hold. There were
people who needed me to be strong for them, and so I shed a few little tears
for my cat, then tended to the humans who needed me that day, and the days and
weeks and months that followed.
In
late December of that same year, I was alone one night with just Lulu for
company, and my floodgates finally opened. I keened and sobbed for what seemed
like hours, for my cat whom I had so dearly loved and so dearly missed. He had
left an aching hollow in my heart. After a while, Lulu rose from her bed by the
fireplace, came to me, and laid her head on my knee. She looked up at me with
her chocolate eyes, and I got down on the floor. I told her I needed a hug and
taught her how to do it. She wasn’t thrilled at first, probably thought I was
trying to hold her down, but she had so much trust in me and before long, we
were hugging in earnest. I really needed all the big black dog hugs she gave me,
from that night forward.
I
have a couple of friends who have just lost beloved pets. One a dog; the other,
a cat. I suppose that’s what has
me thinking about all this today, after reading their sorrow-laden Facebook
posts. I don’t know what it is about the love and loss we feel for these
special friends, these family members that become so much a part of our mix. It
must be the unconditional love they give so freely. Wayne likes to tell a joke
that goes something like - "Lock your dog and your wife in the trunk of your car
for 15 minutes. Then open it and see which one is happy to see you.” THAT is
unconditional love.
When
Lulu was 15 we got another cat. I had waited for four years after Trouser, and
probably still wouldn’t have him if he hadn’t shown up one morning at the place
where I worked, a frightened orange kitten. Anyway, he’s ours now -- Mr. Sam.
He is unlike any of my other special fur babies, but he brings us so much joy and
we are both glad he’s here. We’re older now, not as eager to get down on the
floor to play (not nearly as much as he wants us to) for fear we might not get
back up! I don’t look as Sam as a replacement pet -- I tried that once and it
ended badly -- but I’m sure glad we had Sam when Lulu made her last trip to the
vet, four days past her 17th birthday. I believe she lived so long due
in part to the TLC she got but mostly because of her great big happy heart.
Afterwards, Sam searched the house for her, slept in her bed, smelled all her
of her favorite spots. He still drinks from her water bowl. He loved her almost
as much as we did.
Sam
makes us laugh with all his silly antics, and although he isn’t yet as
lovey-dovey as I am trying to make him, he’s getting there. So, no, he’s not a
replacement pet. He is so completely different, but I wouldn’t trade him. As
big of a pain as pets are -- with worrying over their health, or who will pet-sit
when you have to leave, or the
hassle of taking them with you, and just all the other bother that comes
along with them -- being without a pet, for me...well, that is just not an
option.
