Drinks With Doug

Goodbye to Our Lady

Sunday's weather: a veneer of freezing rain last night has given way to wintry sun dancing with dark clouds. Cold and blustery, a day for staying in and eating beef.
Sunday's drink: a glass of Chimay at Saint Ex 'round the corner, to be had soon over dinner.
Sunday's thought: those important who come into our life, be they human or animal, come with lessons for us to learn; the best that can be said is that when they leave, their lesson has been learned.

There's very little of art in today's post, but very much heart. This is the weekend C and I said goodbye to Scout the greyhound.

The details of what preceded her leaving us, curled up at her favorite spot on her favorite couch, surrounded by her guys and her docs, are as a million other similar stories. Several months of declining energy coming with increasing signs of discomfort (soon to become pain), uncertainty as to its cause, various treatments including pills, diets, and surgery failing to cure the problem, and a report on Friday from an oncologist of a large sarcoma in her throat. Prognosis - at best - detailing major surgery, a difficult recovery, and likelihood of a return in the future. C and I, faced with the only certainty of prolonged suffering for our Scout, came to our decision fairly quickly.

Mostly. There was of course discussion, choked at times, of uncertainties. Of quality of life vs. seeing an option through, of doing what had to be done vs. doing what needed to be done. Strangely, it was while C was on the phone with his sister M - a vet herself - that Scout again began crying out, as she had been with increasing frequency. She did it because she hurt. But in it I heard it as my answer: I cannot bear to let my greyhound suffer anymore - or watch C's suffering at her pain.

The decision was made. And we began a 22-hour sit with impending death. Strangely, not nearly as morbid as that sentence makes it sound.

Her eyes had grown dim. While happy to see me at the door, she could barely muster getting up and giving a couple wags. Treasured hallowed walks no longer held any appeal. Even food was rejected. Scout was clearly saying goodbye to us, closing up shop and pulling down the curtains.

I carried her downstairs and we ate pizza. Watched a little TV. Cried some more. Our and Scout's best friends - D & F & M & M - came over to sit and share stories. Everyone seated on the couch (but me, I had to sleep), Scout too. She always loved company.

I woke to hear C and Scout come upstairs. He sat with her, she eeped a bit but loved her goodnight time with her Dad. We held each other that night, and I was the first to wake. As much as her goodnight time, she loved her good morning time with her Doug. Almost always in silence, as I had for years, I got down and gently rubbed her snout, scratched her head, gave her long strokes down her back to her haunches, gently tugged from her chest down her legs to her paws - holding them as you would hold a hand.

She managed, somehow, to eat some breakfast - a slush of her favorites: chicken, scrambled egg, rice, a bit of cheese. We had an unusually long and sniffy walk, letting her choose just where she wanted to go as we had so many mornings before. She stopped twice, again in pain, and we held her close on the street until she trotted off again to home, undoubtedly for the last time.

Once home, she jumped up on her couch, spun around twice, then sat down, laying her head on her favorite pillow. And there she stayed for three hours, not inclined to move at all, curled into a greyhound ball. And we sat with her, for three hours not leaving her side. Sometimes petting her back, sometimes crying, sometimes laughing at how improbable this fuzzy thing was and what she had come to be in our lives.

At 1pm, Doc K and an assistant came over. We thought Scout might want to lie on her favorite bed, but she had clearly chosen her spot. Non dog owners will scoff, but she knew. A dog's principal function is to live with us, and they read us and our emotional states more clearly than we do each other. And, in cases where you really bond, you come to read them. You communicate - the most basic things likely, but clearly and meaningfully communicate. Even if we weren't ready, she was.

The four of us sat close around Scout for a while, trading stories and even laughing some. She was never more safe or more loved. A quick sedative administered to help ease any potential jitters, a pink needle was inserted into her right rear ankle, where the veins are large. I couldn't watch what Doc K did, but sat together with C - holding him and Scout. Watching her face...breathing, looking up. And then there was a final, deep breath in, and a long...long exhale. The exact same exhale she gave her first night home with C when she finally decided she was safe and could sleep; the same exhale she gave after a long day of travel and hubbub and doctors and could finally relax. The very same exhale should would give some nights upstairs, all of us in bed, the room dark and quiet except for a long breath in, and then pronounced exhale that said "goodnight, guys."

So it was she gave us her last gift - a goodbye and, perhaps, a thank you. Moments later Doc. K placed her stethoscope here and there and said simply, "she's gone."

And that was it. So very very fast. Her eyes still looking upward, just as fuzzy and warm as she had always been. There, but gone. And gone for good.

The 26 hours since have been difficult, but different. Good moments and bad. Never any looking back, though, so that's a blessing. Now, mostly the emptiness. No one to scoot upstairs at night, no one to play the "bone game" with, no one to wake up and carry down the stairs in the morning. There will be a thousand emptinesses that haunt us both for some time.

And yet, if anyone reading this should ever think "I could never go through that," my only response - written now with eyes again blurred with tears - is that I wouldn't have changed one single thing. Not a one.

She made our lives immeasurably richer, and that you never have to say goodbye to.

I guess our dogs - our loved dogs, our members of the family, our special ones we bond with - are only ours on loan. The point is to value and love and enjoy them as much as possible with every moment possible before we have to return them. And maybe, learn a thing or two from having them in our lives as well.