Are you awake yet?

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Saturday Night Thoughts

In a few months I'll be sixty-five, which is all sorts of .... interesting.  I was talking to my best friend from when I was sixteen just now, and we were wondering what happened to our lives.  Fifty years, nearly, have gone by from those days when we were filled with hope and our whole lives lay ahead of us.  We believed passionately that we would make the world a better place, that we would make our mark somehow, that we would have happy lives.  Yet here we are, both of us, just a few months away from being able to go on the old age pension.  Him a widower, me arthritic and in pain.  Both of us much poorer than we'd hoped.   And with so little done.  The world has gone on, indifferently.

I can't say I haven't had a good life.  By comparison with some I've in fact had a wonderful life.  The grief which pressed so heavily on me a few years ago has lifted.  I shan't forget my friend Henrik, or my parents or my father-in-law, but the agonising grief of their deaths has hardened into a scar.  You can call that "healing" if you want.

I still miss my little dogs horribly, though.  Their love was so generous and forgiving, so un-judgemental.  Sometimes I think of them and I find myself weeping.  I wonder that God -- or whoever orders these things -- should acquiesce in such suffering.

Really, I shouldn't  complain.  I have enough to eat, shelter, books and music, a loving family.  I live in a safe country, with a decent welfare system, my health is tolerable.

All the same I still can't get my head around the terrible grief and loss we humans must endure, of how you will suddenly be ambushed by a random memory which leaves you weak with sorrow, of how happiness is always tinged with remembrance.  The other night I dreamt of the little dogs, all asleep on the bed, and was overcome with grief to wake and find it wasn't true.

Bizarrely, despite my grief and memories, I am also sometimes intensely happy. Without reason or logic.  Happy, just because.  I know that if I examine the cause it will flutter off, so I don't.  It's a sort of blind happiness, owing nothing, so far as I can see, to circumstance.  A divine pat, perhaps?

Did my parents suffer this angst too?  And theirs before them?  It seems to be something that the  young don't feel, perhaps because they haven't suffered grief like we oldies have.  Or maybe they do too.  I can't remember it, in myself, when I was young and brash.  But then, the young are so self-centred. Or at least, I was.  Perhaps it is precisely this grief that makes you fully human.  I don't know.  The happy certainties of sixteen have vanished.

Even the old aged pension is an oddly mixed blessing.  It means I'm entering that last stretch of life, the slow curve downwards, the decay.  I find myself forgetting things and wonder, is this it?  Only I can't forget the things I would like to.  God has a sense of humour.  A very black one.

It's bedtime, now.

A la prochaine, mes amis.

End of an era

Uzz at about 2 years old

We got him in August 1999, coincidentally at more or less the same time I first started to use the internet.  He was a miniature Jack Russell/Fox Terrier cross and was just 8 weeks old.  We called him Rusty, but that quickly became Uzz.

I'd been made redundant, so I was at home, and it was August and freezing (still winter, here).  So I carried him around with me, tucked into my jacket, which could be tightened at the waist with a tie.  I used to pull the string tight, and he slept supported by my jacket against my warm tummy.

I adored him and he adored me.  When I came home, he'd dance around and whimper with excitement.  Later, he got deaf, so the loud welcoming barks I used to get at the gate whenever I came home stopped.  But still, even old and half-blind, he would know I was home within a minute or two from my scent, I suppose, and he would leap off the sofa to welcome me.  

In the last year or so, he'd become senile.  He was distressed even when I was home, and often howled, in a deep tenor howl when I wasn't.  He had kidney disease.  One keeps on postponing the inevitable, but the final straw was when he wee'd on the floor (his weeing had got more and more copious, a clear sign of kidney disease) and there was a drop of blood in it.

On Thursday we took our little champion down to the vet to be killed.  At the vet he barked several times, with the sharp imperious bark he used to use when he needed help: "come tuck me in!"; "open the door!"; "I'm stuck, help me!" (when he fell behind the sofa--he liked to lie on its arm in the afternoon sun).   But this time we weren't going to help him, the "get me out of here!" bark wasn't going to help.

He was so distressed the vet gave him a sedative before the long green injection, and we caressed and stroked him then and then when he died and then after he was dead.  I wept and when he was gone and we were alone, I sobbed, as I haven't done since my father died.

I had him for 16 years, a quarter of my life.  He was my friend, loyal and faithful and forgiving.  He forgave me my grumpiness, he helped lift my depressions, he didn't mind that I was old and fat and cynical.  He loved me unreservedly and unconditionally.  Would that my human friends were like that.  Would that I was like that.  I try so hard to be a decent loving person, and in the end it's a dog who shows me how.

Salve atque vale, mi amice.    I can't tell you how much I miss you.

Monday morning

My little dog, 14 years ago

It's very cold (2 C) and dark and the beginning of the week.  Today I go to get the referral for the colonoscopy and gastroscopy.  That's where they stick a fibre-optic cable up and down you to look at your colon and your stomach, respectively.  It's horrid, the whole process horrible.  Bleagh.  But at least it's me and I know what's happening.  A much worse thing this week is that I'll be taking my dog down for his last visit to the vet.  He's quite senile now, and he's becoming distressed all the time.  He's been my loyal and loving friend for 16 years, more loyal than so many of my human friends.  He's loved me without judging, he's forgiven me when I've been grumpy.  And now it's time.

I can't bear it.

Dog love

Oppressed ...

... today by the suffering of life, by loneliness of so many people in the world, by grief and loss, by betrayal and illness and death.  I miss Nimbo and Sharpie and ... and people too.

I should be more philosophical I suppose and be glad of the good things too.   Usually I am, but tonight ... it's too hard.  Well.

Onwards and upwards.

Source. Click to see magnificent full size

Nimbo

Our little dog Nimbo was Sharpie's littermate.  They were together all Sharpie's life.  

I took him down to be clipped on Wednesday.  Whether it was the sedative or whether it would have happened anyway, who knows, but on Wednesday night he had a fit.  When I got home on Thursday, he had another, and then at midnight one more and on Friday morning yet another.  The fits lasted 5 minutes, and he frothed at the mouth and soiled himself, and then he wandered around for an hour or more bumping into things and hiding in corners or behind the sofas and whimpering and groaning all the time.  After that, he'd fall into a deep sleep lasting a couple of hours and then it would start again.  Poor old bloke.  So we took him down to the vet that morning and he had the long green injection.  We could have--he could have--lived with the fits, despite him soiling himself, if he hadn't been so distressed.

I had him in my arms as he died.  16 and a half years with us.  

Needless to say we both wept.

How much we love our little dogs, and they love us.  He was a gentle, easy-going, forgiving little dog, never vicious or angry.  I miss him.

Melancholy

Tonight I'm thinking of friends and family who've died.  It started with a post from Andrew Sullivan, The Last Lesson We Learn From Our Pets,  and I thought back to my own dear dog, and with tears in my eyes, after that to friends and family who have died.  My mother, my father-in-law, my friend Henrik, my friend Anneliese, my father.

God has so badly organised this business of death.  So much suffering before the end.  And our grief!  It's just not fair that we should suffer so.  But "not fair" is childish.  The world is what it is.  But the way people and animals die, and the grief that survivors endure seems to me to argue very cogently for the absence -- the total absence -- of God.  We are alone, and what we make of our lives and of the lives of those we love is up to us.  Not believing in God and in Heaven and Hell makes it all the more important that we show love and compassion and forgiveness and grace now, while we yet live, and not rely on some mythical ideas about life after death and paradise.  I know these notions comfort some people when someone they love dies.  But for me, the horrible savagery of our ends, of the permanent severing of ties between us, is a compelling argument to loving one another while we still can.

Happiness

Put to sleep

It's a euphemism I detest.  They don't go to sleep -- they die.  But with our little miniature daxie, it was half-true.

We got him when he was a few weeks old, him and his brother.  As a child we'd had daxies, and I remembered them with affection.  We called him Sharptooth and his brother Nimrod (the great hunter from the Bible) but the names were misnomers.  They were very timorous beasties.  It wasn't long before they became Sharpie and Nimbo.

He was a fighter.  Twice he injured his spine by leaping from the sofa when his very favourite person, my lady, came home.  For weeks after that he dragged himself around like a seal, his haunches on the ground, his eyes eager.  But he never gave up, and gradually the use of his spine came back and he could walk again.  We got little dog steps for the sofas and made little steps for him to climb up the steps to the house.  But we still had to watch him, because he'd get so excited when she came home, he'd leap rather than climb down the steps.

She accidentally ran him over (he was so pleased to see her he ran out of the house straight under her car)  The skin was stripped off his stomach and we really thought he was going to die.  But he didn't.  The vet did wonders with a skin graft and Sharpie was a fighter, determined to live.  The vet clearly didn't think he'd make it.  But he did.

Because dachshunds are hounds, not terriers (even though they were bred to hunt badgers -- 'dachs' is German for badger), he had an absurd deep bark, incongruous in a dog his size.  He was greedy, and we had to keep tight control of his diet, or he would have ballooned until he really did look like a sausage.  He was thin-skinned and felt the cold of our high mountain town.  At night he would sleep next to my lady, comforted by her presence, his nose peeping out from under the duvet.

In the end he was almost completely blind and deaf.  If he'd been unhappy, we'd have given him the long green injection then.  But he didn't seem unhappy.  Scent is much more important to dogs than vision is to us.  When my lady came home, even if he was deeply asleep, within 20 seconds of her arrival he would eagerly lift his head, scenting the breeze, and then would leap up to find her.

We knew his time had come when he gave up.  He was in pain -- there may have been cancer or a bowel blockage, who knows? -- and would keep jerking as the pain bit into him.  And he quite clearly gave up.  This great and brave little fighter decided he'd had enough.

The vet was very kind.  We discussed all the options.  But we knew it was time.  We held him in our arms as the vet injected him.   He drifted into sleep.  The last thing he did was to lick his lips.  I suppose his mouth was dry.  A little later, the vet came in and listened for his heart and said quietly, "his heart has stopped."

Fifteen years he shared our lives, loving us without judgement or disdain, wholeheartedly, unreservedly. Dear little dog, perhaps there is a heaven for little dogs, where your people are always home, and food is plentiful, walks frequent, and pain far away.  And perhaps not.  But whatever has happened to your soul, we won't forget, ever.

Joy

Can't remember when I last had a moment of sheer undiluted joy.  Satisfaction, yes.  Even happiness, yes.  But joy?  Not in years.

Not like this dog.

Best friend

from The Slab

Loyal, faithful, forgiving, accepting, loving, welcoming, happy, easy to please. Unlike people.

Friends for life

Sad that dogs are often more faithful than people.

Dog and cat

I wonder which I am. Dog I think -- who longs to be a cat!

Majorca Flats -- 119

Dear Gran,

As you see, your email arrived. I am so impressed! Underlining too! Next thing you'll be getting a pilot's licence. Oops! I shouldn't have said that, should I? I'll read about you in the paper, flying out to Oz in your single-engined Piper cub. Don't do it, gran! You might get arrested in Afghanistan or Iran. You know what's it's like there. Mind you, they might not quite realise what's hit them when you've finished with them!  And then I'll have to come and rescue you! 

As they say here, so placidly it's very funny: “it's a worry.” :-) That means a smile, by the way, gran, this ;-) means a wink, and this :_) is a lopsided grin. Now you know all about email 'smileys'!

Yes, you can give Amanda my email address, but please ask her to keep it from the others. I know I should give Mark my address too, but he was never really comfortable with me and Brent. I really do not want an email from mum or dad. It'll just be how ungrateful I am and how selfish and why can't I come home and go back to my studies and marry some nice girl. I just can't do it, gran. I feel so down and sad. I miss Brent so much. I miss you and Amanda too, but, just now, gran, I can't.

Yesterday I went to lunch with a famous author! You'll never guess who he is. Amantha Masterton! And yes she is a he, a very manly he too. Have you read any of her (his) books? He says he's a best seller, and certainly he obviously has money, judging by his house. He invited me to lunch because he lost his husband years ago and he felt sorry for me. Normally, when people feel sorry for me I get annoyed or embarrassed, but he was so unobtrusive and careful and discreet about it.

Give my love to Mr Minim. My landlady has a wonderful little fox terrier called Bolt ('cos that's what he does if you open the door!) and he seems to have decided I'm his best friend. I think I'll tell him about Mr Minim. Though explaining all the character traits and intricacies of that dog will be hard.

I love you, Gran. Write soon.

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Sure of You

I was reminded of this beaut thought by Carol Zampa's latest blog post:

Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh!" he whispered. "Yes, Piglet?" "Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw. "I just wanted to be sure of you." ~A.A. Milne

But maybe it is after all possible only in Winnie the Pooh.  Or with dogs.

Grief

Grief is the big no-no in our society. The Victorians wallowed in grief, and pretended sex didn't exist, even covering their table legs because bare legs were immodest. We do the opposite. Sex is everywhere and is used to sell everything. But if you grieve, you must "get over it". "It's time you got a new girlfriend" people have told my best friend, whose wife died nearly a year ago. "Your grief is selfish", his family have said.

They are embarrassed at his pain. They want to be able to stop worrying about him. They want him to be happy. Never mind that he lived with her for 30 years, that they were a devoted and very happy couple. Never mind that without her he is incomplete. Broken. Devastated. No, he must be happy. For them.

I grieve at his wife's loss, and I grieve for my dear friend Henrik, who died a few months ago. I don't believe grief ever goes away. But in our society we have to pretend that it has gone away, that we are "over it". It's almost more perverted than the Victorian aversion to sex. Both are part of life. We love, and those we love die or leave us. So we grieve. It's natural. But the do-gooders tell us we need counselling and drugs, to make us feel "better". Being unhappy is the great sin today. It embarrasses and annoys everyone. Be happy. Or else.

What brought this on is the news that my sister-in-law is today taking their very beloved dog to the vet to be "put down" (and why the horrid euphemism? Tell it like it is: killed) I know the dog well. She's a gorgeous, friendly intelligent Staffie, with a lovely nature. And the sorrow at her death has made me weep again for the loss of those I've loved, human or animal. But we are allowed to grieve for a pet -- as long as we get a new one, quicksticks. We are allowed to cuddle our dogs but not our friends ("too gay, mate"). Odd, isn't it, how a new grief reminds you of old griefs, while new happiness is unique? Here's to Pundi. I shall miss you.

Sometimes I feel so alien to the rest of mankind, as if I were truly from Aldebaran III, and were watching the antics of some exotic species, not my own.

Well, I suppose I'd better start getting over it, hey?

N