His name was Eddie, and he was a rescue. He was an older guy - somewhere over ten years old, I think. He was a mutt too. There is not really sense in saying he was part this or that because who the hell knows what ancestral lines came together to make him who was. (Though he leaned significantly toward Pit Bull, if you need to know.)
I had known Eddie for a about a year, as I had become his dog sitter, and he was one of my first clients when I started my business. He had two other brothers, also rescues. One was like an old sailor trapped in the body of a tiny Boston Terrier - cranky joints, one eye he could barely see out of, completely deaf, and he would have these cough spasms any time he rounded a corner too fast. The other, a type of shepherd who was both cautious and coy, and even though he is 10 years old, he could jump the fence even as you were screaming, “Come back right now, you little punk!” at the top of your lungs, chasing after him as fast as you could go.
A motley crew, and my crew for weeks at a time.
Here’s why Eddie was my favorite of the bunch. He had a weight problem and he was the largest of the bunch - he absolutely loved food and was motivated by it (who can't relate?) He also had a lung condition, so like his Boston Terrier brother, he would cough and pant if he over-exerted himself physically. Alongside all of these trademarks, he was the sweetest and the funniest. He would follow me around where ever I went, and he insisted that he sleep in the same bed as me even though I had to lift him up to get onto the bed, and he snored louder than any human I ever met (you know, lung condition and all.) He would stand outside the door while I shoved a pillow over my ears, praying he would just go to sleep, and he was would bark and scratch and eventually, I am not kidding- find a way to open the door, as it didn’t have locks. At that point, I figured all this effort to be with me shouldn’t be ignored, and I would resignedly help him into the bed where we would together share the night’s sleep - him soundly, me... not so much.
Eddie’s health had started to decline quite quickly. Whereas my last stay, he could walk up and down the stairs, now we only stayed on the first floor. And this time, he didn’t insist on jumping into bed with me... and outside adventures were limited to 30 second ins and outs, where he would walk out laboriously to use the bathroom, and then come straight back. I remembered Eddie being the dog who loved being outside for lengths at a time to lay in the sun and feel its warmth on his fur. No longer it seemed.
His parents told me they didn’t know what was wrong with him, all the tests came back inconclusive, and there was nothing to be done but care for and love him well, until his end. They were certain that though he wasn’t as lively as before, he was stable. And he seemed so. The first five days were normal, they were a little different, because he was different - some of the light had faded from him, but he was still with us. He could still walk, and eat, and breathe.
I remember when I knew something was wrong. Eric was visiting, and we were talking in the kitchen when Eddie found his way to where we were. He sounded strange - like his lungs were raking the air around him... like no matter how much they searched, they couldn’t find enough breath to fill them. I was mildly worried - I hadn’t heard this sound, like he was breathing through marbles, before. I sent a few texts to his parents- but I knew it was hopeless, they were on a cruise beyond service. But I also thought it would pass, and his lungs would clear. I stayed up half the night with him, praying and hoping he would get better. And by the next morning, he had. And it was a wonderful day.
By then by that next evening, out of nowhere, the raking breaths had returned. And he sounded like his lungs were filled with water. Each breath sounded like he breathing through gurgling water. It was past his home vet’s hours, so I called an emergency vet, and they confirmed my worst fears. “It sure does sound like fluid is building up in the lungs. Unfortunately, we can’t do anything unless you can prove that his owners want to pay for the procedures. We can’t confirm his condition without doing several tests (costing anywhere from $300-500), and then any procedures themselves (costing $300-500), and also there is the consultation fee just to meet with the vet ($80). So, Miss, you can either pay for it all yourself, or provide proof the owners consent to this care and the payment for it. I suggest you try to get them on the phone.”
It’s 2am. They are somewhere in the middle of the ocean. I couldn’t get a hold of them if I tried. And I didn’t even have $100 to spare to pay for his emergency medical care.
This place of utter hopelessness was haunting. No one was awake, I had no idea what his parents wanted to do - and he was dying, slowly and painfully, in front of me. He couldn’t lay down anymore, not even to sleep, because there was too much fluid in his chest. He could only sit up, and his stretch out his neck, begging for breath through gurgles of fluid. I finally found a number for the owner’s dad, and frantically texted him at 2:30am. By a miracle, he told me he woke up a little before. He told me that it was probably best to put Eddie down, but to try to wait for his family to come home. But they didn’t come home for another 48 hours. I remember praying to God to have mercy on him, and to heal him, and to keep him alive for his family to say goodbye.
It was around 3am, he led me outside. There had been bad weather all week. It had rained non-stop all day long. You could feel the water still on the grass. He went out into the yard, and sat down. I came and sat down next to him. I rubbed his head, knowing somehow that the time was coming. He was lingering. His eyes looking up toward the heavens - What do you know? It rained all day for the past week... but right now, in the moment, there was a clear sky. Eddie could see every star, and the stars could see him. Perhaps the clouds had peeled back for the first time in days for him to have this moment, right now. His last gaze upon the earth that had been his home, cradling his body and spirit-- his life. I sat with him, tears rolling down my face. We all come back to the dust and dirt that first formed us, don’t we?
We stayed up the rest of the night, I was holding him the best I could. Telling him it was okay. Listening to his gurgling breaths get worse and worse. I tried my hardest to stay awake, but somewhere after 5am, I drifted off to sleep, to wake up delirious on the couch four hours later.
Now, Eddie was lying down. A pool of blood had formed around his head. Blood was everywhere. He had trailed from the kitchen across the living room to where he lay in front of the bathroom. I remember how quickly I dialed the number of that granddad I had texted he night before - as I spoke with him, Eddie tried to stand up... he stumbled and fell. “Lie down, buddy. I’ll figure this out,” I whisper as he finally answers the phone.
“He needs to go to the vet right now to end his suffering. He can’t make it until tomorrow.”
After hanging up the phone, I was pulling up the directions to his vet when he stumbled toward me from the other room. Giant globs of bloody saliva where trailing from his mouth. He sat down in front of me, looked at me, and let out a long wail. He then fell. His heavy body thumped against the hardwood floor. He gasped for air... once... twice....... His eyes were open when he died. His eyes were looking at me.
I remember his Boston Terrier brother, who was blind and deaf, walked over to me when it happened. Even though he couldn’t see, he seemed to be looking over to where the lifeless body of his brother lay. His head was hung low. He appeared to have a solemn awareness of what had happened, like he was mourning a fallen comrade. He sat by me quietly, as I wept. All in all, he died within five minutes of me waking up. He had waited for me.
Death is such a strange thing. And I feel I have seen enough of it to never want it near me again, yet how futile that desire is. I was there as life left a body. One second his eyes were dancing, the next, they were still as glass. One moment, he had thoughts and feelings, longings and pain, the next, whatever he was beyond his body was no where to be found. There was only a shell that remained. Be it shorter than my own, he had lived a lifetime - loved deeply by a family that rescued him. A pup who snored so loud I couldn’t sleep, but refused to let me sleep alone. A dog who loved nothing more than a spoonful of peanut butter. A dog who loved to feel his fur warm up in the summer sun. All these moments, all these pieces... these... seconds that make up a life - culminate in a final, quiet, lingering breath.
How sacred it is, how sacred to witness that door, invisible to the naked eye, that opens for one milli-second, just one miraculous moment - to invite a soul from one phase of light into another.
I wrote about this experience because it has fundamentally changed me in some way. I know for many, this is just an animal dying. It shouldn’t be that big of deal. I wish it were that easy. My family has owned many pets over my lifetime, and I have said goodbye to several of them. It is not the loss that is sticking to my bones - it was the haunting feeling of hopelessness while I watched him slowly suffer to death, drowning in his own fluids. It is the question of, could I have done more? Oh, that I could turn back the clock, and call everyone I knew - beg my dad to help me pay for his medical bills... put it on my credit card... something.... What if I had recognized the signs sooner? What if I had tried harder to press the dad into dealing with it now? What if I hadn’t fallen asleep when he needed me most? What if I had tried harder to find ways to ease his suffered.
So many questions, so many regrets. So many sleepless nights since then. So many glasses of wine. So many nightmares.
It’s been a week and a half since it happened. And I am just as traumatized by how it all ended now as I was then. And I feel so tired, and my soul so heavy. I realized yesterday that I can’t run away from this experience - expecting the trauma to stay behind where I left it. Trauma, unfortunately, latches onto you and it doesn’t let go that easily. I know this story is gruesome... it’s messy, and bloody, quite literally. But it is a part of me now, it’s a part of what is forming me more into the shape of who I am becoming. It has nestled itself inside, and it gives me more perspective on just how dissonant Death really is. Death is the darkest evil of the brokenness we experience -- we were never meant for it. No, we were made by God - we were made for Life. But we live in the in between now - we are dust motes caught in a ray light, existing between shadows. We are not where we were meant to be. We are all waiting for the suffering, the darkness... the Death... to end. How do we exist in the in-between, holding all the things that have scarred us?
