Woody was a mutt. Hard to believe: at barely 5 pounds at his "fattest", he was a tough little guy who traveled cross country and as far south as Key West with David and me.
Woody peed in more states than you could, er...wag a tail at.
****
There Must Be Gardens in Pet Heaven
I am at Lowe’s Garden Center, wrestling with a Bird of Paradise. I just want to find the price. This Mutha is huge.
Woody’s headstone arrived and I’ve decided to plant the biggest, most beautiful tropical plants I can find around it. Woody may have been small, but I just know he is huge now. After all, he is in everything I see.
Plus I need something to water and tend to every day or I am going to lose my mind. Rebecca is low maintenance; I love her, especially now as she shares my grief, but she’s an independent kinda gal, as most cats are.
The Bird of Paradise is ninety dollars, plus it won’t fit in my car, so I chose a smaller version called heliconia: same huge green leaves and smaller, but no less beautiful, orange flowers. I set the pot of Confederate Jasmine we brought with us from North Carolina next to his headstone, as sort of a connection to when he was alive. I also buy a yellow flowering shrub called Esperanza, which means “Hope” and a Kalanchoe plant with teeny white flowers on it, because they remind me of Woody. The last thing I buy is some kind of snake plant with brilliant red and orange and yellow-speckled leaves reaching up to the sky, much like the flowers and plants in my niece and nephew’s card.
I have finally changed my clothes. No laundry done yet, though. Change takes time.
I drive home in a stupor - again, change takes time – and I go to work.
To call me “crazy with grief” at this point is an understatement. Even though it is 90 degrees and sunny, I dig the holes for the plants and plant them in fifteen minutes flat, even adding soil conditioner to keep them healthy. Bugs are everywhere: attaching themselves to my arms and calves, flying up my nose, even sticking onto my contact lenses. Undaunted, I weed as I go, all while balancing on one foot so as not to disturb his gravesite. The finishing touch is a little wooden sign I made with a little drawing of Woody on a cloud on it that read, “Woody’s Garden.” No way I’m going to call this spot in my yard “Woody’s G-G-G-Gr-Grave.” Uh-uh, no way.
As I water the plants, I keep hoping I’ll see Woody peek out from behind one of the plants in his garden. Wacko.
Rebecca appears next to me and suddenly leaps over to the heliconia. She rubs past one. She sniffs Woody’s new headstone and plops down on it.
She closes her eyes as I pet her head.
I think of my niece and nephews’ card. “Angels and bugs….” I whisper.
*
From
If all this grief stuff is too much, check out this happy blog:
http://noahstrek.blogspot.com
Love it!!!XXXOOO
TO ALL PET LOVERS: A cursory scan of dog and pet grief blogs is both sad and comforting: I am not the only one who went bonkers when her dog passed away.
I didn't go "raving lunatic crazy." I just forgot stuff - kind of important stuff, like what state I lived in, not to mention what street I lived on; how to boil water; how often to vacuum and other stuff I, well, don't remember.
Anyone else out there with a "crazy with dog/cat/horse/ferret/turtle/parrot/pet grief" story?
Check 'em out:
www.blogs.dogtime.com
www.pet-loss-matters.com/pet-loss-blog.html
" M'boy"
*
BARGAINING
Okay. I know he’ll eat if I go to Costco once a week and get him a Rotisserie chicken. Rinse it so he doesn’t get a stomachache. Chop it up in the mini-chopper so he can stop this choking after he eats. Or, better yet, I’ll put down tiny bits of finely chopped food in two minute intervals. That way he has to chew it really well. Then, on alternate days I’ll go to Burger King. He loves the burgers. Oh, look at this: a herbal supplement with CoQ 10. Good for the heart.
*
“Medicine is always bitter to the taste.”
I am reading a fortune cookie from the Chinese food David went out to get to make up for the chicken incident.
I watched the vet lay Woody down on the stainless steel exam table I had held him at countless times for exams. Only this was the last time…. Why didn’t I let him go in his own time? Why did I bring him to the vet to die?
Woody hadn’t eaten for days before he died, and so I was unable to sneak his heart medication into his food. Could not having his medicine have caused his death? I’m terrible. I should have made him swallow the medicine.
He: You helped me. I needed you to help me. That was the love I needed then.
Me: I did it wrong. I should have let you go your own way.
He: We both had to surrender.
Peace is only in the letting go.
*
Free Phone-Based Pet Loss Hotline
By support on Jul 24, 2009 In Links Send feedback »
The College of Veterinary Medicine at Washington State University offers a free phone-based pet loss hotline for pet loss support, death of a pet, dying pet. Staffed by veterinary students, trained by a licensed therapist, as well as a pet memorial site where pet owners can post stories and photos in memory of their pets.
http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/PLHl/
Pet Loss Matters - Practical and understanding information and advice on all matters regarding pet loss, pet death and pet grief, along with pet quotes, pet loss diaries and pet loss poetry. You are not alone in your grief. Share Your Story here.
Woody's Garden
*
On my morning walk this morning I heard a rustle of leaves and was rather pleasantly startled to look over and see a Mini Pinscher puppy poised and staring at me, head cocked mischievously to the right.
Oh, God, this is a busy street, I am thinking. “Where did you come from?” I ask him. He darted back, through a hole in the fence.
I walked on.
Rustle of grass. Mini pin, back again.
“C’mon. You can’t play on this busy street, Sweetie. You’ll get squished.”
I consider carrying him to a side street, where I can knock on a few doors, find his real home.
As if reading my mind, he leaps, fakes me out, and darts back into the hole again.
I walked on.
I keep looking back for him, again and again, just in case. But he’s gone.
He must know where his Home is, even though I don’t.
*
His eyes are half closed and he is half-turned, this stunning white-blonde man. The contentment on his face is something I have never known, and I feel guilty disturbing him from it, but –
He turns to me. Tears are streaming down my face but the grapefruit that’s been blocking my throat for the past two weeks has shrunk to the size of an apricot. He looks so lovely; he smiles the kindest smile I have ever seen in my entire life, with sparkling blue eyes the color of the South Florida sky.
Me: I still look for you when I get home and… it’s like being stabbed.
He: Mmm. Yes.
He hugs me with strong, smooth arms enveloped by cool, white sheet sleeves and I cry into them and worry about the mascara stains and I tell him, and he laughs a little and hugs me tighter – big, white, safe arms.
I cry and cry and laugh a little because suddenly I think of him as a puppy, biting my grandmother with tiny teeth and a tiny growl to match, and she giggled.
Me: I spoke to Nannie yesterday and she told me she had a dream about you. She said Jesus was sitting in a chair and He called to you and patted his lap, and you sprung right up, all white and fluffy. But your hair was curlier. Does Heaven curl your hair?
He: (smiling) Only the angels’.
Me: Really?
He shrugs.
Me: Anyway, even though her memory fails her a lot, she remembered that you had been born with a gimp front leg. But in her dream your leg was perfect and you were wagging a lot.
He: Yes. My legs are strong as trees now.
Me: I miss you.
He: I am here. I am here.
He hugs me tighter and…
… I wake up.
*
On my walking path this morning, a man I had never seen before smiled and said, “Hello,” and startled me out of my thoughts of Woody. I looked up to the “Hello” and it was the face of the man-angel in my dream. Except his hair was white, not golden blonde, and he wore a yarmulke.
I ring my sister Jen the minute I get home.
“Woody is a Rabbi living in Delray Beach!”
I tell her about my dream and the man I saw on my walk.
“Uh-huh,” she says, carefully.
“Really! What are the chances of seeing the same man the next day?“
“You haven’t been sleeping, have you?” she asks.
Bitch. Don’t pop my bubble.
“It was the eyes. The eyes were the same. Sky blue. They twinkled.”
“’kaaay,” she said.
*
“ And, greatest gift of all,
Odin gave them souls that live and never die,
though the body itself has turned to dust.”
- ODIN’S FAMILY: MYTHS OF THE VIKINGS
Retold by Neil Philip
I wake up hearing panting. The excited, Spring fever kind of dog panting :Woody running full force around trees in our backyard in Michigan, years ago when he could do that. No matter how cold it was outside, he’d run circles on the grassy patches in between the snow until, exhausted, he’d sit, and one of us would scoop him up, and bring him inside to rest and lap up some water.
This is just too hard. Thinking about him is just too painful.
So I started thinking TO him instead….
I closed my eyes as quickly as they opened this morning in bed, and tried to clear my mind. Slowly, I pictured him, content, in the lap of Peace….
Me: I miss you.
I imagine he would cock his head to one side, trying to understand.
He is suddenly a beautiful man angel, like a Nordic god.
He: But I never left. And you still haven’t left me. We’re still together.
Me: True. You are in my thoughts, always. I guess what I mean is, I miss your little body.
I picture him shrugging and the thought comes quietly to me, as if he said it directly to my mind.
He: That body caused me a great deal of pain for a very long time. I’m glad to be free of it. I couldn’t run for a very long time.
And suddenly I realize what he is saying is true. His arthritis left him unable to run in years.
He looks at me and without words spoken, and I know: he hung on for a very long time, longer than he might have willingly. Maybe he would have “gone” after his first syncopatic episode – a surprise, too soon, to be sure. In his unconsciousness then, perhaps, he heard the desperation in my voice, felt my wildly trembling hands, and he knew he couldn’t leave me like that, so he pawed his way back to us. Away from the freedom from pain and those grassy fields of Heaven that he finally could run through again. Through another heart attack and several mini-strokes, he stayed with the old ticker as long as he could.
I don’t know if this is true. But…
I also don’t know that it is not.
*
I miss the physical likeness of Woody. I miss his smell (wheat toast) and the feel of his fur (boney angora). I miss the way his head popped up when I’d pass him in his little dog bed; I miss the way he would hold a wedge of rawhide and chew it with gusto; the way he’d smack when he would eat Pupperoni treats.
But if I believed in Spirit, had an ounce (or 3.3 pounds) of faith, I’d know, indeed, that he is in a “better place.” Without the burden of a sick body, he can run again, breathe again, and finally, finally be free.
Thinking of Woody always brings me full-face with those last few frail days, with all the guilt of having him put to sleep, but at the same time knowing that I would never expect David to let me suffer any longer than Woody did. I just don’t know.
*
Me: When are you coming Home?
He: I am Home.
Me: But – I don’t –
He: I’m already with you.
Me: Please. I miss you.
He: Check more. Inside. Around you. I never left.
Me: How can I be sure?
He: You don’t have to be.
Just know.
*
“Are you ever going to do laundry again?” David asks me. I am collecting Woody’s toys to give to all the poor dogs in the animal shelter. Give his old toys new life, so to speak. Plus the sight of them sends me into hysterics every day.
“Why? I bought you a new package of underwear.”
He looks at me. I avoid his eyes. He knows. No laundry load was ever complete until Woody jumped into the hot, clean clothes, right out of the dryer. I know when that buzzer goes off and Woody doesn’t appear I’ll have a nervous breakdown and die.
“Look, why don’t you get a job? Apply to Grad School? “
“Just what I need : DEADlines.” What a whiner.
“’When you hurt, do something anyway.’” He says, quoting someone because it is particularly eloquent coming from Mr. PottyMouth. “Go for a walk. Exercise is good for you.”
Nonetheless, whoever’s words those were stuck in my head all day and by day’s end I found myself walking around the block.
*
Gates by David Bonomo: Southern Florida
There are Pet sitters in Hell
“IT’S OKAY, he won’t bite you,” Maryann, our neighbor says. David and I are standing in her small living room, watching her stroke the back of what looks to be a small stegosaurus, clinging to side of an enormous birdcage.
“Whoa,” David says. “Let me see.”
I take a step back. “I’ll watch.”
“Gila monster or iguana?’ Ranger Dave asks, as Maryann hands the reptile to David. His arm lurches under its weight. I take another step back.
“Iguana,” Maryann says smartly. Since she is a student at the North Carolina State Veterinary School, she knows the difference. Yay.
“So, I just need you to feed him twice a day all next week. I’ll be home Sunday, very early in the morning. You can leave him out of his cage. He likes to hang around up on the curtain rod.” She points to an iron ramp above the bay window. “Oh, and here’s his food,” she says, and holds up a bag of baby greens, the kind I pay 6.99 a pound for at Whole Foods.
“David? David. Maryann’s showing you his food.”
“Whoa! What’s this growth on his face?” David marvels and pivots around with Cyclops on his arm and all I see is a scaly golf ball protruding from the iguana’s face. It looks like a second, albeit smaller, head. I notice his ribs as he breathes, hard.
“Dude. That thing is huge!” David says, grimacing, and slowly pivots the double-headed creature back to Maryann’s arm.
“Oh, that’s nothing. Just a growth. I’m hoping it will eventually fall off,” she says brightly. I have edged back into the kitchen now.
“And do what with it? Play eighteen holes?’ David asks, wide-eyed.
“No, silly. Study it, probably,” Maryann says.
Oh, gross.
“Oh, yes, and one more thing. Dara, make sure you – “ she holds her hand to her mouth and whispers – “sorta stay away from him if it’s, like, you know, that time of the month. He gets a little… aggressive.”
“’kay!” I shriek, and smile, and hightail it to the door. “Ready David I’m gonna go?!”
David is in a genuflect/crouch, studying him. “Damn. Are you sure he’s okay?”
“He’s fine,” Maryann says. “See you in a week.”
*
HELL FREEZETH OVER
“The iguana doesn’t look so good,” David tells me, shaking his head. It is Day 2 of his Iguana Pet Sitting Service for Maryann.
“How can you tell?” I ask, making a face.
“Well, when I opened the door, he was sitting on the curtain rod, but then the wind blew the door shut and – Thmph! – he just fell to the floor.”
“Did he run away?’ I ask. The hair is standing up on the back of my neck just thinking about that thing running.
“I wish. He just stayed there.”
“Maybe you startled him. He probably can’t see around his second head.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says. “He won’t eat or drink anything. Watch him keel over.”
*
Lo and behold: the next day, he did.
“Shit!” David says. “The iguana’s dead.”
“Shit!” I agreed. “Are you sure?”
“I’m pretty sure. He’s stiff as a board.” And then: “I think I’ll run over him with my truck, just to be sure.”
“What?! You can’t run over someone’s pet with your truck!” I yell.
Woody trots out of the room.
“Sure I can. What if he’s suffering?”
“David. Maryann may want to see him, or bury him when she comes home. Plus, you’ll flatten that [I gag a little here] growth she wants to study.” Uck.
“Trash pickup is Friday. I was just gonna throw it out. Although, recycling is tomorrow….”
“You can’t recycle it! Or throw it out! Plus, that dinosaur will never fit in the recycling bin.”
“Well, I’ll figure something out,” he mutters pensively.
Less than an hour later he returns, looking relieved.
“What did you do?” I ask.
He beamed. “Froze ‘im!”
“You- what?”
“Froze. Him.”
�
