Obituary for my Dog (? — 12/23/18)
A year ago today my grandmother died. Today, my dear friend and road trip partner passed away. The second was my fault.
One year ago today, on December 23, 2017, my grandmother Lucia died.
At 1:30 p.m. today, December 23, 2018, my friend and familiar, Alfie (or was it, Alphie? I never needed to decide!) passed beyond my sight.
Though they are associated with witchcraft — let’s leave that association aside — “familiar spirits” are usually animals imbued with the spirit of their masters (anyone who has watched or read Harry Potter knows plenty about them!). In a way, tonight is the first time in a decade that my dear old dog and I are truly apart, since he was my beta: always waiting for me, even when I was on the road. He even hesitate to eat when I was away, which scared the bejeezus out of me because I travel so much. He was more than cursorily responsible for my marriage, because Mabel is the only person other than me with whom he would eat and drink. He chose her so I suppose I never really had an option. :-)
The irony of the anniversaries is fitting: At her funeral, over and over again it was reiterated the degree to which my grandmother exemplified the Hebrew phrase “eshet khai’il” — a woman warrior. Alfie [for present purposes, I’ll settle on a spelling then wrestle with it later] was a warrior in fact: his breed was a Korean Jindo, which is said to have “stood tall against tigers, guarded the heavily armed border with the North and marched in the Olympics…The Jindo is largely unknown overseas, but it is South Korea’s most popular indigenous breed. It has won legions of fans at home for its big heart and undying loyalty.” The first time I brought Alfie to Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School, a Korean classmate and his wife recognized him immediately. They said — and I quote — “A Jindo is a smart dog. We don’t eat those in Korea.” (Yikes!) Raccoons and possums rued his skulking presence around the yard, but they were no match for him, ever. He feared only Rottweilers, and became a troll under the bridge when urban wildlife walked by his open garage door.
He was so silly in the snow: he used to sniff it and it made him sneeze, but apparently snow smelled grand because he kept on keepin’ on, walk after walk, winter after winter.When B-school took us on a South America “trek,” I would have stayed in Buenos Aires and switched to an online degree, were it not for the fact that Alfie was waiting for me back home in a kennel. I would come home to a darling silhouette of my friend’s eyes and ears popping over the windowsill, like a furry white hippo poking just out of the water.
My wife is among those people who harbors the completely reasonable view that a pet, while beloved, is not a child. She has never quite settled with the idea that one should memorialize a pets like how one might celebrate a family member. I can understand her view; a loss of a pet is not the loss of a child.
But today, as I held my dear friend’s head while he breathed his last breath, then closed his eyes for a boatman that hopefully brought plenty of treats (and no little dogs — Alfie might want to snack on those instead), I understood in a most visceral way that it is not the dog for whom I’ll mourn.
After all, I know in my head that few mammals live as long as humans. Rather it is because I have lost my familiar: a living totem of time and memory who lazied about the backyard; who never judged me even when I didn’t play with him enough; who was happy to be my respite without any recompense; who licked my face, loved my son, and kept my wife safe. I will miss his friendship.
But I mourn not for the dog — though the night is too quiet now without his jangling collar. Rather, I am reminded that there are holes in myself that he filled; they are empty again. Psychologists call this effect “projection,” and I freely confess that Alfie and I found each other just over ten years ago — I am now 37 years old, so he came along for almost 27% of my ride on the planet.
Change is an entrepreneur’s constant but Alfie traveled the country at my side. He was there before business school; before Beyond Lucid Technologies; he predates my wife and kids. We drove from L.A. to Pittsburgh, and he had an accident in my friend’s place in Cleveland (sorry again, guys!). He stayed in the car in New York during my cousin David’s funeral in winter 2008 (don’t worry: the heater was on). He freaked out a cop in Chicago, who was being a jerk while he came around the far side of the car — then jumped back when my Ghost Dog leapt up and started barking furiously; long story short, he helped me get out of a ticket. He once ran away — but only next door, it turned out! — and ate a cake that was supposed to be for then-Presidential candidate Bill Richardson, former governor of New Mexico! (True story…see below!)
Alfie was neat (essentially housebroken from the day I rescued him), but shed his body weight in hair everyday or so. He saw my son Hunter as an extension of me. He was rarely a bother: the one time he started acting crazy, practically cowering from the sight of his own shadow, it turned out that he had bitten into a wooden gate and shattered his own tooth! But he never cried and rarely whimpered. He was my warrior dog, protector and friend. Not one for drama.
True to form, while I was at a Christmas party last night he had a stroke — no muss or fuss. I was not out of town on the road, and he “chose” the day that we remembered my grandmother, who enjoyed him while she was well. (My mother imagines that they will play together until I join them.) On returning home I found him resting prone in the backyard, feet stretched out in front, awake and relaxed but unable to walk. He basically swam on land (I helped him drag himself, and it looked like he was doing the breaststroke) toward his bed. He breathed slowly and I was unconfident that he would make it through the night (gladly, he did). I fed him by hand, and Alfie ate just as he did when he was a puppy. He laid his head in my lap like he did back then, when he did not realize that he was too big to fit; he’d bend his haunches down to rest his head on me while his hindquarters and tail stood tall (eventually he’d flatten out). Today his head was on my shoes when we sat on the floor in the vet’s office. I held Alfie’s head when he died, then kissed his muzzle and wished him goodnight.
The vet said that the lesion seemed deep: Alfie could feel pain but was not in any, so that’s a blessing. However, he saw what I suspected: that Alfie’s limbs lacked muscle tone. They flopped about a bit and he had lost proprioreception — basically, he could no longer tell where his limbs were in space. He also noticed something new: a heart murmur. No telling whether it was there during his last checkup, or whether it was a new phenomenon (a Jindo is considered a large breed, and heart disease comes with the territory). He said it was likely that the murmur had led to a clot, a piece of which snapped off.
We could have done more tests to find out the specific cause, but Alfie never enjoyed visiting the vet’s office so to take him frequently in the coming weeks seemed cruel, given the circumstances. His body might have accommodated the lack of function, rerouting blood to the limbs and regrowing some nerves. But Alfie was at least 12 years old — maybe older — so regeneration would have been tenuous if it occurred at all. I could have walked him with a sling and hand-fed him indefinitely, turned him every 6–8 hours to avoid bedsores, but doing so would have meant keeping him alive out of fear, not love. Even lifting him up and down from the bed would have risked suffering where today he felt none. After the medicines were injected my brain screamed: Take it back, take it back! I felt weak; my resolve slipped. But I did the right thing because Alfie’s heart was a ticking time bomb, capable of throwing another clot at any time. Another stroke might have left him unable to eat or breathe.
Alfie loved to chase, play, roll and nuzzle; to watch and pine for movement were not his style. He would have been imprisoned inside himself; it tortures me to think of the parallels to my friend who was struck down by A.L.S. (Lou Gherig’s Disease), and my grandmother who tried to re-engage in the lively conversations she’d had before a stroke stole her voice. Eventually, frustrated of finding that she could barely speak, she grew quiet — but from time to time she interjected a witticism, and we knew she had been listening.
Such betrayal from one’s own body! If I could have saved them the heartache, I would have. Today I tried to do so. Better we should part on our own terms.
At the veterinarian’s office, they had the following poem in a frame:
There is a bridge connecting Heaven and Earth.
It is called Rainbow Bridge because of its many splendid colors.
Just this side of Rainbow Bridge there is a land of meadows, hills,
and valleys with lush, green grass.
When beloved pets die, they go to this place.
There is always food and water and warm spring weather.
The old and frail animals are young again.
Those who are maimed are made whole again.
They play all day with each other.
There is only one thing missing.
They are not with their special person who loved
them on earth.
So each day they run and play.
Until the day comes when one suddenly stops playing and looks up!The nose twitches.
The ears are up!
The eyes are staring.
And this one suddenly runs from the group.
You have been seen!
And when you and your special friend meet,
you take him in your arms and embrace.
Your face is kissed again and again and again,
and you look once more more into the eyes of your trusting pet.
Then you cross the Rainbow Bridge together…
Never again to be separated.
