Maggie waiting to play
Maggie and Sebastian romping in the snow
Today the house is empty for the first time in 14+ years. I keep listening for the sounds that are no longer here, the footsteps and voices of Maggie (14+ yr. old Westie) and Sebastian (13+ yr. old Shih Tzu -Bichon-Frise).
The day after Sebastian died on Saturday, Maggie’s tumor broke through the skin. She’s always been a brave trooper. The vet said that Westies are the toughest in bearing pain. But she was not herself. She was in pain. She couldn’t walk. She was grieving. She was bleeding. There was no way back. No way to make it better. There was no joy. I loved this dog so much. Maggie’s been my companion for all these years. They say Westies are the most human of dogs. It was true of her. She was all love and all play. I wept like a baby yesterday, as I had on Saturday, when we “put her down,” as they say.
The house is empty of Maggie and Sebastian. But it is not empty of love. Kay, who is more in touch with her feelings than I, expressed them well this morning in an email to her friend Mary.
Empty…..that’s exactly it. Empty….rattling around in a cage that used to have a wheel for multiple animals, moving, squeaking, flying high, deliriously fun and noisy noisy noisy…… And now dead silence, nothing. They left the cage for whatever eternal freedom awaits us all…..there had better be an assemblance of a heaven full of love and resurrection of all the bodies of those we love or I won’t go.
It was the right time, completely worn out caring for two pups that needed carrying everywhere all day and even “up” to get a drink in the night, or outside to pee in the dark of 2:00 am…..we’re too old for this…..but we had no need for NOTHING, no lovely, characterized soft dazzlingly sweet creatures, instead.
We went to bed last night, finally getting to hold each other without the crowding of legs and the sooo familiar and comforting creaturely bodies nestled together…but we were left without a “pack” and we had no “fam”……something that filled every crevice of our lives so completely. We cried together and held each other, but there was no real consolation, since right now it is ALL LOSS. This place will be filled in with new energy or new peace, we will get to be tranquil…..but we have less spunk and personality and affection, oh so much less of everything precious.
I hold the “rubber band of my ambivalence” in high tension. Here it is 4:45 am and I am having a quiet time by the fire with my morning coffee…..a week ago I would have to hope and pray that one or both (not simultaneously) would not have to be brought down to pee……so I would break into my warmth serenity to put on shoes, coat, ear band, get a little sack, a leash, different shoes, go out in the cold, wait endlessly for them to find just the right smell, or the right place that hadn’t been used before, and they never wanted to come in, because frozen smells from other dogs were infinitely more wonderful than house smells….so I would have to practically drag them inside again….then feed them, and put them on the couch on the soft blanket across from my chair, get them all settled…go back to my chair, get settled, my coffee, my ipad……and, you know what would happen next…..they both would come off the couch and want to sit with me on my chair (half the size). They were always undeniable, however much I tried, I would say no, ignore, plead, but if a Westie wants something, there is no denying her, however much you try to command that breed, why would I ever even try, after 15 years, I should know….so up goes the coffee cup to the table, the ipad to the table…..I reach down to scoop her up (and sometimes him too, all 3 of us on this little chair)…. I am scrunched sideways, contorted to get them to settle down so they will sleep again….and, again grab my coffee, my ipad, start reading or writing (which presented an even more contorted arrangement above their lounging bodies because I would have no lap then)……… And then….and then…..they eventually, 3 minutes, 5 minutes……they would want down again.
The sadness I hold in my heart – the desire, the physical ache for their return – is a study in ambivalence. I am nuts with sorrow for something I have been waited for for a long long time.
Love conquers all, I tell you. Even high maintenance love. Their 13-14+ years of collective memories will permeate my soul with sadness that will eventually lift to the highest level of sweet sweet melancholy……….but you and I will know the bottom line. The tension is now resolved, and with grave sadness I walk forward into my freedom unencumbered.
Thanks for hearing my 5:00 am confession, my soiled sadness. I know you understand. You spent years in the same condition with many of your dogs before they died. You would have similar tales to tell. I guess dog people are just special souls.
“Lord, help me be half the man/woman my dog thinks I am.”
Views from the Edge 
Just learned of your double loss of the dogs while we were gone…Just starting to catch up on my e-mail. we returned at 9:30 Friday night, and had a full day yesterday – including my going with Kris for her MRI prior to her neurologist appointment in a few days..That did not go particularily well. I, too, have tears in my eyes as I read these posts.
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Thanks, Karin. Sorry to hear about the MRI.
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I didn’t get a chance to read this special piece until tonight, and I’m close to crying— which I wouldn’t have been brave enough to mention at all had your friend MGA not mentioned her tears first.
What a beautiful pair you and Kay make. Even during your great loss of two wonderful companion-dogs, you manage to champion each other. The particular silence in the house Kay describes when one’s companions pass away can be so heavy to bear. Your own sense of Sebastian and Maggie’s importance in your life, Gordon, comes across so sweetly.
Yet— here you both are, together, writing and talking about love and crying and discomfort and “eternal freedom” and loss. You’re right, Gordon: Your house is not empty of love. Not one bit.
May you both continue to be such a sweetly human, humble solace to one another. Thank you for sharing this personal moment with us, your readers.
I stand amazed at your willingness to share your lives so freely, so kindly, and with such beautifully wrought language, during your own time of personal need. My condolences to you both.
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Courtenay, You’re very kind. Thank you so much for your kind words. There’s no question that I’m blessed! Not to share would be hard than writing. We writers have to write. It’s just how we live, isn’t it?
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Courtenay, You’ve been missing in my emails and blog, so I went searching to make sure you are okay. I found this sweet comment that you left April 24 and realize that I had not (I think) responded. My bad! thank you for your kind words. And if, by some chance, Views from the Edge and I have been lost as “followers” of Bluebird Blvd., please be sure to include me in your posts. Your writing and your thoughts are too important to lose. Blessings and Peace, Gordon
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I am so sorry Gordon and Kay. I wish I could take the pain away.
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I am so sorry Gordon and Kay. I wish I could take the pain away
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Chuck Thank you. Thank you for your call last night. Kay and I feel very blessed. Kristin got to spend time with Maggie yesterday afternoon before we left the house. That was special. She meant as much to Kristin as she meant to us.
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Oh, Gordon, how difficult and sorrowful this is. Every loss, whether of a person or a pet, makes such a hole in life that nothing really fills. It seems to us, and to many, that however glorious heaven is, it won’t be quite complete without our pets. There is a short story or perhaps a poem that speaks to this called Rainbow Bridge. If I can find it, I will send it to you.
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Carolyn, Thank you. You won’t remember, I’m sure, but my first dog was a beautiful auburn Cocker Spaniel. I named him “Skip”! Does that sound familiar? He ran into the street in front of the house on Church Lane. No dog came close to Maggie or to Sebastian. All morning I keep hearing sounds of moaning, as though Maggie is in pain and wanting something. Or I hear her snoring on the sofa in my Study. My brain is programmed by 14 years of expectation. It’ll be some time before the silence is full again. But it always finally in the Silence that we find the depths of life itself and the strange, inscrutable ambiguity of darkness and of light. Love to you and Barbie.
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Yes, I remember Skip. Beautiful dog. I had not remembered about the accident. Maybe you remember our Peppy, a black and white cocker.
I remember when you lived on Church Lane and we on Summit Avenue that we all had 4 digit phone numbers. I remember our house number on Summit was 2643, and it wouldn’t surprise me if your phone number were 1098. I can’t say that I remember that the way I remember the house number, but there is some foggy connection back in the hinterlands of my head.
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I remember Peppy. You had him a long longer than we had Skip. And…you hit the phone number on the head. I think the house number on Church Lane was #1, but even I don’t remember for sure.
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Sincerest condolences to both of you. Kay…you write beautifully and struck many chords within my soul.
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Ellie, Great to hear from you on the blog. You got to catch a glimpse of who I’m blessed by every day. Thanks for coming by snowy MN with some sunshine from Arizona.
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Kay & Gordon, so sorry to hear of the loss of Sebastian & Maggie. I only met them once but it was a pleasure. The fact that most dogs live a much shorter time than us and yet we still want to have them in our lives says a lot about the way they enrich our lives. Thanks for the eloquent posts about the loss of your friends.
Gary S.
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Hi Gary, It is amazing, isn’t it, how deeply we are touched by furry paws, tails, barks, singing, mischief, play, and needs of these much more innocent creatures who love us unconditionally. It’s very quiet this morning, but I keep hearing (my ears are conditioned to hear certain sounds at different times of the morning) them snoring on the sofa in my Study, scratching to go out, or moving on the carpet. Sounds in the silence. And outside my Study window is an April world of white-laden pine trees, a winter wonderland in the spring that hasn’t sprung. An apt visual metaphor for the shifting seasons of the self. Thank you, Gary, for the friendship and for taking the time to comment.
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I did leave a long, tearful reply. Somehow it doesn’t show up here. Hmm. Anyway. I really did cry
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Thanks, Mona. I found the first message and just replied. Peace.
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I am so sorry Gordon and Kay. Actually, I am crying. And I know the feeling of grieving relief. My Snuffy died after a year of almost intolerable living with him after his brother died. Snuffy never was the good one, but in his terrible grief he greeted me every day with a paper mache mess in his cage – all possible excretions included. And at night he had me jumping up and rushing downstairs with him so he could go out before letting it all go. Not because he warned me, but because I’d hear him making circles in his cage.
In his cage? Oh yes, from his early years he expressed his opinion by peeing where it would do me most pain. On my pillow, for example.
18 years of hell – developing so gradually, it was like the frog dying in the boiling water. It left me with great relief, and a big hole.
His brother, by the way, who went first — of course — was a born gentleman. And they were both so cute.
Their Vet does believe in animal heaven.
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Mona, For some reason your first comment came through from “Anonymous” – leaving me to believe it was spam. So glad your second comment and know that lovely people, especially published clinical psychologists, are crying with us. THANK YOU. And thank you again for the wonderful course on Forgiving One Page at a Time at Shepherd of the Hill. We’ll grieve one day at a time.
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