Adventures at the Orange Door Inn: November 2017

The day Lucy died, we should have been celebrating instead. It was July 2, a Sunday, Ryan’s one-month birthday—a day that, were we more true to the traditions of our heritage, would have been marked with feasting and red envelopes stuffed with money, portending a future filled with fullness and good fortune. But instead we were putting our dog down, and there clearly was no such merriment.

Just two days before, on the heels of an all-night trip to the ER with our feverish newborn, we received the devastating news that Lucy’s bladder was filled—FILLED—with stones. On the x-ray, it was clear that these fist-sized rocks were not going anywhere on their own. The doctor recommended surgery—on Monday at the latest—and just like that, we were slammed with the immense decision of going through with the costly procedure or euthanizing Lucy.

Lucy was our Pennysaver pup and had been with us from nearly the beginning of our marriage nine years ago, essentially growing with us as we became real adults. “Thirteen adorable puppies” was what the ad had read. That night in early January, because we were unprepared for the sudden addition to our family, Lucy slept in a Crate and Barrel box salvaged from the stack of wedding gift debris still waiting its turn for the recycling bin. She was my companion during that first winter of our marriage, when the frost nipped extra hard. I was a recent transplant from sunny San Diego where winter means (possibly) putting away the flip-flops for a month or two, and with no friends or job of my own, I had spent day after aimless day in our dingy once-bachelor pad going stir-crazy from loneliness and cabin fever. Lucy was my bright spot then and gave some purpose and structure to my day. After all, I was a pup-mom now! All day we played rope and “drag” (a game that is exactly as it sounds: I dragged Lucy around the house by the end of her rope, an activity Lucy especially loved); at night, I dutifully got her up from her cardboard box and took her out for multiple potty breaks. “I’m so tired!” I remember wailing to Wayne, as I collapsed on our bed in exhaustion. Oh, how I chuckle at my “exhaustion” then (though I suppose it’s telling that I was never a baby person even at that point). It was good training, though, for the real deal, a practice in selflessness and expanding our hearts, in patience when she chewed up my designer flats, and disciplining when she did it once more (and wisdom never to buy designer flats again!).

As that winter warmed into spring, we started running. Around and around the levee and green belt and Sacramento’s Pocket area and all the way to marathon shape; together we trained for multiple races. Though I eventually made friends and found a job, there was always time for rope and drag (until she grew too heavy—a day, I’m sure, Lucy regarded with dismay). She was there when, as newlyweds, we worked to make our house a home—me, blithely (and unevenly) coating our living room with Barn Door Red, because I loved the name even more than the paint shade. With each subsequent home we grew into, the tips of Lucy’s fur reflected all my varying color choices and ever-evolving tastes.

When we had Caedmon, and then Addie, the dynamics of our family changed dramatically. I’m sure she felt this tangible shift in the social order: these new varmints that Wayne and I had brought home one day were suddenly taking all of our time and attentions. They let out funny sounds and smelled even worse, but for some reason we insisted on keeping them, so she scooted over and made room for them. But she was just as loyal to us even then. She was up with me at all hours of the night, and she would sit by me in the glider as I nursed the babies, and she would follow me when I changed their diapers, then plod behind me as we both collapsed into our respective beds, waiting for the next midnight feeding.

And when she and I matured into middle-age together, me with the remnants of baby bulge, we both hit the pavement once again, and though she regarded with suspicion the strange contraption with very scary wheels that I now pushed the babies in, she never flaked once on our running dates. Though the fur around her muzzle was showing just a touch of gray, her quick gait revealed a youth that remained from our levee days. She could still run like the wind—especially when she spotted a squirrel on the horizon.

It was on the day we brought Ryan home from the hospital that we first noticed something was wrong with Lucy. Never one to make accidents inside, Lucy had left small puddles of urine in various corners of the house. In our absence, she hadn’t been let out frequently enough, we had reasoned. It was almost another month—a crazy month of transitioning to life with a newborn, family drama, and sick kids all around—before we realized that something more serious was going on with Lucy.

In that last month of Lucy’s life—that first of Ryan’s—I hadn’t realized how relatively happy we were. Sure, we were collapsing with exhaustion, drowning in the needs of our tiny children, struggling, elbow-deep in parenthood, but our family—for that one month—was wholly complete.

The weekend we lost Lucy will forever be ingrained in my memory as one fraught not just with grief, but of ill-timed events and great physical strain. The all-night trip to the ER with Ryan, where I had helplessly and heart-wrenchingly watched him get poked and prodded, had left me emotionally and physically drained and totally unprepared for the news of Lucy’s diagnosis. I left the vet’s office—sobbing and shaking as much from the news as from sheer exhaustion—with a major decision to make about Lucy’s future, but with a weekend agenda that was wholly unyielding to calm, unhurried, thoughtful deliberation. We had kids to shuttle back and forth to VBS, a baby shower to finish planning and then attend, and Ryan’s follow-up appointment with the pediatrician, on top of our usual duties in caring for three kids, the last still feverish and fussy and who demanded so much extra care (as if newborns didn’t demand enough care as is). Our lives were going at a million miles a minute, and we were so, SO tired. It had been nearly 36 hours since I had slept, a whole month since I had slept well. Our brains were barely functioning, and it was in this run-down state that we had to make a decision about Lucy—and quickly. Lucy was deteriorating before our eyes. By Saturday night, she was already completely incontinent, and her urine was tinged with blood. She was sequestered in the kitchen, which for her, being apart from us, was the misery we would be putting her out of. In the months that followed, I’ve replayed the events of that decisive weekend over and over, scrutinizing every move and detail that led us to our final decision, and I ask bitterly, why did Lucy’s fate have to hinge on that crazy, beleaguered, hell of a weekend?

Lucy was 8 ½ when we ended her life. When we decided, based solely on numbers, that she—technically a senior dog—was too old for the surgery the vet had recommended, that the bill would be too high, that her odds for complete recovery without possible relapse were low. In our pragmatism, we weighed the options against the pressing reality of our growing family. And in our pragmatism, we opted to terminate her existence. The morning of Lucy’s last day, we took the whole family for a walk to the park, where we had a picnic with Lucy on the grass, though at that point, she was refusing even the tidbits of sandwich meat we were offering to her. It was the return home that was hardest, that final stretch of sidewalk that lay between us and the car that we would coax her into and drive her to her final goodbye. I sobbed then and all the way to the moment the vet injected her veins with the numbing cocktail and then the one that stopped her heart. And I sobbed as I watched the life, the sunshine drain out of her eyes until what remained of her was just a glassy stare. Oh, how suddenly and quickly our Lucy was here and then gone.

For the next few months, in a mix of postpartum hormones, baby blues, and exhaustion, I felt the full weight of our unalterable decision. It was a reluctant pragmatism that drove our hand, but now, on this side of regret, I say to hell with pragmatism, because pragmatism does nothing to assuage a broken, bleeding heart. I cried several times a week, sometimes a day. Though life’s busyness and keeping up with three kids offered ample distraction—something I was both thankful for and indignant over—always, there was an undercurrent of grief and regret running just below the surface of my composure. It was upon those rare moments to myself, though, when the kids were asleep or after a midnight nursing session that left me awake in bed, when I now made the trek to and from the crib alone, that I most felt the absence of Lucy. And the floodgates would rupture, and Wayne would wake to find me huddled in a ball, sobbing uncontrollably next to him in bed.

But it wasn’t just the grief. It was the unsurmountable guilt that crushed my being. Guilt that we could have saved her (because she still had so much life in her!) but didn’t, that we literally led her to the slaughter. Guilt that I didn’t give her as much attention after the kids were born. Guilt that I resented so much her fur and dirt she tracked in, that I would hiss at her to stop barking during naptimes, or grumble when she got underfoot. And guilt that I was feeling so much grief over a dog, when I have friends who have recently lost parents and other (human) loved ones. But grief is still grief. She was still a life that we had cared for, a life who responded to and reciprocated our love. And when a life like that is taken away, though she was “just a dog”, it still leaves a void that is palpable.

About a month ago, my grief and guilt boiled to a tipping point. In one of those arguments that isn’t really about what originally sparked the argument in the first place (a home security system, in our case), I blurted out to Wayne in thinly veiled accusations that it was his pragmatism that killed Lucy and had he not been so concerned about saving money, we could have saved her instead. Yeah, I went there... I was sobbing and shouting and so out of control. I wanted Lucy back so badly, and when blaming myself wasn’t enough, I needed to blame someone else. In a most desperate and selfish act of self-preservation, I needed to cast off my guilt to bring some order and control back into my world that had become so dark and full of irreparable regret.

And you know what Wayne did? He took it. My husband, who loved Lucy just as much as I did, who grieved her as well—though more quietly, who had also been dead-tired that fateful weekend when we made our decision together amidst a million engagements and a sick newborn, who was and is always doing his absolute best to look out for the overall well-being of our family… that husband took the blame that I was passively (yet so aggressively) hurling at him. Not in a spineless, groveling-at-my-feet-for-forgiveness kind of way, but a strong, “okay, lay it on me; I can take it” kind of acceptance. Because he could see my brokenness. Because he loved me that much. Because he saw that I needed him to be there more than I was pushing him away.

The next day, he wrote me a card: “I can’t bring Lucy back, but I do want you to know that it was one of the hardest decisions that I’ve had to make in our marriage. I don’t blame you if you blame me for her loss, but I did care for her as much as you did. I also don’t desire you to change how you feel or how strongly you feel about Lucy… I know that it has been a devastatingly difficult last half year for you, so take what time you need to process… I will bear what I need to bear and be as kind and patient as I can… and give grace when it is needed.” And then he quoted a song that we had both just seen so beautifully performed on So You Think You Can Dance. “The song that I’ve had stuck in my head all week goes like this:

When the rain is blowing in your face,

And the whole world is on your case,

I could offer you a warm embrace,

To make you feel my love.”

And something near-miraculous happened: I stopped randomly bursting into tears and mourning in the middle of the night. Wayne willingly shouldered my guilt and became my scapegoat, which I don’t even know is healthy from a psychological standpoint, but his sacrifice did allow me the space I needed to heal. And that—his selfless, loving act—is a beautiful thing. (I know Someone else who did that for me, and I’m grateful for a husband who emulates that kind of love and grace for me every day.)

When Lucy first died four months ago, I had wanted to write the best tribute to her. I wanted to share what an amazing dog she was, to follow the expected story arc of delightful stories from her life, tragic end, then tearful but inspiring goodbye. But I didn’t have the words. I was so filled with grief and remorse and guilt—I was all bitter, without a trace of sweet. I am still sad, and could I do it all over, I would save her life in an instant. Most days I still want to go to sleep and, upon waking, thank the Ghost of Christmas Future for showing us our folly, but I am no longer consumed and controlled by the bottomless grief and guilt that had so overtaken me before. With my newfound healing, I started writing the story I wanted to tell about Lucy, and in doing so, I realized that Lucy’s story is also a story of us.

Who would have known, 8 ½ years ago when we were pulling out that Crate and Barrel box for Lucy, laughing at the spontaneity of it all, so carefree as we camped out on the ground next to her, that we would return to those same positions the night before her death, this time watching and crying over her failing health. We would have two kids asleep upstairs and one sick and fussy newborn in our arms with us on the ground. Our minds and bodies would be spent, but our relationship, solid. Solid enough that when I lashed out at Wayne, he not only took the blows but shrouded me with his embrace. 8 ½ years ago, who could have predicted that. Who could have foreseen the joys and heartaches, the exhaustion, the wrinkles, the extra pounds, the stupid fights, the side-splitting laughter, the comforting silence, the growing up and the growing love that these 8 ½ years would afford.

They say that “dogs know”. And while all of Lucy’s life, I took pride in her beauty, I highly questioned her brains. Even so, I’d like to think that Lucy knew, and that even as we led her by the leash to her end, that when I looked into her eyes and lied and told her it was okay, that she was looking back and telling me that, yes, it is okay. Or, at least, it will be okay. And since we’re talking make-believe, if there truly was a dog heaven, Lucy would be there high in the sky, with her chin tilted up in her beguiling grin and waving her curly tail. Lucy was our primer for all of life’s major milestones—starting a family, purchasing a house and building a home together, and finally, death. The tearing down that is grief has been devastating; its repercussions, toxic. 8 ½ years ago, just six months into a marriage so new and fragile, I wonder how this strain would have driven us apart. But now—literally a lifetime later—we are experiencing this rebuilding and healing and togetherness that is made possible by those 8 ½ years of us. And Lucy—she was there for that, too.