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.
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| Our "gotcha" moment when we chose her to be ours |
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| (photo by Emily To) |
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| (photo by Emily To) |
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| drag! |
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| Lucy, meet Caedmon. Caedmon, Lucy. |
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| Our last photo of Lucy and the only one of our entire family |
