Tag Archives: death

Ashes to Ashes

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6782686535_f10c0ee9df_bWonder dog’s ashes are in the kitchen on the counter in a red and yellow flowered tin. No one asked – plastic bag? box? plain silver tin? I thought this was getting easier and yet – today it’s so much harder. I held back tears at least 10 times. I mean that’s what you are supposed to do – right? when you can hold them back you do? when you can’t you don’t? They all came out later, but in the moment I didn’t want to cry anymore.

We picked up Wonder’s ashes at Dignified Pets Cremation and drove to the Oregon Coast with the windows down and Wonder in her tin. Zelda our other dog laid in the back of the car as if nothing was different. The day Wonder died little Z went over to Wonder’s bed and laid down in it, but other than that nothing seems different for her.

I asked Wonder for a sign – I know that sounds silly – seeing as I don’t believe in an afterlife. I do believe energy is energy and it has to go somewhere. So, I asked and at the Coast nothing remarkable happened. No sign – okay.

We got home, fed Isabel the cat and Zelda and went for a drink and some dinner. We ended up at Cascade Barrel House. We don’t go there that often, but it was a spring-ish/summery kind of day and the only beer I like are sours and it seemed fitting for warm weather.  Julie, my partner of partners, my forever dream date, has been amazing through all of this, looks at the menu and says they have a Wonder Red on the special list. I hadn’t told her about asking for the sign and I hadn’t looked at the menu yet. Wonder Red? A sign? I don’t know – I’ll take it. I’ve never seen a beer called Wonder or another dog called Wonder. So maybe somehow the two mean something. Wonder. Wonder?

It takes me back to when my brother was dying. He was having a hard time coming to terms with it. He was 30 and I was 25. I didn’t understand it either. He had moved to Portland to be closer to family. I didn’t know that meant he was going to die soon. Looking back, it should have been obvious. He had once been tall and handsome. But now his 6’2″ muscly, strong body, had withered to less than 100lbs.

He pulled me aside one day, his soft pin-striped button down brushing against my skin, his cane clicking every other step as we walked. It was just after my birthday, where he had given me a diamond earring. Now I see he was trying to tell me something. But at the time, I only wondered why he’d given it to me. He’d never given me anything before, except a hard time, like any good big brother.

He stopped, his eyes dropped to mine, bending over a little. His blue eyes dancing, “I want to take you to breakfast this week, okay? Just us, okay?” “Yeah sure Bob, yeah.” He liked to be called Robert these days, but I could never come to terms with that change. He was Bobby to me. No matter what my Father said years ago about a real man not being called Bobby. He was a real man – an ex-Navy officer.

We went to breakfast at his favorite place and he ordered his bacon – soft, not crispy. I thought – who orders bacon in a particular way? It’s just bacon. That’s how he was though, unlike me he knew what he liked and how he wanted it. I took note that I might want to figure that out one day.

We sat and ate and talked about our Mother and Father, who had both been gone for 6 years. Then he stopped and with conviction said “Amy, I’m going on a trip, do you want to go with me?”
“Bob, you should ask your doctor about this trip, I don’t think you can go on a trip right now.”
“No really, I’m going on a trip and I want you to come.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I’m going with or without you.”
“Okay then, where are you going?”
“Somewhere like Hawaii or something tropical.”
I was young. Going to Hawaii was so far removed from my life that the thought of saying yes made me dreamy and so I did. “Yes, I’ll go with you.”

Bob ended up in the hospital ten days later. He kept saying he wanted to go home and see his dog Molly. He wanted to be home with her. While people left to get “home” ready for him, I sat on the side of his hospital bed “Do you need more morphine?”
“No, I’m fine. I just want to be home.”
We talked but not much.
His breath slowing.
“Can I hold your hand?” I asked
He smiled. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry if I start crying Bob, I know it’s probably weird to have people standing around crying when you are here feeling like this.”
“It’s okay.”
It was clear he was not going to be going home.
“You know Bob, if there is something after this, could you send me a sign? I’ve wondered if there is something else after this life and I know you understand that. So send me a sign okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”

He took his last breath not long after that. And he was gone.

I went about life as quickly as I could, working, being busy, getting away from grief. Bob came to me in dreams those first couple of weeks, continuing to talk about his big trip. I thought that was sign enough, but I was young and kept asking him for more signs.

I went camping not long after that. I loathe camping, but for some reason I was going camping. One night as a million stars shined down, I looked through the fire and there was Bob standing by a tree and he said – “I’m still going on that trip. Do you want to go with me?”

I don’t know if it was real or I was delirious from grief, but it scared me, so much so that I yelled “You’re scaring me now! I can’t do this – you have to go!”  I have not seen my brother again.

Was he trying to tell me that there was something after this life or that your energy doesn’t die? My brother and I agreed before he died that it was the latter. You don’t disappear you live on in some way even if only in the collective thoughts of everyone else.

That’s how life goes. We learn from our previous experience, or if we choose not to learn, we might experience it in the same way. For me – when I ask for a sign, I’ll take the first one. Thank you Wonder Red for appearing on a menu.
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grief

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2224977554_581bfb9301_bI’ve wondered how to escape the feelings of grief. I’d like to put them aside once and awhile. The thing is, grief doesn’t agree with that. It doesn’t go anywhere. The only way out of grief is RIGHT DAMN THROUGH IT.

It took me 15 years to grieve the death of my Mother, my brothers, my Father, I thought I could trick it. I thought I could cheat it. Become busy enough to not care. Make enough money. Be the best person. Truth. It didn’t work.

I had to get to know grief in order to let it go. I spent months, maybe even years – 15 years after my Mother died, crying and mourning the loss.

Today, I get it. My dog is dead and I’m a wreck. The kind of wreck that doesn’t want to eat, move, breathe. But I get it. Grief makes you sick. I cry at the grocery store, the eyeglasses store, the running store and I just don’t care.

When my Mother died – no one told me how it would go, I read a pamphlet at the funeral home about the five stages of grief. That’s all the advice I got. A few months later or maybe a year – I saw a book called Motherless Daughter’s by Hope Edelman and I picked it up and devoured it. I got it and I thought at 20 that I had grieved enough. That I was all better for having read the book and that I could move on. So I did. I read in her book that I’d always feel the loss and it would get easier but I’d always miss her. FINE! CHECK!

But 10 years later I still felt small, weak, trying to outrun grief, ignoring the fact that I was miserable.

So, I sat myself down and thought – what the hell are you doing to yourself. Figure it out! And I began to grieve all of the losses, my Mother, my two brothers, and then my Father – because that was more difficult. I never liked him. So how do you grieve someone you don’t even like? You don’t. You grieve the loss of what you never had or believed you should have had. You feel sorry for yourself, you dig deep, you do what you have to do until you don’t need to do it anymore.

I kept telling myself you’re an adult now and you can choose to grieve and then be done with it. But the truth is – you’re not – that shit will come back to you in one minute and knock you on your ass.

My Wonder dog died just 4 days ago. I relive those last frantic moments her head flopping back as we picked her up out of the back of the car, me knowing she was nearly gone, the sweet vet techs that cleaned her up, put a heart on her bandage on her leg and put her on a table under a blanket. Posed as if she was sleeping. That moment. I remember. And then I stop and I remember all the other moments of grief. Standing by my Mother’s casket, picking up my Father’s ashes, hearing my brother Michael died on a phone call from his friend in California, holding my brother Bob’s hand as he took one last deep breath. My grief. I get it. But sometimes grief – I want you to back the fuck off. I’m tired. And yet, you keep it coming, you’re an old friend now. Fine, I’ll get back up ONE. MORE. TIME. Because that’s what we do. We don’t give up.

No one tells you that you grieve until you’re done. You cry until you don’t. The only way is through. It’s different every time. My good friend Kate once said to me – what’s a year of grief in an entire lifetime? I was done. I didn’t want to cry anymore, but she was right. What is a year of grief in a lifetime? Worth having loved – that’s what. 

What’s your story of grief and what story are you telling yourself about it?

Gratitude and WONDER

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5207235883_d5a55a4807_bI’ve always said that when my dog Wonder dies, she’ll just keel over. She is full force or nothing at all. We were a pair from the start.

I saw an ad in the paper (Yes, an actual printed paper.) for Weimaraner/Labrador puppies at a rescue home in Clackamas, OR. I’d always wanted a Weimaraner but had heard they were a handful, high-strung and hard to deal with. I knew Labs were sweet and not very stressed. The combination sounded perfect.

When I arrived in Clackamas, the woman that owned the rescue talked to me about her program. She had a small number of animals and only took on animals that were in danger of being euthanized. The two Lab/Weim puppies she had were from somewhere in Washington, a litter of ten that had found homes for eight. The last two were going to the shelter and they didn’t seem to have much hope.

She explained that at 10 weeks old, both puppies were crate trained and with command could – sit, lay down and shake. They were also free feeders, they ate when they wanted to and never gobbled down food.  “All that at ten weeks?” I said – she replied “I work hard to train the dogs I bring in so they are guaranteed not to be returned for bad behavior.”

She opened the door of the crate and the two sweet black pups with bright brown eyes came tumbling out. Their giant heads and large paws leading their tiny bodies end-over-end. I laughed as they circled me nudging my legs with their heads, paws and all their other parts they couldn’t yet control. I sat down. Both ran around me. The male had a larger head with a labrador shape and a hard ridged brow, the female had a softer brow and longer ears like the Weims I loved so much. The male pushed his way under my hands for pets and then wandered off. The female circled me and then climbed into my lap and laid down. My heart melted. Story over. She was the ONE.

It took me three days to name her. I called her everything I could think of but the one thing she always tilted her head to was Wonder. Little Wonder Girl. and we began.

Over the years she’s seen me through a whole mess of things that were all about me learning to take care of myself first, finding my own voice, and finding my way to run my own business. Through hours and hours and hours of writing and reading – she waited patiently for me.

She mirrored my emotions always, when we were leaving the only home she ever knew and I was super stressed she barfed on the floor right before every real estate showing. Just as I wanted to barf over the whole thing. Sometimes when I get stressed I get dandruff and so does Wonder.

She never chewed on things I didn’t want her to chew on, she never ran away, she never expected much of anything at all, just me and love. She was a funny dog, intense and curious. always. She once picked up a Scottish Terrier and shook it so hard I thought it was dead – but it wasn’t – thankfully.  She also thought inanimate statues of animals were real. We once saw a rabbit figurine in someone’s lawn. She stalked it, walking slowly, slowly up to it and then slammed her head into it and was startled that it didn’t move.  She circled a giant art installation that looked like a bear at a park in terror, until she got close enough to see it had no fur.

She saw me to this place – where I know myself. I have a life full of love and am grateful for every SINGLE day. Wonder was there through it all.

The last 13.5 years of transition and change has not been easy and just when I thought things were near perfect the universe looks down and says – REALLY? How about this? Wonder dog dies. Story over again.

In the end she did keel over.  She seemed 100% normal right up until that day – running and galloping after pooping – her favorite past time. Ten minutes later, she collapsed, unable to move. I rushed her to the vet and they brought her back. And then again, a week later she collapsed, rushed to the vet. Her heart – filled with fluid and burst – she had to break her own heart to go.

I was lucky to have time to say goodbye, to spoil her, to love her every minute of the day. I’m heartbroken too but so VERY grateful to have spent 13.5 years with devotion and love and companionship that never faltered, even when I did. She taught me to stay curious. She always showed up. She taught me to GO! or don’t go at all. She always smiled when she ran. She snuggled up to me when I was sad. She held my hand through it all, her paw always reaching out for me.

2393287537_1788f003fb_bWonder dog – you’ll always be my first dog – my best dog. We got through it. We carry on even if it’s dragging ass until we feel better. I know how to do this now.  Grateful.