Dear Blog Reader.
I hope that this finds you doing well. I am fine. I have survived a week that I am quickly coming to know as “My Week as a Country Song.” It isn’t a Taylor Swift, Garth Brooks, or Kenny Chesney country song. No it was a Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, or Conway Twitty country song kind of a week.
It started with sitting in the Indianapolis International Airport listening to gate attendants tell me and my work mates that the part to get the landing gear to retract was on its way and as soon as it arrived they would get a mechanic from a rival airline to come over on a Sunday night and replace it out of the goodness of their heart. So “no the flight isn’t cancelled it is just delayed,” was the refrain of this country ballad. “We expect to get you on your way at 5:00. No wait; 6:00, Ah let’s make that 7:00. So please don’t leave the airport or reschedule your flight.” Finally, at 8:00 the harried counter person says, “it looks like the flight is cancelled. We can get you on a 5:45 flight in the morning.” To which I responded, “I know that you did not make up the lies and may even have thought that you were doing your job but does your soul die just a little bit every time you have to treat people like you have this evening?”
So my alarm went off at 2:45. I sat bolt upright in bed and got up to get on a plane for a one day business trip to South Carolina with a return flight that evening at 6:00 p.m. Mission accomplished. The people of South Carolina were delightful. We learned a lot. It was even pretty good to see how well the members of our work team came together and dealt with a certain amount of adversity and didn’t add to the drama.
Tuesday arrived, and as I was heading out the door for work, Henry our old Jack Russel Terrier lurched up out of his dog bed. Lurching is not his usual method for rising and shining so I was concerned. I watched him for a few moments and decided that his stiff gait was not the usual I am 13 years old and “I am a bit stiff” kind of a gait. The lovely Miss Beverly and I had a consultation and she had the time to get him into the vet for a checkup. We feared that it was bad, but I was out the door heading for work. Ten miles from home, Bev calls and says it is very bad. “Henry can’t move and appears to be in a great deal of pain.”
Turning the car around, I headed home to comfort Bev and help make difficult decisions about Henry. We knew that he had not been feeling well lately. But this was decidedly worse. I got home and he was in bad bad shape. He could not walk. He was in bad pain. Bev was comforting him wrapped in a blanket on the kitchen floor. It was time.
I have always had trouble with a dog’s end of times issues. I am a farm boy at heart and we would never have taken our dogs to the vet to be put down. Not because we were cheap but because they were our dogs and our responsibility. Yet, I have grown up in a world where there is pet insurance, pet insulin, doggy daycare, and a host of other enhancements to a dogs life. Shoot when I was growing up, dog movies were about dying dogs now they are about reincarnated dogs saving our lives. Times have changed.
I cannot speak for anyone else when I write this. I have followed the evolved world’s view on dog care and have asked the vet to end some of our dog’s days. A few years ago we had a vet end Millie’s suffering. I have never been at peace with that decision. I know that to end a pet’s life in a veterinary office is the only way many people could get through the traumatic emotions due to the end of a family member’s existence. I get it.
For me, that one time left a gap, a hole that can’t be filled. He took her back to a room and then she was gone. I don’t know how it works now but back then she was suddenly a biohazard and was disposed of properly.
Since Millie, we have always taken matters into our own hands and put our severely injured or dying dogs down. From time to time, we have had dogs who showed the lovely Miss Beverly and I the kindness of leaving unannounced. One day they were here. That evening they were not. Our farm is in a rough and tumble neighborhood. The coyotes sing every time a train passes a quarter mile to the South. Recently, Lucy and Henry’s brother, Hugo left that way. While there wasn’t much closure, I always thought that they left on the hunt, hackles raised and ready to do some damage. I was good with that. That wasn’t going to be the case for Henry.
On Tuesday, I turned the car around and rushed home. I found the lovely Miss Beverly on the kitchen floor comforting Henry. There was no doubt; Henry was in pain and would not survive for another day. The wheels of death roll on a specific path. Things have to be done. The gun has to be retrieved from the barn. The bullet from a hidden spot in a closet. The shovel is pulled from the garage and a hole dug. Make it deep. Make it wide. I put it out in the rhubarb patch so there will be some good memories each late May eating pie. We gently carried Henry wrapped in a blanket to the backyard. I stop breathing at this moment. I dread the moment. I know what has to be done. The longer it takes the more Henry suffers. It is a hard calculus. In the end, you have to step up to your friend, look him in the eye and end the pain while knowing that you are ending his life.
For that I am sorry. For that I am sad. I still walk to the kitchen each evening before bed to make sure he is shut up in the mud room. I have checked his water and food bowl each morning this week, and to be honest I could use a pretty good belly rub about now. Those things aren’t going to happen any longer, but I do look forward to that slice of strawberry-rhubarb.
Take care.
Roger
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