One Week

What a difference a week makes.

Last week - sweet Nicholai.

This week - flowers and reminders that we are not alone with our grief.

Patience

Patience is not my strong suit, never has been. I'm working on it, and perhaps I'm making progress, but damn it – not fast enough! So, it's no surprise that in less than a week since my great dog-friend passed away, I begin to niggle with discomfort at my unfinished grief.

In fact, I suspect the grieving hasn't really started yet. I remember when our old dog Molly died three years ago. At fifteen, she had lived a glorious long life. As with Nicholai, we thought her time would be up long before it was. She died one cold December day, suddenly – if you can say a fifteen year old dog dies suddenly – and I spent the next week crying my eyes out at the loss.

With Nicholai's death, I am surprised at the lack of tears. Instead I feel mostly a disconcerting hardness, a stone inside where the fountain should begin. I don't know what to make of it.

I think I'm angry, furious even. Cancer finally stole my pack-brother from me and I'm pissed; pissed that he ever had to get it in the first place, pissed that so damned many dogs – and people – contract cancer these days. Did I mention cancer is the leading cause of death for all dogs over the age of two? For half of all dogs ten and over? That breast cancer, prostate cancer, testicular cancer, colon cancer, brain cancer – are skyrocketing? I'm mad, mad, MAD, about this (in case you hadn't noticed).

In the end, it's just that no matter what I did, I couldn't save my good boy from an untimely end. Yes, I worked hard and gave him the best possible life. As dogs go, he was pretty damn lucky all around. But I can picture a better world.

One with clean air and soil. One where grass everywhere is safe for dogs to step on without fear of chemical contamination. A world with clean rivers – imagine that. A Willamette River safe to swim in with a canine friend, to dip a cup in and take a sip. A world where food is always full of life and never tells lies.

In that world, I'd still have to lose Nicholai one day. But not today, not so soon.

Molly lived her whole life and when she died, nothing was left but the crying. Part of Nicholai's life was stolen and now I'm stuck in Kubler-Ross's second stage of grief – anger. Knowing doesn't help dissolve the cold stone in my gut. And so, it's back to patience.

This too shall pass.

Blooming

When I first learned Nicholai had cancer, I purchased an orchid to celebrate his living and to mourn his imminent passing. The blooms were delicately beautiful, giving shape, color, and texture to my feelings for my canine friend. As time marched on - and on - each delicate orchid grew brown, dry, and finally fell, till I was left looking at scrawny, naked stems. After a week, the bloomless plant depressed me - harbinger of things to come - and I removed it from my daily sight.


Last week, two lovely flowers opened, one on each stem and I see buds for several more. An anthurium that hasn't blossomed in years shot up two bright red flowers and yet another orchid delighted us with two more blossoms, each as fragrant as a tropical breeze.



I don't know that I ascribe particular meaning to the sudden emergence of flowers on our reluctant tropical plants. But I notice, and I appreciate. Death is almost unbearably sad and life is almost unbearably beautiful - every dog, and every blossom.

Companion

Walking with just the girls constitutes a whole new world of experience. Both have strong bully breed looks, striking fear into a few hearts on that basis alone. Both are utterly friendly; if any of my dogs was going to bite someone, it wouldn't be either of them, it would have been Nicholai. On more than one occasion, he put unknown men who appeared suddenly on the trail on a firm "stay!" with lunging body posture and bared teeth. He never actually bit them; however, to a man they obeyed his unmistakable command and stood stock still until I could retrieve him. (As a sidebar, Nicholai never impeded women in this way, and the men he stopped were never the ones with dogs, or even fishing poles. I admit I found them a tad cagey myself, and one apologized for his sudden emergence from the bushes.)

Today, my heart ached for my hiking companion. As I wandered wide grassy lawns and beaches on the Willamette and Columbia, chucking ball after ball for the fetch-obsessed girls, I found myself longing for company, someone to chat weather or dogs with. I realized I felt lonely and it was a foreign sensation for a morning trek with dogs.

In fact, I wasn't alone; Izzy and Kelley were both with me. Izzy spun in circles barking for each toss of the ball. Kelley watched my face and shoulder for signs of intention to reach out to the ball she'd deposited near me and quivered in anticipation of racing off full bore to retrieve it. Soon Izzy, now six years old, tired of chasing her ball and began her regular ritual of chomping on it, saliva soon spilling out of her mouth and foaming over her face, eyes glazing over, obsessively masticating the ball into oblivion. Kelley, still under two years old, could apparently play at retrieving longer than I have either time or patience to stay at the park and raced across land or hurtled into the water for pitch after pitch.

Standing on the shore of the Columbia river so recently visited with Nicholai, I could picture him trotting ahead of me with head and tail held high, scanning the horizon for interlopers, checking each piece of driftwood, sniffing here, marking there, nabbing a bite of abandoned garbage over there; always checking back in with me, meeting my eyes and bumping my hand until I'd pet him. He'd scrutinize my face with a curious expression and often we'd negotiate next steps via head nods and eye movements. I never felt lonely.

As Izzy hunkered down with her full attention on the ball between her paws, spit flying, and Kelley stared at my right shoulder for the first hint of the next toss, the tears spilled out. I love the girls, both super-sweet dogs who fly in the face of breed stereotypes, but they are a little more like kids than companions.

Nicholai was my friend. I miss him.

Where Nicholai Isn't

Love From the Start

Silky little tummy, sweet puppy breath, steady focused gaze; we imprinted on each other like geese. Only four weeks old when we found him abandoned with the rest of his litter, the hand feeding, cleaning, and hours spent in puppy snuggling and play forged a deep bond that seamlessly crossed the species barrier.

Nicholai and I were attached at the hip. Literally, when he was young, I attached him to a leash that fastened around my waist as a bonding "whither thou goest, I go too" kind of training. Wildly successful in that Nicholai paid devoted attention to my whereabouts ever after, I found it worked in reverse as well. I liked his company as much as he appeared to like mine. He rode frequent shotgun on errands, accompanied me to work where he always had a place to hang out, and became not just my dog, but my canine friend.

A dog is a special kind of friend, never critical of clothes, weight, hair style, car, or job. A friend who is always willing to go where you want to go when you want to go there. A friend who tolerates all your moods without complaint. A friend who is always glad to see you.

I loved Nicholai because in addition to all those attributes, he asserted himself too. He insisted on going with me (and succeeded too, except in the case when weather contraindicated), making me feel valued and loved, whatever it actually meant to him.

Nicholai had opinions about our activities. Never slavishly devoted, he made it known that repeatedly chasing balls, or Frisbees, or anything else was an activity best saved for other dogs. Neither was he particularly fond of hanging out at dog parks, milling about and socializing. He'd soon whine at me and with a toss of his head, indicate his opinion that we should hit the road in search of wilder places to roam. He pushed me out of the city for long hikes, something I too craved but often didn't allow time for. For the better part of a decade, the need to "walk the dog" gave me the permission I needed to honor my own wild side.

Being with his Mary mattered to Nicholai right up to the last. On Wednesday, after two conversations with his vet, after his refusal of breakfast, after he struggled to stand, after it became obvious no more days were left, after the appointment had been made, I left to walk to a neighborhood store for a bouquet of roses. As I walked out the gate, Nicholai struggled to his feet and tottered to the fence. "Take me," his eyes begged, still bright in his tired face, "take me."

As I looked at my old man, with his breath heavy, his jaws swollen with tumors, and graying muzzle, I could still see the soul of the adoring puppy, the wild adolescent, and the independent canine partner I loved.

It was love from the start, and love till the end.

To Blog or Not To Blog

I started writing Dead Dog Walking in January, after Nicholai reached one full year of living with lymphoma. No one thought he could make it that far, one year was considered possible to hope for with a full course of chemotherapy and radiation. For a senior dog to reach a year's survival with nothing but good food, herbs, acupuncture, and some vitamins was wild and crazy – and very, very good. I wanted to share the story of his great fortune not to suffer from either his disease or his treatment for an entire blessed year. I thought I'd be writing for a few weeks, maybe a couple of months at most. That we garnered over seven more months including daily walks in the woods, trips to Montana with hikes in the mountains, a fabulous appetite up to the last day (he ate a great dinner on Tuesday); that we will remember him as our protector and hiking buddy and not as a sick old dog, is nothing short of amazing.

So, what to do now? My passion to change the landscape of our lives leaving us all vulnerable to the ravages of cancer is unabated. Cancer is now the leading cause of death in all American dogs over the age of two. That's insane, but it is the natural consequence of pouring carcinogenic chemicals into our air, water, soil, and food. Even with Nicholai gone and my heart in pieces, I no more believe solutions to cancer will come from pouring more chemicals into sick individuals than I believe in Easter Bunny (actually, there's hope for Easter Bunny.) The pharmaceutical response has been failing for decades. It's time to wake up.

Will I continue to blog? I don't know. For now, I intend to post memories of Mr. Nickel Pickle as a way to tape my heart back together, though it feels a little self-indulgent. Blogs by nature are somewhat self-indulgent, and yet they allow us to keep in touch with one another and to share stories of real life.

Missing my "Bubba" feels like a stone under my solar plexus; I don't cry much, just feel heavy and cold. Losing a family member – even a canine one – changes everything. I'm in the process of grief and of reconfiguring what life means now, in its new shape.