Happy Holidays. Wishing you all the best.
Since you come to this site to catch up on my literary news, I’ll say that works are in progress and for now, those works remain in progress.
And now to the sad part.
Last January on the blog Type M for Murder, I posted about the passing of Scout, my Shiba Inu. I added that we had adopted a rescue, a cream Shiba Inu named Dirk, and that he had come to us after suffering years of neglect in a puppy mill run by drug-dealing criminals. Long story short, Dirk has left us.
The day it happened, when I was getting dressed that morning, I began thinking about death. Since I’m a mystery writer, death is a staple plot device, so the subject wasn’t that unusual. What was unusual was that I was thinking about sudden death, in that, as we make plans for the day, for tomorrow, for our future, we never think about being here one moment, then gone the next. We might be struck down in a fatal accident, hit by a DUI, or the victim of a violent crime.
Then when I was taking Dirk for his noontime walk, I began thinking about getting a cord and making a wrist tether attached to the leash in case Dirk jerked it out of my hand. As that’s never happened, I dismissed the idea.
That day I took Dirk on an especially long walk in the neighborhood, then brought him along to the credit union and a stroll through Olde Town Arvada, followed by a trip to Molly’s where Dirk got to ride in a shopping cart, which he always enjoyed.
That night I took him for our evening walk. For several months I’ve been taking him along the busy roads so he gets used to the commotion to realize it’s just noise and no threat. I was at the corner of 32nd and Federal, a place we’ve been to dozens and dozens of times. Then something spooked him and he jumped, jerking the leash from my hand. He was crouched in the street by the curb not five feet from me. I knew that if he ran, it would be straight into traffic, and he’d be killed. Cars honked and flashed their lights at him, and I approached, calling his name.
Then he bolted onto Federal. No doubt the racket and me lunging for him triggered a flashback to his early years of treachery and abuse. He ran full speed, looking over his shoulder at me, oblivious to what was in front of him. A pickup approached and the driver, to his credit, swerved to avoid Dirk but it did no good. Helpless, I watched the catastrophe.
When I scooped Dirk’s limp body into my arms he made no sound, no movement, and strangely, there was no blood. As I carried him, I hoped that he would shiver and wake up, but that didn’t happen. Once home, I wrapped him in a bedsheet and put him in my truck. My girlfriend and I drove to a 24-hour animal hospital where we turned his body in for cremation.
The next days were especially gloomy. We collected dog dishes, put away the dog stroller, and removed the doggy blanket from the backseat of the car. We gathered his water bowls, his remaining food and treats, and his cage, which we gave to a friend to donate to a rescue. For the first time since I’ve lived in this house, I could go in the backyard and not worry about dog poop. We divided Dirk’s stuffed animals. My girlfriend claimed his lamb and I took his Tigger, given to him at his foster home.
My mind spun through what-ifs. Every morning I used to cup Dirk’s handsome fuzzy head and promise that we would do our best to make up for the neglect he had suffered before he had been rescued. The attention and care I was to give him would be my small part to offset all the rottenness in the world. But I felt like I failed him, that I had failed the good people at his foster home, that I had failed my friend who had suggested Dirk to us. Then I remembered my thoughts of sudden death and it was like God, or the universe, or cosmic conscience, whomever, had warned me, “Death is coming today,” and then later, “By making this tether, this is how you will save Dirk. But you refused to listen.”
These memories tortured me with guilt. When I shared this with my girlfriend, she gave her interpretation about what had happened. She said that for weeks now, she worried that Dirk’s digestive problems were too similar to the symptoms Scout first suffered when he began his decline. Plus, we had removed from Dirk small tumors so who knew what health problems loomed in his near future? She explained that as horrific as the end was, it was quick, instantaneous. Perhaps this was a blessing in disguise in that Dirk would not endure the 18-month ordeal that had tormented Scout, not to mention sparing us very expensive vet bills.
I’m sure all this is my rationalizing over what is unfathomable. I miss Dirk more than I thought I would. Perhaps the best way to ease the heartache are to mind these words: Grief is the price of love.
And: Be a hero. Make the world a better place by adopting a rescue dog.
No comments:
Post a Comment