A Cry For Yelp

If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, you’ve read mentions of our old hound, Flash, that patrolled our back yard for the last fourteen summers.  Three years ago, he began to go into decline, with a steep drop in function that started last winter.  Three weeks ago, I had him put to sleep.

If you have read my new blog, “Cutting a Dead Man’s Toenails”, you know the whole story behind our decision to let Flash go.  I would like to thank those of you that clicked on that.  It has, to date, been read by four times as many people as my next-most-popular post.  It seemed to strike a chord in people, making them look back on their own experience of letting a beloved pet go, or look forward to the day when they would have to make that difficult decision for their animal(s).

Some folks were deeply touched, imagining my pain or feeling that I recognized theirs.  Some people thought it was a ridiculous exercise in sentimentality, worthless as anything but a vehicle for my own grief.  I felt I was reporting on an event as it unfolded over the course of eleven days, albeit in a very personal way.  A reader may have thought I revealed too much, giving a voyeuristic picture into my family’s private moments.  I will only defend that point by saying that my family is quite used to hearing their words repeated verbatim, with their successes and foibles made public for all to see.  Fair or not, they are never shocked to find parts of their lives in print.  It’s one of the things you get used to when you are related to a writer.

I won’t deny that I wrote “…Toenails” to deal with my own emotional turmoil.  I told a friend of mine, Tammy, that I often write about difficult experiences in my life to gain perspective and, sometimes, when a life event doesn’t come out well, I will write a piece of fiction that corrects the bad outcome. But the main reason I wrote the blog was to tell pet owners facing a euthanization that there is a better way to do it than going to an impersonal clinic and driving home with a body in the car, or, perhaps worse, alone, no longer accompanied by your longtime companion.  The drive, both ways, is excruciating.  The procedure itself is painful enough for the pet owner, but crying while steering a 2,000 pound vehicle through traffic could cause a whole different kind of human anguish.

I had the conversation with Tammy at her father’s funeral.  When she told her friends about his passing, she wrote that she had prayed the very morning he died that she would not prolong his suffering when the time came.  That he passed quickly and in his sleep (in his Lazy Boy) was an answer to that prayer.  Of course, the loss of a parent and the death of a house pet are similar only at the basest level, but both sometimes require us to make level-headed decisions that leave our own complicated emotions out of the equation.

At my house, we still tear up at times, missing that sweet animal that saw a goodness in his humans that is often hard for us, with our complex brains, to remember.  This morning, pulling out a rarely used dining room chair, I found a cushion edged with fur that had apparently been in Flash’s way when he made a shortcut between the kitchen and the back door. Kath turns into a puddle when she’s preparing food and there’s no one in the doorway patiently waiting for a dropped tidbit.  But we know we made the right call.  He was facing little beyond pain and confusion going forward, losing interest in most everything but sleep.  A scratch behind the ears is a wonderful thing, I suppose, but it wasn’t a reason to keep living.  Here’s the thing…a human who is lucky enough to be lucid and communicative at the end of their life has a chance to tell you, “Let me go.”  They can tell you the pain is too much, or that they don’t want to fight anymore.  Your pet can’t do it.  They’ll just keep going because YOU want them to.  They’ll do anything for you.  You are their whole life.

On the human end, who among us doesn’t wish for a quick, painless death, like the one Tammy’s father had?  Many of us live our whole lives in fear of the end, placing hopes on an outcome we likely won’t control.  We can hedge our bets by adding codicils to our wills, or inking ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ tattoos on our chests.  Again, our pets don’t have this option.  We have to hear what the veterinarian says and listen with an open mind.  We have to remember that there is a responsibility in pet ownership, and one of those duties is to end the suffering when it becomes too much.

Home euthanization for your animals is a thing now.  If you are facing the end of your pet’s life, please consider this as an option for their benefit and for your own.  Make some phone calls, ask your friends.  You’d think that the cost might be a lot higher, but it’s not.  The mobile vet usually doesn’t have a brick-and-mortar workplace that they are paying for, nor a receptionist that needs a weekly paycheck.  Talk to them about your situation.  Don’t be offended if they ask you about what you’ve done to safeguard your animal’s health.  This is their job.  They do not want to put an animal to sleep that can be saved.

When Flash passed, he was in his favorite place, surrounded by friendly faces.  There was no stressful drive, no panoply of dog smells to ponder on his way to the exam room.  There was no painful lift to a cold, metal table.  He laid in his own bed, on his own back porch as the sedative took effect.

In a particularly cruel twist, Tammy had been tasked with putting her father’s dog to sleep just weeks before his passing.  But, as she told me at the funeral, “If you’re not willing to do that when it’s necessary, you shouldn’t own a dog.”  I can only echo her sentiments.

I can’t pretend that I understand Tammy’s pain.  My father is alive and mostly well.  As a writer, I try to speak only of those things I know.  I know how difficult it is to let your family pet go.  Doing it at home was as peaceful and as humane as anything I have ever done and I place it among the best decisions I ever made.

By the way, I asked Tammy before I posted this if I could use her name.  And my mother, a retired minister, delivered her father’s eulogy.  It was funny and sentimental, just like my posts about Flash.  At 1500 words, it was just about perfect.  It was 6000 words less than my eulogy for Flash, so the attendees should be grateful that I did not inherit my verbosity from her.  She didn’t have to say as much, because for 76 years, Tammy’s father spoke for himself. 

I wrote a volume because our animals can’t speak for themselves.  Your aging pet can’t tell you what they need.  Please…when you can’t end the pain, end the suffering.

The Empty Nest

The deck we built on the back of our house turned two on Memorial Day.  My wife and I waited so long to get one, though it was on our minds from the day we moved in eighteen years ago.  Dan turned two that first summer and Lucy started school that fall.  Obviously there were a lot of expenses with the children and both Kathy and I had just started new careers.  Finally, in 2014, we had the money at a time when no other big-ticket items were breaking down.

Fortunately, we’ve enjoyed it as much as we hoped we would.  After a long day at work, it is the place I want to be in warm weather.  Frequently, my wife will find me there when she gets home at five-thirty. I’ve changed out of my work clothes and enjoyed an adult beverage by then.  Flash, the geriatric guard dog, stands sentry at the back steps, occasionally rising to walk his beat, peering through his cloudy cataracts at threats both real and imagined.

What I had not anticipated was the amount of time we would spend in complete silence, just enjoying the breeze and the sounds of nature.  Our television alternative in those quiet hours is an Art Fair birdhouse, built for the small, picked-on members of the avian community.  Its tiny aperture is ringed by metal decorations, so the larger birds don’t peck away a larger entry and consume the eggs or baby birds.  A pair of wrens moved in and started a family. We watched avidly as a Real Housewife of Washtenaw County brought bedding and sustenance to her young, while Daddy perched nearby, putting the fear of God into any creature that ventured too close (Kathy included).  We waited eagerly for the big day, when we would see the young wrens emerge and leave the nest.

That is not to say this was the only bird family in the yard.  There were many.  One family we had to shoo away, as the piercing sound of blue jays at dawn was more than my wife and I wanted to hear.  When they attempted…several times…to build a nest under the eaves outside our bedroom window, we impeded their progress.  When they didn’t get the hint, we stuck a small mirror in the place they kept returning to.  The reflection of ‘another’ blue jay in their preferred spot finally made them move elsewhere. 

There was also a nest of robins near the porch, the adults robust and industrious.  The cacophony from their family room rivaled a euchre game at my parent’s house.  Because of their size, their sound and fury, you tended not to worry about the robins.  But sometimes appearances are deceiving.

While we were still waiting to see the baby wrens, we saw one of the baby robins laying on the ground, near the trunk of the tree.  It was clearly not fully mature, its feathers still of the fluffy, white variety, though its body was of a fair size.  The adult robins seemed concerned, but not overly so.  They would perch nearby and look at the baby pleading for help before returning to the task of feeding the rest of their young in the nest.

Any of you that know me are aware that I am no ornithologist.  In fact, my idea of ‘outdoorsy’ would be a day game at Comerica Park.  But I didn’t want to sit there and watch the little robin die.  We have always used laundry detergent that is fragrance-free, so I slipped on a pair of latex gloves and found a T-shirt we used as a rag and wrapped it around the errant nestling.  The adult robins watched with interest, but nothing more.  My thinking was, if this bird is just a day or so away from flying, maybe it has a chance, if the adults will feed it.  We beckoned the dog inside and waited, peeking out the window, watching for cats and other predators.  At around dusk, our patience was rewarded.  The robins began bringing food to the bird on the ground.  Our spirits buoyed, we went to bed hopeful.   

Alas, it was not to be.  The temperature sank to fifty-seven degrees that night and there was dew on the ground.  The cold had claimed the baby bird.  Though we’d known there was little chance that we could interfere with the cruelty of nature, we were glad we had tried.  We mused on the corollaries to human parenting.  Though we rarely see emotion from non-domesticated animals, we wondered if they remember the ones they have to leave behind for the safety of the others, while discussing the human parents who’ve had to make tough decisions.   At the moment a child is born, we hope and pray that our baby isn’t taken from us by violence, a random illness, an accident, or an ill-timed, poorly planned escapade.  Yet it happens.  Every day, good parents bury children.  The next day they have to get out of bed and take care of their other children and themselves.  Cruelty of nature, indeed.

A couple of days passed, as well as the mini-funk we were in over the baby robin.  That was when we noticed that the wrens were gone.  Gone!  As in, not a trace.  The birdhouse was intact, with nothing but fluff left inside.  No signs of violence were seen.  The family had decamped, leaving no forwarding address.  While we’d watched and worried over the baby robin, another family had moved on.  Perhaps one morning before I was even out of bed, Mama Wren had announced that ‘today’s the day’ and marched her young charges to the door of their house, imploring them to do what they had been born to do, and they did it.  When everything happens as it is supposed to, we seldom take notice, do we?

A month has gone by since then.  Though it is still mid-summer, the shadows have shifted subtly, suggesting that this year will be like the last.  The leaves will fall, the air will chill and next year the cycle will begin again.  But something will be different in our human nest next year, as our baby bird prepares to take flight, testing his wings, applying knowledge both learned and inherited.  We feed them, we warm them, we teach them to the limit of our abilities and watch them go. It is heartbreaking and heartwarming.  The idea is foreign to us at times, and yet it is what we were born to do.

I found a wren feather on the ground near their old house and stuck it in the brim of my hat.  I suppose you could call it a feather in my cap.  I may watch from the sidelines feigning disinterest or I may chirp my disapproval on the wire.  But I will never forget the precious gifts that came from my wife’s eggs, nor will I forget the wonderful times we had in our nest.  Freebird, fly!

You Can Try For A Pick-Up, But There's No Carry-Out

My wife and I visited with some old friends of hers on a recent Friday night.  Kathy is close to her friends, as she is to her family, regardless of the relationship’s vintage.  It might be one of the things I love most about her as I still have many friends that date back to high school days.  Whether you consider yourself hot shit or a piece of shit, old friends have the ability to buck you up or knock you down…they knew you when.  If you don’t receive an attitude adjustment meeting with people you’ve known for decades, you must be the most level-headed person there is.

I was a little tired after a particularly grueling workday, but I didn’t have designs on cancelling my participation in the outing.  I didn’t know any of the attendees particularly well, but we’ve crossed paths repeatedly over the course of my nearly twenty-five year marriage to Miss Kitty.  They are, by and large, a great bunch of folks, easy to talk to, down-to-earth Michiganders that just like to get together and howl.  I’ve never been an opponent of the howl.

Of course, when it’s a couples party and the event is in honor of a vacationing sister, all bets are off for the fellows.  Some play pool, others try to join in the conversations and others just don’t attend.  Fortunately, my personality and interests dovetail with those of the fairer sex so, in the party situation, I am usually one of the girls.  Kath and I are able to hang together for a third to a half of the evening.

So, imagine my surprise when a male friend from her old neighborhood, a complete stranger to me, begins hitting on my wife.  About my age, no worse for the years; married longer than Kathy and I, I learned later.  But he was definitely hitting on my wife.

Now let me begin by saying that Kath and I are not jealous people.  Secure in our relationship, comfortable with our roles, we don’t spend time searching cell phones for unknown numbers or trolling social media to find out who’s been talking to our significant other.  We know who we are and trust each other deeply.  That said, you could make a case that we are ‘territorial.’ If we are in an uncharted territory, we will quickly lay boundaries for anyone that thought they were headed for open road.  Metaphorical traffic cones will be placed, directing the errant traveler to the ‘No Chance’ exit, never to be heard from again.  Usually.

So, sitting among the girls, naturally, I see the boys come in and out.  Sometimes to join the conversation, sometimes asking for a lighter, but they are typically exchanges that last a couple of minutes or less.  We’re beyond the age of babysitters, so the questions tend to be of a banal nature.  Did you turn the alarm on?  Did we feed Spanky before we kenneled him?

Imagine my surprise when one of the fellows begins trying the eighties lines and the eighties stories on my wife.  As I am sitting at her right elbow, he’s on the same side as my good ear, so I can hear everything he says…and he is totally trying to pick up my girl.  Keeping the eighties theme, he is trying to make her remember things that happened over thirty years ago, a story file that is easily massaged for maximum effectiveness.  Kath was receptive…because she is friendly.  She has been to dozens of theater cast parties and understood little of what we call ‘the creative process.’  Yet, she is still an engaged partner in numerous conversations with feverish actors (myself included).

Let me also add that Kath has lost twenty-five pounds this year, yes, a pound for every year we’ve been married, and she looks great.  She feels great.  She walks with a renewed confidence in new clothes that cover her smaller, stronger, toned body.  This is on top of the fact that she was always a “Hi-How-Ya-Doin’” sort at a party, quick with a quip and up for breaking any existing rules.  I had certainly noticed the difference in her, but apparently I wasn’t alone.

Old Neighborhood Guy, having started a conversation, placed his beer on the table between me and my wife, keeping his hand on the label.  Tired as I was, I immediately recognized the move.  When he turned his back to me completely, my suspicion was confirmed.  This dude was boxing me out.  Desperate to empty my bladder, I stayed.  He made landfall with his elbow on the table, putting his whole body between Kathy’s and mine.  I stared at the back of his head and recited a litany of dirty words in my mind, but I also found my inner caveman in that moment.  Inner-Caveman was most unhappy.

When O.N.G. lifted his hand for an elaborate re-creation of long ago glories, he returned to find my arm and my beer where he had once laid his.  When he decamped for a visit to the rest room, he returned to find the spot where he previously held court gone, ‘Occupato’ as they say in Guadalajara.   I told Kath during a quiet moment that the guy was hitting on her.  She brushed me off with a flip of her hand and a dismissive look.  He’s married!  she said.  He’s like a brother to me!  she protested.  I shrugged and moved on, talking to some of the other husbands at the built-in bar. 

As many parties do, the assembled end up huddled around the bar.  In the absence of a kitchen, the bar will do.  Kath and one or two of the other women were behind the bar, creating new libations and searching for the Tiger game on the satellite TV.  We came across a tribute to Gordie Howe, at which point O.N.G. re-appears, demanding the floor to tell his story of meeting Gordie, not just once, but twice.  It was a…good story.  I don’t want to nitpick but, as a writer, it could have used some editing.  It only mattered what Kathy thought, as he told the whole thing to her, swirling the single-malt in his rocks glass.  I don’t think she was terribly impressed.  I’ve seen the same look when I attempted to act out the opening nine pages of a first-draft.

With the mood effectively killed by the sense-numbing story, the girls disappeared from behind the bar to dance in a circle to music that isn’t often heard outside of Oldies radio.  The men dissipated as well, seriously regarding cigars they’d lit and extinguished throughout the evening.  As I remained at the bar, nursing my third Dr. Pepper, O.N.G. reappeared, elbowing me in the ribs as yet another Gordie Howe tribute was offered on the big screen.  “Hey, you know, I met him twice,” he stated.

“Yeah, you mentioned that,” I responded.  My face registered no emotion in the mirror behind the bar, but my Inner-Caveman just roared.