Dash is dying and I’m watching it happen in slow motion. My 10-year-old mini schnauzer, diagnosed with kidney disease a year ago, appeared healthy at her annual physical three weeks ago. The veterinarian was surprised to see her still going strong. Sadly, the blood work told a different story. Less than a week after her exam, the vet called to say the disease is now in stage three.
Looking back, it made sense. For the past few weeks, Dash had not been finishing her bowls of kibble in the mornings. She was visibly skinnier. It wasn’t long after the vet called that Dash began refusing both food and water.
She had always been my shadow, following me all over the house and up and down the stairs. As soon as I asked her, “Want to go for a walk?” she spun in circles and barked with excitement. I could barely get her to stay still long enough to fasten her leash. Now, Dash looks at me from her spot on the red couch, barely lifting her head to watch as I climb the stairs to my room alone.
I let her sleep with me now. I never wanted that when she was a puppy. I didn’t want her to get used to it. I crate-trained her and the nightly ritual of closing that metal door made her feel safe. I also knew exactly where she was all night. During the past few months, as the disease progressed, she drank more and more water, especially in the mornings after being in her crate all night. I decided to let her sleep with me. Being in my bed gave her the freedom to go downstairs to her water bowl whenever she needed it.
I want her near me. I want to hear her breathe. I try to sleep and listen at the same time. Any variation in the rhythm of her breathing and I hold my breath. I reach to rub her belly to reassure her and me. I doze, off and on, and then panic when I realize I’ve fallen asleep. I’m afraid.
This brings up feelings that are eerily familiar. I remembered listening to my father breathe through a bedroom monitor as he was dying of cancer two-and-a-half years ago. I panicked then too, when I drifted off for a few hours. If I couldn’t hear any movement from dad through the monitor, I got out of bed and tiptoed out of the room, trying not to wake my mother. I stood at the door to the living room where my dad slept in a hospital bed. I watched dad’s chest. When I saw it move, I was relieved.
And now I wonder why I felt responsible for keeping track of my father’s breathing? Why do I feel the same way about Dash? Why do I feel the need to listen for it and measure its duration? Neither are or were in my control, but I still wanted to hear it. I wanted to be there for my father’s last breath and I want the same with Dash. I don’t want to miss it.
I thought I had grieved those anxious moments from the last few weeks of my father’s death, but they are sitting heavy on my chest. Watching Dash die has ripped open a well of grief I saved to deal with later. I didn’t have time to let grief overwhelm me then. Now I listen to Dash breathing and I hear my father’s labored breathing. The fear and grief are right back where they were before, as fresh as if my dad had just died. I move right into the uncertainty of it as if it never left. I feel helpless.
“It’s the inevitable waiting that is the hardest,” mom reminds me as I lift Dash onto the couch. She remembers too.
I went for a walk this morning around the lake. My brother Jay and I used to walk around my parents’ Tennessee neighborhood while dad was dying. We climbed the hilly roads and circled the cul-de-sacs. It was winter and we had to bundle up in coats, toboggans and gloves. It gave us time away from seeing our dad in a hospital bed in the living room. For a few minutes each day, we could talk about the weather, sports or our kids. It didn’t change anything but our view, but we never missed a day. I remembered the importance of that as I walked today. I must remember that I am still living, though I’m sitting with the dying.
Nothing feels more important right now than sitting with Dash, stroking her belly, and watching her breathe. I see her as the tiny pup I picked up from her foster home. I loved her coal black hair and the way she loved to cuddle. Curious and a bit mischievous, Dash would open cabinets and go through the trash. She hid packs of crackers or candy she stole from bedside tables or closets in couch cushions or the creases of her dog bed. When scolded, she bowed her head and looked at the ground. She was so cute I couldn’t stay mad at her. I found her at the perfect time. My boys were grown and didn’t need me the way they had when they were little. I needed someone else to care for and it felt right to care for her.
Now she is grey-haired like me, and she struggles to walk, and to eat. Her mother had been rescued from a local puppy mill and soon after had a litter of four pups. I wonder if her sickness goes back to her mom’s time at the puppy mill. Did my girl get all she needed from a mother that was forced to have litter after litter of puppies? I can’t change that, but I need answers for the changes in my once healthy dog. She should have had at least three more years. I’ll always wonder.
Dash has been with me through my empty nest days, my separation and divorce, my father’s death, and building a new life and home. Through all of this, having her greet me at the door every time with excitement made me happy. I have a feeling that is what I will miss the most.
I wouldn’t let myself cry as I watched my father die. Maybe I didn’t want him to feel the massive hole his leaving would cause in my life. I sat with my father and held his hand even when he stopped squeezing mine back. But I didn’t let myself cry until he took that last breath. As I mourn the loss of Dash, I cry easily. Grief often works that way. Its timing is never what I think it might be. Maybe these tears for Dash are also tears for my father. The tears were sitting in the well of grief that I had hidden away. They waited for their moment to flow. That time is now.
Dash is dying. It is inevitable. I’m here listening for her last breath.
I was with Dash as she took her last breath on Monday, October 2, at 10:45 a.m. I’m forever grateful for the joy she brought to my life. Life's a journey. Pay Attention.
