Even if you turned the clock back two years, I’d do it all over again… but I now understand why everyone thought it was a big deal I adopted an older dog.
I always, always felt burning desire for that kind of connection; at some point it became clear it wasn’t a child-like fantasy thing, it was the thing that when you look in an dog’s eyes and you know a living creature is looking back at you. it’s connecting with you, even if you don’t believe or feel or think it.
What I learned over the past nearly two years is, there’s a price to pay for loving a pet. I never, ever, in all the years I dreamed of caring for one, connecting to one, loving one, falling head over heals for one, managing illness, laughing at antics, I never imagined, truly comprehended, the grief.
The grief of losing, for sure, which is pretty relatable in a basic sense.
But the grief of having to watch the suffering, to watch the slow descent into the inevitable, the grief of having to make the decision.
The anguish and shame of feeling like you’re committing murder. Of you’re out of your element. Of you’re not god, who are you, anyway?
Couldn’t you just go peacefully in sleep?
I suppose it is selfish, to fool yourself into believing anything about her condition was peaceful.
So that day she knew something was wrong. It was the first time she wouldn’t get back into the car, after our last go-round the park, and it was the first time she wouldn’t leap right out when I opened the door.
Did she know what tears mean? Did she know i looked different? All red-eyed and screwed up?
Could she ever have known at all, how I would absolutely fall apart walking back through the front door without her?
Once upon a time, a witch cast a spell on a soul and turned her into a red haired, white throated dog they named Scarlett. She’d have to navigate a brutal world, but she’d do it with a kind, calm soul and a clever brain.
She navigated street life, she navigated whatever came before the shelter, where she spent four years amongst barking and dust and food grabs and the visitors who came and walked right by. she grew – and she grew older.
And maybe it was her calm, maybe because she was a good listener, maybe because the spell had outlasted its time, she managed in the shelter, and years later fell into good hands; first a foster and then her forever home.
But she had one last obstacle: illness. And somehow, I landed together with a sick, slowly dying dog who I didn’t have the tools to emotionally detach from, even if I wanted to. It only got stronger, more purposeful. She is strong! She is a fighter! She is still happy… right?… still wagging her tail… still grateful for being saved… and she was, but I had to be stronger. More generous. I had to let her go.
Never ever in decades of wanting this type of relationship did I ever come close to imagining what this type of grief could feel like, after knowing someone so intimately – so intimately – for only two years. How could it hurt this much? How could I start weeping every time I thought about it?
“Grief is the natural price for loving.” I keep thinking about that. Scarlett came to us just before the world turned upside down, in the summer of 2023. Grief has been non-stop since – nationally, personally. She let me cry into her fur, she bounded up the stairs after us during sirens. She shook as planes continuously zipped and boomed overhead and I spent my energy comforting her which comforted me.
Apparently, she also patiently listened to my daughters’ secrets, communicated telepathically. Serving as a secrets bank for two growing girls navigating an upside down world.
There’s a price for loving; give life several years, and you learn that. Give it a few decades, and the learning is endless.
And if you take it on, you learn, too, that it’s a different love with animals, a different relationship. One that I, ultimately, had to be the one to decide to end.
A different kind of grief, but grief all the same… for someone who tells you every day with their actions they love you and you’re bonded.
I suppose if you didn’t live together, if you didn’t wake up to each other, if your day didn’t start with her wagging urgency to pee and end with her wagging urgency to get one more taste of outside before calling it a night, then yeah, she was a visibly ill, slowly deformed dog for the last few months. We adopted a superstar middle aged survivor not knowing her body was already on a path to succumbing to a grisly, visible cancer.
But if you spent enough time with her, you’d know how fluffy she really was, how affectionate when no one else was looking, how playful when the mood struck. How smart, how clever, how naughty she could be (oh, canaanis). How she helped one daughter overcome her dog fear, and another find her animal confidence. How for nearly two years I had the honor to try my best to make her life pure joy, as much as I humanly could.
Animal connection is so profound, so real, and I learned through her how generous I’m able to be in such a relationship. How overcome, how smitten, how incredible it is with someone who loves you like that.
Scarlett was worth every moment ❤️
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