Fear and Dread, Part I.
Last fall Ruby, the canine love of my life, began to show some "changes in behavior" (as the vets like to call it). It was subtle and occasional at first: she'd walk behind me more than usual when we were out hiking, she would miss easy jumps over creeks or rocks, she'd stay at the top of the hill that leads down to the meadow near my little cabin, not wanting to go on her morning walk. She also just didn't look or seem right to me and after many trips to the vet, our working diagnosis was "bad hips, old dog." That, to me, she was only 10, and therefore young, didn't change anyone's mind who was well read in the "large dog enters the senior years sooner" department. I was given meds to manage her perceived pain, and for a while, they did seem to give her some relief. She was a little more relaxed and the eagerness for romping returned, some. It was good, yes, but I was not relieved.
My dad was diagnosed with cancer when I was about 12 years old. He was around 36. It was a shock to everyone involved, still is, not just because of his young age, but also because he was once a world class athlete and was about as healthy and as strong as you'd find in a man. Once this news became a part of my family's lore, seeped into our hearts and our pores and our daily lives, dread soon followed. The experience of my dad having cancer, going through radiation and several rounds of chemo, and eventually, around seven years after being diagnosed, dying, has many facets as you might be able to imagine. It was pervasive, consuming and, over time, it became our normal.
Whatever thread I pull on when I think of this period of my life, I end up yanking on dread. What went along with my dad dealing with the cancer, and more debilitating, the worry that he could die from this, created a contingency of anxiety and fright. The possibility of his potential demise was spoken out loud, after all he was a pragmatic and honest man, but the emotion of it, the weight it placed on my growing teen aged shoulders and in the core of my being was mine. The copious amounts of pot I'd end up smoking later managed the sting for awhile, though such methods of pain management create their own complications. Still, nothing would make it go away. But you already know this part, yes? We all have something that is in our soul, walks around with us at all times, shows up in all things, that we can't shake because it is ours, forever.
As a result of this dread I do something that is called, "catastrophizing." In other words, I have a tendency to make small, normal occurrences into a catastrophe. I do this in two ways: I either think the small things I have going on in my body are life threatening, like the numbness in my left big toe is a sign of MS or Lou Gehrig's Disease (it's from over use), or the bump on my neck is a sign of cancer (it's a cyst or a mosquito bite). Or I have sudden thoughts, like flashes, of major disasters. I'll be washing the dishes and think, "there's going to be a major earthquake right now," or I'll be driving and just know that I'm about to have a terrible car accident at any time. I've learned that these flashes, these funny and real and terrible thoughts are cues that I am feeling dread about something else in my life. And, as a result, I've worked to not take them seriously, to kindly notice them and then look for the dread so I can deal with that instead.
When Ruby was what I now call 'declining' I had this story of dread in my mind. Something was really wrong, and I knew it. Or was it? I was certainly dreading her being older, and showing signs of the pain and slowing down that could have been the indicators of age, but I also was convinced that something else was going on, something in her body was killing her. What was I to do here? The years of work I'd done to quell the dread talk in my head, to allow for me to have a life and to manage living longer than my father, was in jeopardy. How would I know if I was really noticing something terribly wrong with my Big Dog or if it was that old catastrophizing coming up again?
What I did was allow myself to have both: the "she's fine, just older" story and the "she's dying" story at the same time. I figured that either way, as long as I could help to manage her pain, the future would show me in what direction we were headed. Don't get me wrong, I am not as zen as this sounds. I was hanging on by my fingernails, but I was also making sure that I did not flinch, because no matter where this was going, I wanted to have as many clear, certain, dedicated love memories with Ruby as was humanly and canine-ily possible.
Of course, life was going on during all of this. There was work to go to and dinners to make and walks to go on. Winter was on the way, and in October I had to move. I took the opportunity to find a place very close to my office which changed my commute time from about 45 minutes to just three. You see where this is going? As Ruby is getting worse, slowly, as the tumor that we didn't know about yet was invading her spine, I was able to come home for lunch and spend the time I would have been driving with her instead.
This all seems much more concentrated than it felt back then. The clumps of dread, the thick knowing was around, sure, but it wasn't central quite yet. I would feel the catastrophe bubble up and maybe I'd cry a little, but I'd tell myself I had to keep to the two stories, the old and the possibly true. And while there were days where it felt like she knew too, that the catastrophe was indeed upon the both of us, she seemed as dedicated to letting me have some breaks from the dread as I was. Ruby was loyal like that.
Winter came and the cold seemed to make her more uncomfortable so I got her one of those cool doggie jackets. She, of course, hated it, and I couldn't tell if it was that she didn't like the idea of what it meant or that she just didn't like to have to wear goofy clothes (or maybe she didn't like green?). When I look back now, none of the photos of Ruby in her jacket project joy or fondness. She isn't smiling, not one bit.
On December 24th, as I do when I am in Santa Cruz, I went to my own therapy (which I love) with E. (whom I love as well) and while there I was talking about the dread I was feeling about Ruby and my attempts to have the positive parallel story along with my usual foreboding narrative. Mid-story I got a flash of memory of when I was 16 and cresting the hill on my way home from basketball practice and seeing my Grams's car parked along the curb in front of the house I grew up in. I remembered the dread I felt, palpable and like metal in my mouth. I remembered that this meant my dad was in the hospital and some frantic call went out to my grandmother to come be at the house to take care of her son's three grandchildren, while my mom fretted and paced in some dingy hospital waiting room and my father was treated or misdiagnosed depending on the time. I felt, could see as clearly as if it was happening right then, my hand on the brass door nob at my house and could smell the familiar and comforting scents of home. I could feel the ambivalence of needing to go in the house and wanting to run (I wanted to run so bad); the knowledge of the rock and the hard place, the truth of the situation, the undeniable truth.
I knew then that Ruby was dying. I trust those flashes sent by Psyche. The dread of the past had met the dread of the present and they were the same. The catastrophe of my past, the story of decline and then death, and the loss I was left with, was now, again, in my heart and my bones and I had to find a way to walk with it, to deal. I had an opportunity to face what was happening with open eyes, to not flinch, and to forgive my young self, my baby sixteen year old oldest sister self, for the inability to hold it all, to make it better somehow.
There isn't a way to explain how it is to grow up knowing about death, about the loss that comes with it, about the permanence of forever. It's stressful, sure, and it's daunting, yes, but the part that is most true is that it is what it is. This story about my dad is sad for all of us; it is not a story any of us would have chosen, for sure. We all, my mom, my brother, my sister, are still mulling it, managing it, telling it as if we might be able to understand it better. We are all weathered by it. And, we are bonded from it, to it, with it.
As a kid, I tried to cross the threshold of my house, turn the brass door nob, and enter as the adult those inside would need. Could I? No, not really, but it gave me a role and, I hope, gave them something solid to hold onto. I'd talk with them, keep to the routines my parents had so firmly developed, make attempts to help us all manage what was completely unmanageable, comfort that which cannot be overcome. And then I would do whatever I could to get away from the feelings, the helpless and devastating dread. I've always been a little mad at myself about this, about the hiding. I know, I know, I was a kid and all that blah blah, but it's been real for me; the feeling that somehow I might have done this differently back then and the outcome, at least the emotional one, might have been smoother, easier, kinder than it turned out to be for all of us.
So here I was, right back where I started, brass door nob and all. Ruby was clearly in trouble. It was not hips, it was not age. She was losing the ability to use her back legs (but her big tail could still wag, thank god, I loved that tail so much) and I was in full dread. I counseled myself to take this opportunity to be gentle with myself, to seek the forgiveness I didn't realize I'd been looking for by feeling it all this time. What choice did I have, really? Okay, yes, I could have hidden more, I could have looked away, but you see, I knew how this would play out. I'd been on the other side of 'forever' and knew what would lie ahead. I knew, in my cells and my soul, that what was happening would be mine to keep and now I could have somewhat of a 'do over' to do the parts, the deep painful parts, that I couldn't find my way through the first time.
About ten days before I had to put Ruby down she was needing help getting off and on the couch and my bed (which is on the floor). I took the large cotton scarf my sister-in-law had given me, the one she gave me for christmas I think, and used it as a sling under The Big Dog's belly so she'd have help with movement. Before heading home, I'd sit in my car at work, now only 1.7 miles away, and talk myself through what was next. "Keep your eyes open, keep your heart clear, this is hard, it's okay to be scared, you are doing a good job." Then I'd slow to almost a stop as I got to my street, and just like when I crested that hill as a kid, I'd catch my breath, and stand at the door, brass nob in hand and walk into the comforting smells of home. Sometimes I'd find Ruby on the floor, stuck, and sometimes she'd be right where I'd left her; always she'd be sweetly wagging just the end of her tail (like a rattlesnake, I used to tell her), so glad to see me.
Each day got a little worse; her nights became filled with panting. Giving her more meds seemed to help take the edge off and there was a tiny ray of hope that what was wrong could be repaired. So I kept my parallel stories going the best I could, just in case. On January 13th I had a friend help me get My Boopa into the car and the two of us headed up north for what would be our final night together. She'd lost all control of her back legs by now and her pain seemed to be growing. In Reno, on the 14th, she had an appointment for a special X-ray that would let me know if she had this one possible problem that was treatable or if, in fact, she had a tumor destroying her vertebrae and exposing her spinal cord.
January 13th, 2010 was the final day in a series of winter storms that brought many feet of snow to the Sierra. January 13th it was cold and, at least weather wise, quite unlike the spring rainy day of April 10th, 1976. There was driving involved both times, to Reno and, back then, to the UCLA Medical Center. There was a kind of screechy sound in my head, loud and pervasive. There was the taste of dread in my mouth and the panic that goes along with knowing this is the last time where I'd feel the warmth of life, see the love that is shown so clearly through the eyes. And there was me, there, alive, doing everything I could to gather the last look, to sear in my memory the last time I held his fingers, the last time I got to kiss Ruby's soft ears.
On January 14th, 2010 I held Ruby in my lap when the vet administered the pink solution that would relieve her pain for good. On April 11th, 1976 I drove to UCLA and saw on the nurses face what would shape my life forever; that my father had died. On both days, I would drive myself home, feeling the excruciating shock of permanence and the numbness of loss. On both days I would scream in my car so loud I can still hear it and on both days I would think I would go crazy with grief. And in the end I would find that back then, when I was 12 and 16 and 19, the truth of the matter is that there was no comfort, not for any of us. There was carrying on, there were a lot of attempts to look away, but there was no comfort. It just was-plain and unendurably simple.
What I know now is that that kid, the me who stood at the door afraid to enter the house and equally afraid not to is forgivable. What she didn't know was that there was no way to hold it all; no chance to make it easier. She flinched then because there was no other way for her to deal. And that the me now, the 54 year old, would do this loss well because of what we'd already been through.
My dad used to talk to me about Socrates and he used to weep while he conducted, in the air, some symphony playing loudly on the stereo. He used to work with me on my jump shot and would convey passion in just about everything he did. He'd recite Cyrano de Bergerac when we'd be on hikes and sing Man From LaMancha at any given moment. Ruby used to sit next to me, as close as she could get, while I would drink my morning tea. She'd wait for me on the trail, just ahead, with a big smile. She'd push her big head under my arm when I was trying to make a fire or write on the computer. She used to talk to me about the fine art of giving your sweet dog attention. Both of them loved me. Both of them left too early.
I live in the Sierra, in part, because my dad (and my mom) made it such an essential part of my growing up, of my life. He loved it here I think more than anywhere. We never got to have that conversation, but yesterday, when I picked off some sage and rubbed it in my palm so I could take big whiffs, I remembered him and how he'd jump out of the car when we'd first get here, take some sage between his fingers and have us each take it in, "smell this," he'd say. More, I think I live here because I know what it's like to live with regrets and I didn't want this to be one of them.
The dread still rises from time to time. It's tamer, more like a kitten coming out of a hiding place to play. I am calmer in my deepest interior for having held the gaze of losing Ruby so clearly. There is more of this story to tell, the one of loss, of courage, of how to live without comfort. And, there is something I can only figure to call 'gratitude' for having the chance and for still having the want of love, the willingness to lose. I'm not sure how to end this part today except to take Razz and Mavis on a walk and to remember them all, the one's who have left, with something I can only think to call 'love'.
Thanks for listening.
143 Rob, e
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