I just ran 5,000 meters for the first time in a year.
Last year in August I got up to 5K on a looping course through the streets near here, with a small hill and then another small hill. I ran it a few times a week, feeling strong, and then on September 20 Zeke started his long and terminal decline.
That was on a Thursday. That Saturday I set out running and could not run the whole way. I didn’t see the point. I stopped at around three kilometers and walked the rest of the way, dully.
That weekend I pleaded with the nonpersonified, stochastic universe for more time. I got it: a gift from Zeke.
It was all about extending lifespan in those days. I hiked for communion with the world, yes, but I hiked hard for the feeling of blood pounding in my chest and raw lungs, and the incremental increases in strength with each week, the notion that if I kept it up I might just live past twice my age, and then suddenly my focus shifted. I was still working on extending lifespans, just not my own. From at least ten miles weekly the hikes fell off to a short walk every other week, generally when Kat or Matthew would remind me to go.I didn’t hike at all in November, three short ones in December, and on January 28, less than a week before Zeke died, I got halfway up Diablo almost on momentum when I realized I could be spending time with my dog, and I turned around and went back down.
My running fell off too. I don’t keep records of the runs the way I do of the hikes. They don’t require as much preparation and travel time: just a half hour to an hour from leaving to getting back home. After that last unsuccessful attempt at 5,000 meters, in which a sense of futility overwhelmed me and my own living past the New Year seemed pointless, I stuck to my regular “2.5K” route (really more like 2,350 meters) and did that less often anyway. I hiked all of 25 miles in December, a third of normal for the year. In January, that fell to 12 miles.
My exercise in those days consisted of walking Zeke. Four-fifths of a mile from the house to the park and back, the last fifth with him in my arms, twice a day. Then once a day. Then every other day. He grew weaker and less enthusiastic. On the first of February I realized that he wasn’t likely ever to walk with me again: it had been a few days, and he was weak, turning down my leash offers.
I broke down. I pleaded with the nonpersonified, stochastic universe for one more walk with him. Zeke granted that request too. We walked two and a half blocks, me near-hysterical with gratitude, letting him go where he wanted, sidewalk or street, because if I had to stop traffic for ten minutes to let him meander where he would, then that’s what I was going to do and to hell with anyone complaining. He made it two blocks and collapsed, looked at me.
I carried him home.
I remember walking up to the Heart Place with Becky on the 4th, the day after he died. My hiking records claim two hikes that month, which I dimly remember. I don’t remember if I ran in February, or if for that matter I ate in February. A few hikes in March, three in April, and yet as I began to climb out of the shock I realized that there was something missing besides Zeke. I no longer cared. Activity might lengthen my life, I knew, and yet for what? Why not extend a root canal or a bout of stomach flu?
And after April I knew what was waiting for me in the hills: a pale, tan shade, toothy grin, staying just out of my peripheral vision, appearing whenever my keys would jangle in my pocket or when another dog would bound up the trail. I thought to write about that, but there were disincentives.
On May 6 I hiked on Diablo, not climbing to the top. I have walked in other places, the Darlingtonia bogs of the Klamaths and the shores of Mono Lake, but I have stayed out of the hills of the East Bay since then.
Until yesterday, and I climbed through the hills tan as he was, felt his loss not from the corners of my eyes but plain there in front of me. He loved the green wet of winter, loved to stick his nose into the banks to sniff at the moist and decomposing earth, loved to find cool running water among tall forest trees so that he could lower himself down into it. But Zeke’s life was spent walking the brown summer grasses of California.
I think I will hike again in a week.
And I have been running more, all last month and adding distance slowly.
Life changes. I have some enthusiasms that have not died. I have some new resolve in writing. There are exquisite facets of my life that were not there when Zeke was alive, beloved friends I only met because he died. But I would hesitate to call it recovery. There is no feeling of emerging. The sadness is as dense as ever. Sometimes running prolongs my life in increments of an hour or two.
Sometimes I just feel like running.
{{{{chris}}}}
i just found another cache of carastuff.
i’m glad you’re running again. from/to doesn’t even matter.
I wish I could offer something to ease the sadness, Chris, but I don’t know what that might be. I suspect no one could know except you — and I hope you find something, even if small — but it’s clear from the feedback from your regular commenters that you have huge support. That, I trust, is comfort — even if comfort isn’t recovery.
These posts about Zeke really hit home for me. My Loki, a German Shepherd / Doberman mix, has been gone for 7 years now and it still breaks my heart to remember his last few weeks which were very much like what you’re describing. For the last two weeks of his life I had to carry him up and down the steps to our apartment three times a day for his trips outside. I can remember the very first time I discovered that he couldn’t make it up the steps; I had opened the apartment door and stepped out of the way to let him in, because as loyal as he was, he loved to get in first. When he didn’t pass me by I turned around and saw him sitting at the bottom of the stairs, and as you described with Zeke, looking at me.
I keep his collar on a shelf in my bedroom, next to a picture of him swimming in a remote lake in Missouri carrying in his mouth an old shoe that he found. I’ve always had a feeling that of all his days that was his happiest one and I like to think to myself that it’s his doggie heaven. It’s funny because I couldn’t care less about the lack of an afterlife for myself, but I wish that Loki was in his, swimming around forever with that shoe. It would help make the universe to make a little more sense.
An old shoe.
Good boy, Loki.
Chris, I’m glad you’re running, and hiking, and loving the world Zeke loved with you, however changed it is and you are without him.
Also glad you’re writing about the slow grieving, in spite of the risks of the occasional vicious comment here.
Over six years since I buried my familiar/heart Shalom, and much new love and delight since, and a jagged hole in the center of every landscape still. Probably always, just softened with time, and less surprising.
There’s comfort of a kind I don’t find elsewhere when other people tell the truth about this kind of loss, and I’m sure that’s true for many readers here. So as ever, thank you for the courage.
she can just now talk about her beloved pup of 12 years, bunny, deaf and almost blind- who went missing on january 11th, without crying. there is still a huge ache in her heart..and the wondering. it never goes away.
everyone knew bunny- she was an institution in the neighborhood. she had been around longer than most of the children.
‘there’s bunny’s mom’, she heard them say as she rode past on her bicycle.
the ache in her heart pushed up and welled over, and the sob caught in her throat, and the tears streamed , lost to the wind as she pedaled as hard as she could..
Probably always, just softened with time, and less surprising.
Amen, Theriomorph.
Hey Chris, throw in an extra k now and then for us poor old sods who can’t run anymore. You’ll thank us later.
May all your runs be smooth, satisfying (like a good smoke!), and not related to digestive problems.
By the way, why do you walk miles, but run (kilo)metres?
I told my mother yesterday that I want to go when Molly does. I just can’t face life without her.
My mother sighed deeply. Oh, honey.
Rob, it’s because it’s easier to run kilometers than miles. Also I work for NASA.
Rose, I was hoping we’d hear from you sometime soon. I think about you and Bunny so often.
Jeff, I’m with Theriomorph about the shoe. Good boy.
i look forward to my daily visits here, chris.
your words nourish me.
i silently steep myself in their profundity and beauty,
and refrain from commenting most of the time,
for fear of sounding stupid amidst this incredible level of super-intelligence ..
Rose, your story kills me - I cannot imagine the pain of your loss.
Chris, You brought me to tears with this one. Keep on running, chum. It’s good for your soul.
Damn. Now I’m all weepy for all the old dogs that I never knew.
there won’t be any recovery. recovery implies that there was something wrong, which is now right. and theriomorph hits it exactly so, when she describes the hole, less surprising and softened with time.
but there is nothing wrong with losing a pet as you did. and i’ve been reading of zeke for months now, and each time tears come again. for me, the hole is catshaped, and when i remember her, it can sometimes be as if she died yesterday. and you remind me, she was initially given a week to live, but hung on, for me, for about a month more than that.
and almost 4 years ago, i rescued another black and white cat. not another longhair, not that i could have replaced her. but i feel as though the only way i could feel right again, is by inviting another animal in. not to fill the hole, but to remind me of what preceded it. and someday when i am old, i imagine i’ll have quite a collection. but they are just the scars you must bear, for loving those lives so much shorter than your own.
it looks like we’re all in good company. and again i’m crying over strange dogs.