He is home. He is unsteady on his feet, but he is walking a little. The morphine may be helping. He goes back to the vet tomorrow. We will see.
This afternoon when I could take the indoor loneliness no longer, the phantom dog beneath the desk tapping my shins once too often, my eyes burning, I walked down the creek to the bay. A silver maple grows here, incongruous this far west. A trash tree, it grasps for sky so quickly that it willl shatter in a wind. Some I have planted as seedlings now top seventy feet. A softer wind will rattle leaves, flash green leaf top and white reverse in turn.
A kestrel swung out and back above the creek. She landed on the powerlines above an acacia, a squirrel full her size chattering abuse. Something in her right talon, small and long-tailed — a mouse? too slender — and the bird tugged at entrails, swallowed. A shift in the breeze: two bright, translucent wings against blue sky. A dragonfly, then, snagged from the moist creek air, and the kestrel snipped each wing. Eyeing me, she let them flutter pellucid and diagonal to earth, samaras of illuminated insect maple.
I just read ‘samaras’ as ‘samsaras.’ There is something poignant and significant about that, and if you care to figure it out, let me know.
I’m glad Zeke is home. My girls (12 and 10) and I will be thinking of you, and the girls will chase a squirrel, if we see one, in Zeke’s honor today.
May all of you find peace in any decisions you make.
Poor Zekey. Poor Chris and Becky.
I’ll be thinking of (and crying for) you all today.
Love from this end of the country…
In my mind’s eye I can see the silver maple in the yard of my childhood home, the maple I planted in the yard of the house we lived in when Tober arrived in our life. We’ve moved but every now and then I drive past the old house and marvel at how that tree has grown.
I wish I knew exactly what to wish for you. Strength? Who needs strength when your eyes burn—as mine do now, partially for you, partially for his pain, partially for losses I’ve suffered over the years. Wisdom? He’s a companion, a friend, a suffering faithful being, how much help is that? So I’ll wish for compassion and kindness and peace. You have the first two in abundance already; please may you find some of the third in the days ahead.
I’m looking at the last three posts, and thinking about the last six months, and before that, and can see so clearly what a beloved companion you have.
You will keep on keeping him happy, and that’s all you can do.
I’ve been through this again and again, and yet I wouldn’t give the companionship up in exchange for a lack of the pain of loss, and nonetheless it devastates me that our non-human companions have such short life spans. I would have mine next to me forever, if I could.
Enjoy every moment, this one and this one and this one.
Poor old puppy.
Beautiful post, Chris, as have been all your poignant writings on this matter.
I love Kat’s misreading: samsaras—ephemeral projections on the mind’s eternal white screen, turbulent movies of creation and destruction—flluttering to the Earth like dragonfly wings. A perfect symbol for what Zeke and Chris—and all of us—are going through.
Namaste, Zeke. Namaste, Chris.
These days, when someone asks by rote, “How are you?”, I reply, “Life goes on.”
Life goes on….
Kindest thoughts from Olympia for you and Zeke.
I’m glad he’s home, Chris. This part of loving our animal companions sucks, when we’re not ready for them to go. Like many of your readers, I feel I’ve skritched Zeke’s head often through your stories. Give him a real skritch for me, please.