All Good Things...

She died in the rain on a Monday.

Goodbye Lily…

At-home euthanasia. 

I made the phone call Sunday afternoon and cried to an answering machine -- I hope I get through this, I said. My dog has bone cancer. It's been a year. She needs you...

On the return call a woman spoke quietly with me. How old is Lily? Who is her primary vet? Is the morning good?

Oh, no. I was hoping to spend the day with her tomorrow, I said. Later in the day?

Five?

Ok.

Two women would arrive at 5 on Monday, ready to help Lily die quietly before cancer could ruin her completely. Just two weeks ago she was well enough to hike with me on our trail in the woods. The past two weeks have been an increasing struggle until several days ago, when her hip and leg blew up and she could barely drag herself off the floor.

I hung up after the call and thought: Lily had fewer than 24 hours to go.

Since her cancer diagnosis in September, 2017, I had hoped to somehow avoid the end. However, the end -- those last hours of her life and especially the last few seconds -- were a strange amazing beautiful horrible experience.

My job all day Monday was to sit with Lily. I talked, cried, smoothed her fur and held her head in my lap, made a coffee and forgot all about it. I hate cold coffee.

A jolt of nervousness fluttered through my guts when I looked at the clock. It's noon -- five more hours. It's 1 pm, then two…

Jerry came home around 3:30. More crying and laughing and remembering the Lily moments. Remember when she burst an artery in her tongue when she caught a stick … remember when she fell out of the truck on Main Street -- remember the possum?

Remember when she bit John's dog?

Lily. She has been both a demon and a queen. A beautiful, loving, but very willful dog. 

She has had a really good life, Jerry said.

Thinking of her prompt and unstoppable urge to chase deer through the woods, bound after squirrels, and charge across the street and nip at the neighbor's dog, I said, yeah who else gets to follow every impulse to the point of exhaustion? Is there a better way to spend a life?

I don't know how to say this, Jerry said. Can we talk about this?

Yeah. 

OK, what happens after they come?

Oh, they said they can take her away or we can take her to our vet.

OK, he said.

Our vet closes at 6, I said. Let me call them…

Four pm. Lily, you still have time to do this on your own before they get here, I said. Laugh-cry, laugh-cry.

She tries to stand. 

It's been a long, strange trip, Jerry said.

With fistfuls  of her fur in my fingers I haul her up. Hobbling outside into the rain she stopped at her toy. Although in past weeks our game had changed from fetch to plain catch, we were still playing.

I toss her toy. She snapped it out of the air, then flopped down just outside the front door.

4:30. I sit with her. She is half in the rain. A small roof over the front door gives me enough room to keep dry. She's hurting.

4:45. Lily, you still have 15 minutes to do this on your own before they get here.

Oh my God, Jerry said.

A little humming bird darted through hosta blooms and sipped at a feeder, despite the rain.

5 pm. Two women arrived, found us on the patio, and squatted down to meet Lily.

They would give her a sedative to calm her, help her doze.

A quick injection. We waited.

I stretched out on the cold stone beside my beautiful girl and cried. Her eyes made slow sweeps left, then right. What was she seeing? Her head got heavy. She rested next to me.

The next injection took only seconds. I watched her sides as a few last breaths blew in and out. Then Lily was still.

Stethoscope. From behind me was a quiet voice: her heart has stopped.

Lily's eyes were still open, and I hope she was watching the humming bird, rather than look at me covered in fur, tears, and rain.

Wow. How quickly life is here, then gone, I said.

As I told my brother, I got down on the ground with her, watched her get drowsy and then watched her life pass.

Sometimes something terrible is the right things to do.

We'll get her ashes back soon, and I'll scatter her in the forest along our hiking trail, all the way to the vernal pool and back.

Goodbye you beautiful girl.

She did not die frightened, alone, or in pain.

I let my family know that Lily died quietly and peacefully.

She was home with me -- comfortable, loved, and quite often speckled with my spilled morning coffee. She was a pro at lapping that up.