Saturday Ramble: Reyn's Last Game

My dog, Reyn, died last night. I write that because it is a little easier to stomach than "the precious baby who took a pair of newlyweds and made us a FAMILY," because it is easy to appear composed in text and the reality is that I am pausing ever few seconds to break into angry, ugly tears. We only had her for three years... she should have had a lot more.

Such moments are, of necessity, crisis of faith. If you can stand unmoved in the face of the loss a loved one, then I don't think the word is "strength," anymore, so much as emotional crippling. Not everyone loves their dog in such a way, but I did, and my wife did. And so of course I'm a wreck, and since I am a wreck who believes in a God who hears and loves us, I have spent more than the usual amount of time screaming at that God. Not internally raging... literally screaming. My throat hurts from it, in the same way my eyes hurt from crying.

It beats yelling at Rose, or Reyn while she was still with us. If you want a tangible benefit of the belief in an intangible God, there's one for you. It's not unique to hard-nosed believers, either. I once heard an atheist, in the midst of their pain, cry out "You see, THIS is why I don't believe in you!"

Unpack that statement however you like.

Something interesting did happen in that room, though. Our plan HAD been to keep Reyn home last night and today, to have her vet drive out this afternoon to do it. But after a great day (friends visiting, long walks, fun food she wasn't normally allowed to have, lots and lots and lots of throwing the tennis ball) it was clear that she was struggling. Her breaths were ragged and occasionally punctuated by coughing as her lungs struggled to oxygenate blood that, poisoned by her failed kidneys, no longer had sufficient red blood cells to oxygenate. Where she would normally bound to her place on top of the couch in two jumps, she now had to slowly climb. Our bed was flat out of her reach, needing me to lift her, something she'd always hated. So we made the call, to take her while she still had some pep, while her tail was still wagging, while the IV fluids allowed her to feel like a living creature.

I don't think I've ever made a harder decision. I don't know that I could have made it, had Rose and I not been able to make it together.

So there we were, in a room at the Animal Hospital. We'd brought along her favorite blanket, a rawhide bone (they used to last scant minutes around her, this one she just licked or carried) and her latest (already punctured) tennis ball. Normally Reyn on a trip was always upbeat and curious, but she'd spent a lot of time in hospitals recently and was visibly frightened. Not knowing what else to do, I tossed her ball.

Instantly, fear was forgotten. There was a moving ball, the rest of the world didn't exist anymore. She chased it, caught it, and brought it back to me, dropping it in my lap. She wanted more. So we gave her more, we tossed it over and over and over again, and she brought it back, alternating between giving it to me, or giving it to Rose.

And someone else. Someone else was in the room... to her, anyway.

Anyone who has spent any amount of time around dying people has seen it... towards the end, many dying people will start to see other people in the room with them, people other is the room can't see, often lost loved ones. Call it what you like, from a heavenly visitation to a helpful hallucination, the brain easing its own way, but to them it's there, it's real.

Rose and I were next to each other on a couch, holding each other as we played Reyn's favorite game with her. But periodically, she'd take the ball to an empty chair in the room, and hold it as she looked at the chair expectantly, tail wagging. Reyn didn't ignore potential playmates. She saw someone in that chair, and wanted them to play with her, too. But after a few seconds, or when Rose and I would call, she'd run back over to us so we'd play.

I will always wonder who she saw in that chair, who she was inviting to join in her last game, ears perked, tail wagging. Only a few minutes later, exhausted, she watched the ball go away and didn't chase it. Instead, she climbed up onto the couch, laid down on her blanket, and I went to call the technician. Five minutes later she was gone, and I felt as that huge heart of hers stopped beating.

God damn it.

In the room there was a poorly written poem, in stanzas that rhymed when the author could be bothered, called the Rainbow Bridge. I've since learned that it is based on a short prose narrative of the same title, which talks about the place pets go when they die, to be full, happy and hale again, and to wait eagerly until their human finally joins them. It's a neat thought, reassurance that your pet is no longer hurting, but also eager to see you again. I still miss her, but there are worst thoughts, so we'll run with it for now.

This ramble was just going to be the story of the other player in her game, hence the title, but I couldn't start there and apparently couldn't end there. That's how grief can work... a rollercoaster that takes you to odd highs and terrifying lows so fast you can barely keep up. I loved Reyn, my sweet Reynie-bear. If Rose and I have children, I'll hate that they never got to meet her, that she never got to have little ones tumbling around, dropping foods that she wasn't supposed to eat, I'll miss those wet, happy kisses and the thumping of that tail whenever I entered the room, I'll miss how she tugged at the leash when we went for walks and how I became a better person in a desperate attempt to live up to the me she saw everytime she looked at me.

Time may scar it over, may make the laughter more prevalent than the tears, may make the stories Rose and I have about her almost legendary as we share them and people think that a dog so great couldn't possibly be real. No dog is really that good, that fun, that sweet, right?

Don't you believe them, Dan. You know, as did everyone else who knew her, how great Reyn was, how loving, how gentle. Don't you dare forget that, ever. And don't worry. When your time comes, and you are reunited with all the loved ones you have lost, as you greet them in joy, you will hear a steadily accelerating thumping sound nearby.

And there she'll be, so freaking excited that Daddy has finally gotten home.