Five weeks ago I had to have my little cockapoo of twelve years, Snuffy, put down. I was fully expecting to be a wreck. People had told me back when he was my adored puppy, my first and only dog, that I would be a 'basket case' when his 'time' came. His dog sitter joked that she wanted to come back as my dog in her next life, I spoilt him so ...
The days leading up to the fateful event were extremely hard - how do you 'decide' to schedule the death of your baby?? I felt like a murderer. So the screaming child got quite a work-out during that time. But not only then. There had been tears earlier - weeks earlier - the morning his legs failed and he toppled onto his back trying to jump in the car; the day he stopped a few yards in on his favorite walk and wouldn't budge, looking up at me as if to say, "You've got to be kidding"; this last week, when he lost interest in rides in the car and turned his nose up at a forbidden piece of ham and exhibited some awful physical symptoms. His vet told me it was over and to think about the humane thing to do. He spent his time sleeping on the bed. If I let him have his way (and I mostly did) he'd work his way round so his head would be on my pillow, even though his breath could fell a rhinoceros. This didn't seem to embody much of that elusive 'quality of life'. I got the name of a vet who would mercifully come to the house to do the deed and it was scheduled for Friday evening between 6 and 7.
All that last day, Snuffy didn't move, not even to lift his head - but his eyes were plenty alert, watching my every move. Talk about mindfulness: he would blink, open his eyes, focus on me, blink, and so on, over and over, all day long. He was so anaemic, so weak, he had spent the last several days in deep sleep - but not that day. He knew something was up. Eventually, when we knew the vet was on his way, we lay down, my husband John, Snuffy and I, and he rested his head on my arm and we stared at each other, eyeball to eyeball for that last hour. And finally, finally, he closed his eyes. By this stage, I was willing him to die before the vet came, he seemed so peaceful, but who dies on cue, apart from buddhas?
So the vet came and gave him the shot, and all I'll say about that was that it was astonishingly quick. I broke down, of course, when they left, taking Snuffy with them. But it was no worse than all the other breakdowns that had happened along the way and it was a perfectly appropriate reaction to what was happening in that moment which was unutterably sad. And then - John and I both remarked that there was a lightness of spirit in the house. It was palpable. I was so afraid I would bring it down with my grief. But I went and sat for half an hour and I didn't cry and the lightness stayed. Slowly a fragile feeling within me started to grow that astonishingly, maybe, it was all okay.
Saturday morning I joined Long Beach Meditation for our first ever early morning meditation on the beach. What a perfect thing to do on my first dog-less morning, so cold and grey, yet surrounded by friends, held in silence. I was still mostly fine, except when people said afterwards they were sorry about my dog. Tears were still very near the surface. After the sit I slept a lot; watched TV with my daughter; did two and a half hours of very hard yoga; wrote and sat and went to bed early. But I haven't shed a tear since Seal Beach. This, for me not to cry over this particular death, is so extraordinary that I've been trying to understand it ever since.
Ta Hui's words made a big impression: what IS the use of this practice, if it doesn't help in 'real life'? We all know the person who says 'when the children are grown, when I retire, when I move into a bigger house, when I get my Masters, blah, blah, blah, THEN my real life will begin.' Missing the fact completely that this IS real life; as Ezra Bayda said, "The obstacles ARE the Path." So THIS obstacle, the death of a little dog - what to do with that?
I could collapse. It is what I thought I would do. It's what people do, after all. I could make a big drama out of it, I could get teary eyed over other people and their dogs; I could avoid doggy TV shows, and friends with dogs, and avert my eyes from people walking their dogs on the street. The pain. I can be very dramatic. And I always thought being dramatic is just who I am. I do love to be noticed.
So then I thought some more and realized that this is the great gift of a great dog: a great dog DOES notice you. For instance, if we all came home together in the car and I was the last one in the house, Snuffy would push through all those advancing legs to get to me. His joy every time at seeing me was unbounded. Even if I'd only been gone ten minutes. Conversely, if the others were headed out the door to get in the car, no matter if they called him to come, he would wait, quivering, watching my face for the signal - only my word mattered.
For someone who grew up at a time when children were seen but not heard, when my opinions and thoughts were routinely ignored, can you imagine how healing it is to have someone really SEE you, to be so attuned to your body language it's as if they can read your every thought, to think you are so wonderful that whatever you do is just fine, as long as they can do it with you? Like the bumper sticker says, "Dear God, please let me be half the person my dog thinks I am."
So I thought if I carry on now in the way the world seems to expect me to behave, if I obediently fall apart because that's what people do when their pet dies, it is as though all of Snuffy's tremendous unconditional love, his hard work at making me feel worthy of being loved, is for nought. To the bitter-sweet end of his life, he was looking at me, saying literally with his last breaths "I love you" with his eyes. How can that be gone? I hold myself a little taller knowing that once upon a time, my little dog thought I was worth loving. Nothing can take that away: it happened and I am the better for it.
I did a lot of my grieving while Snuffy was still alive. I'm sure it would be very different, much harder, had he suddenly been run over, say, in the prime of his life. But Helen pointed out that Snuffy had not been Snuffy for months - the walks, the tricks, all the things that made him such a special dog had actually stopped months ago, but so gradually, that while I had mourned each little loss, I hadn't paid attention to the big picture. He was never in pain, as far as I know, and that was my gauge. Last night I felt a pang when I dropped a piece of food on the floor, knowing I couldn't call "Vacuum!" and have Snuffy come beetling along, nose to the ground, on clean-up duty. I stopped that thought, ("Beware the second thought!"), pointing out to myself that I'd actually stopped doing this while he was still alive, so to cry about it now seems overly dramatic and unreal. Like an actress making herself cry by thinking sad thoughts.
How can I go on grieving him? The Snuffy I grieve is not the one who was living under my nose for the last several months. That Snuffy was smelly and decrepit and infirm, with so many ailments and pills and no hope of getting better - why, when I think of that Snuffy, would I feel sad? I wouldn't want that Snuffy to live an instant longer than he had to. Ta Hui quotes Layman P'ang who says, "Just vow to empty all that exists; don't make real that which doesn't exist."
And this is where the practice itself of sitting on the cushion has helped immeasurably: if the idea is to see what IS, then what IS is that my old, sick dog is no longer suffering. The dog I miss exists only in my head ("...don't make real that which does not exist"); is actually an old version of Snuffy who hasn't been around for some time now. It feels wrong somehow to cry for Snuffy, when THAT Snuffy is long gone. What he gave me, ah well... his love will stay with me, as real as his collar and his tags. Surely after twelve years, I have folded all that love into my own heart and made it my own?
My daughter Helen commented, "I'm glad this happened NOW when you're doing meditation, and you're all weirdly accepting of death..." It IS weird, I do feel a little alien, not like 'myself', not exhibiting correct behavior for bereaved pet owner, not what society would consider appropriate. Perhaps I seem a little cold. Or perhaps strong and brave. It's none of those.
More and more, I am coming to understand what Victor says, that whoever it is I call 'myself' is not some fixed identity, but a cobbled together mishmash of perceptions and life history and patterns, etc. that is all subject to change, if I so choose. Nothing is fixed! I can believe now that underneath all the 'drama between the ears' as VB calls it, is something quite different: Ta Hui calls it 'pure, clear, perfect illumination.' I am not saying my Snuffy story is anywhere near approaching that state, but I share it because it is markedly different from how I have ever reacted to anything like this in my entire life before.
Today I sat for over two hours, and I searched my heart every time - where's the sorrow? It truly wasn't there. So I conclude, because I know how much I loved my dog, that we can choose our reactions. Just like Victor teaches! I am finding (to my amazement) that letting go of all that emotion, the highs and lows both, is tremendously freeing. We can hold things lightly, open our hand and let it all go. And it's not tepid at all, as I feared - we worry, don't we, about who are we without our feelings, our grand passions? I am dimly beginning to see that the less identified we are with our feelings, the less caught up we are in ourselves and our abundant illusions about this life, and more likely, as Wally said, to be able to see what really matters, while filled with equanimity and compassion. Able to hear the other person without an agenda, for instance.
It would be great to continue the discussion, not about the death of a pet necessarily, that was the catalyst, (dogalyst), but how does this practice translate for you in your daily life? How does it work for you in the 'hubbub'? (Ta Hui again)
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