On Death

I'm just going to do some rambling...on and on and on. Don't mind me. I'm not going to proof read either, so there.

I don't believe in God. I not a fan of all the rituals and I don't buy into the fantasies that people make up for themselves so they can feel better when someone they love has passed away. I've dealt with some death. Most of my grandparents are dead, and it's probably only a matter of time until the last one is gone. We think she's holding on for spite at this point ;) I've had friends die far too young. The most painful deaths I've ever had to deal with (I still cry when I think about them) were my Grampa Haack and my cat, Alice.

My Grampa had COPD, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. It's a VERY slow death. It takes many years to whither away and die from COPD. I remember how thin he got at the end, and how he needed help with everything. My grandfather was a proud man, and it killed me to see him like that. Not long before he died, my grandfather was in the nursing home and left out of an activity involving my dad. I can't remember what it was, but he really wanted to go and couldn't. He and I were in his room alone together, and he started to cry. It was the first time I'd ever seen him like that. He asked me to end it for him. It's moments like that, when someone you love begs you for mercy, that you really find out what you're made of. Turns out, I'm a coward. I couldn't bring myself to even TELL anyone else what he'd asked me to do because I couldn't bear to see him go.

When my grandfather did die, he was on morphine and out of his head. My family left the hospital earlier in the evening, and I held his hand for hours. It was WAY past time, and I'm glad he didn't have to suffer anymore. Even though it's been years, my heart still aches that he's gone though.

When I was a little girl, my mom, dad and I lived on a cul-de-sac in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Our neighbors had a big white cat named Albert. I wanted one too - SOOOOOOOO BAAAAADDDDDD. One day, my dad came home. It was cold cold cold out but he was just wearing jeans, boots, a long sleeved shirt and a warm vest - no coat. He told me to come over to him. When I did, he opened up his vest, and out of the little inside pocket popped the CUTEST little white head. That's the day I met my baby, Alice. We spent years together. She endured SO much torment...I used to dress her up and walk her around in a baby carriage (omg....). She was certainly the QUEEN of the house.

She moved with us to Minnesota. My parents brought home a Chinese Shar-Pei puppy one afternoon, and even HE knew not to mess with the TOP dog. She moved with us again back to Iowa. After a break up with a boyfriend, my mom told me to go find a grey kitten. I think she was hoping to take my mind off of the breakup. It did, I did, and Alice never forgave me! But she still loved me, and she still let my Goober McBoober know who was BOSS. Back in Iowa, Grunt, the Shar-Pei died of a twisted stomach.

I cried the day I went to college, because I never imagined a life with out my baby doll. I would visit home and we would lay together on the basement floor until I got called away to do something around the house.

A while later, my parents brought home two of the cutest little lab puppies I've ever seen. Razzle and Zoe are getting old now, but they are still the cutest little lab puppies in the world! Alice must have been in her mid to late teens then. My dad cut a chunk out of the door to the basement so the cat's could get there if they needed to run away from the dogs. That was Alice's space.

As the labs grew up, they began to learn that the world revolved around Alice too. I'd come home from college and brush the mats out of Alice's hair. My dad would feed and water her in the basement so she didn't have to walk up the stairs. Every once in a while, she'd make her way up the stairs and out into the kitchen. Those 80 pound dogs had NUTHIN' on my Alice. My money'd be on her EVERY time. I remember one time in particular when she came up. The dogs were eating. She strolled into the kitchen, walked right up to them, and paused for a moment for them to realize they were in the presence of royalty. They saw her, stopped eating, and backed away from their bowls. Alice sauntered up to their food, munched a little, drank a little water, snapped her fingers in the air three times and said, "That's RIGHT, bitch!" and walked away. Alice weighed about 16 pounds by the way. LOL!

As the years passed Alice slowly began to deteriorate. Her beautiful white fur began to yellow, and she had more and more difficulty caring for herself. One day, my parents called me (I was living in Webster City at the time) and said they thought that it was time. My dad had to bath her so she could be clean, she had arthritis, and pretty much never left the perch my dad made for her on a chair in the basement. I went home that weekend, and we took Alice to the vet. She was very kind and reassured me that it was the right thing to do (you always secretly want them to tell you different). Alice didn't cry in the car. She didn't fight on the table - I don't think she had any left. They injected her with an overdose of anesthesia and my best friend, my sanity was gone. I held her in my arms while she drifted away. I've never felt pain mount an attack on my entire body like that before. It overtook me. It's out of this world how much I still miss her and how much it still hurts to think about that day.

Last night I whitnessed the passing of someone's beloved cat. My heart broke because his heart broke. He thinks I don't understand the attachment, but I understand better than he knows.

Someday soon, I'm going to have to make that decision for Goober. He's getting old too. He's 15. He used to be a big, big boy. He's sagging now, like most old guys do. His butt is boney, but he's got a little paunch on him. His eyes still sparkle, so it's not time just yet, but I know it's coming.

I think that one of the responsiblities that is part of your contract when you take a pet into your home is to put them down when they can no longer take care of themselves or when they are in chronic pain. Most people fight when faced with pain, but in the case of my Alice, she was EIGHTY FOUR YEARS OLD. Her little body was worn out, and it wasn't kind or fair to keep her alive. In fact, it would have been cruel. I knew that after all we'd been through together, that I owed her better than that.

In the end, I think it's all just over. There's no heaven. Alice and I won't be together someday playing in fields of dasies eating all the Cherry Garcia ice cream we can stomach without brain freeze. Nope. It's just done. No more consciousness, no more awareness. And that's ok. My dog, Tito Bean, doesn't need promises of some kind of great afterlife for being the worlds best doggie! So I don't need that to be the world's best mommy. I don't really care what it all means in the end. We won't really know until we get there. Or maybe we won't even know then. In the mean time, I'm going to stop typing this blog and get back to loving my babies. I've got a lot of that to do today!