Licorice

    A little over a month ago, I had to do one of the hardest things I've had to do in this life. I had to put our lovely dog down. It wasn't a surprise. I had known it was coming because two months before, I had taken her to the vet for an ultrasound to see what all the mystery had been that was causing her troubles and I saw the huge mass in her chest cavity staring at us from the screen. "How long does she have?" I asked, surprisingly matter-of-fact. "A few months," he answered. His assistant then asked me if she could give my dog a few treats and then said, "Enjoy every moment you have with her". I nodded, started to tear up and wandered bleary-eyed out the door, stopping to pay at the desk on the way out. I remember looking at a young couple waiting with their puppy, and looking down at my own dog's face, now thoroughly sprinkled with grey, and thinking it really wasn't that long ago that she was an adorable pup herself. 

    But it was that long ago, almost 11 years ago, to be exact. She had grown up and gone through all of her changes with me; I was by her side through it all. When she came into my life, it was at the request of my ex, who suddenly, around Christmas time that year, decided we should get a puppy. I was on the fence, leaning more towards the "No!" side, but I ended up caving. My ex was persistent, and part of me had fluffy dog fantasies that won in the end. So we picked her up from the Humane Society... well, my ex picked her. She was the puppy he wanted, barking frantically at us from her cage as we looked at her. The barking of course hadn't escaped my notice. "That one? Really?" I said. "She's pretty loud". A few minutes later, we were in a room, just the three of us (my ex, me, our 6 year old son), and a young woman brought her to meet us. I remember feeling reluctant, as she wasn't the one I would have picked, but there she was nudging her face against my legs, there she was nestling her small 3-month old body against mine. I was the first one she chose, as soon as she entered the room.

    Fast-forward almost 11 years later and I was still the one. My ex became my ex not quite a year after we got Licorice, and a year after that, in a new relationship, he informed me that the dog could no longer go to his house anymore. We had an agreement that the dog would follow the kid, but the new love interest's disdain for dog hair meant that I was now a full-time dog owner. Countless conversations in cozy lounge booths with friends followed wherein they would all shout out vicious insults about my ex, indignant that he had left the responsibility of the dog to me. I lapped all of that up of course, because I was angry, resentful, bitter and felt trapped. My ex suggested at one point that we get rid of the dog because "neither of us wants her". He was kind of forgetting the seven year old who had furiously attached himself to the animal in a way that only "only children" do. 

    I obviously didn't get rid of the dog. I couldn't do that to my son. But I remember realizing the definition of the word sacrifice, as if for the first time; everything about the dog seemed a sacrifice to me. She came to represent all that I had to give up. When I looked at her, it was through the eyes of entrapment. I'd sometimes go into mini rages as I observed myself, yet again picking up dog poo in the backyard, yet again vacuuming up endless dog hair, yet again grabbing her leash to take her for a walk, motivated by guilt alone. In those first few years after our split, the resentment filled me too frequently.

    But then, things changed. One day, after a particularly tiring day at work, I pulled up to the back of the house, turned off the ignition and just sat in the car for a few minutes, thinking of all of the chores I still had ahead of me that day. One of my obligations was to take the dog for a walk. I started to feel the irritation squirming and growing inside me, started to play the same over-worn script in my head (the "poor-me" one), but suddenly, a thought popped into my brain, "You need to be a stoic about this. This is your life. Accept it, deal with it, and stop complaining". Later that night, I did my usual and looked up the definition of stoic online, and found one that summed it up nicely: a person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining. I knew then that I had to set that task for myself. I owed it to the dog, I owed it to my son, and I owed it to myself. So I did.

    After I made that decision, life with Licorice (or our "Black Beauty" as I sometimes called her) was a lovely, fulfilling adventure. I no longer bemoaned all the things I had to do in order to have a dog. I welcomed them... for the most part. I no longer let resentment overtake me, no longer let my mind tell stories that made me a victim in the long-running drama that was my life. I saw Licorice for what she really was-- a sweet, beautiful, loving family pet-- and I owned her finally, fully and completely.

    When the diagnosis of cancer happened, the first thing I had to do was tell my 16 year old son. I picked him up from school, pulled over to the side of the road and told him the bad news. We spent the next 24 hours crying together and deciding what we were going to do. Both vets that were involved at the time told me that there was a strong possibility that the tumor in her chest would rupture at some point, leaving her in "severe respiratory distress". We didn't know if we should risk that, so we thought of putting her down within the next few days, even though she seemed, outwardly, mostly like her usual self, just an older version. But then we just couldn't do it. 

    We got two more months with our black beauty, and we savored our time with her. The last day of her life, I took a few selfies of the three of us before we went to the vet's, realizing regretfully that I had never taken pictures of the three of us in the past nine years, pictures of our little family that could sit on the bookshelf in the living room, and show everyone what we meant to each other.

    When it was time to put her down, my son and I were together with her in a quiet room, plowing through a box of kleenex together. The clinic was empty that night as we were the last clients of the day. I held Licorice's head in my lap and her heavily sedated body offered no resistance. I kept looking at my son who couldn't speak, crying softly beside me. My heart ached for his suffering. Because he couldn't speak, I spoke for the both of us, "We love you Licorice. We love you, black beauty. We'll miss you sweetheart". When she had the final injection and her body jerked suddenly a few seconds later (the vet had told us that would happen), I felt her spirit leave, and in that moment, my tears fell harder. In that moment, I understood fully what I was losing.

    Watching our pet die was one of the most painful things I have experienced, but there was a strange beauty in it too. I remember thinking as I was going through it all, holding her body in the room, "I am doing all of this right now and am completely in the moment. I am present, fully aware, conscious. And I will stay present afterwards because I'm not going to have a glass of wine to numb the pain". I realized that I was feeling excruciatingly painful feelings, but I was still okay, that I would be okay. I realized that my son was feeling the same feelings, but that he would be okay too. I realized that I was role-modeling for my son how to deal with suffering. And that is a beauty all its own.