In the four years that followed Hank’s death, Bonnie tried to put her life back together. She was up and down, but mostly down. She learned a lot about grief—the accompanying depression, anger, sense of betrayal and the endless questions about why Hank had been taken from her in such a violent and unpredictable way. She lived with the frustration of not having said good-bye, of not having the opportunity to say all of the things she wanted to say, of not being able to comfort him, soothe him, help him leave this life and move into the next. She wasn’t prepared for this kind of ending. It was not the way she wanted her best friend, her lover, her partner to die.
When Bonnie finished talking, we both sat in silence for a while. Finally I said, “Would you like Cassie’s death to be different from Hank’s? By that, I mean would you like to plan and prepare for her death? That way, you won’t have any surprises, and although you may shorten her life by a few days, you will ensure that you are with her to the very end. I’m talking now, Bonnie, about euthanasia. With euthanasia, you won’t have to worry about coming home from work and finding Cassie dead, and you can ensure that she won’t die in pain. If we help Cassie die by euthanasia, you can be with her, hold her, talk to her and comfort her. You can peacefully send her on to the next life. The choice is up to you.”
Bonnie’s eyes opened wide. Her shoulders relaxed and her face softened in relief.
“I just need control this time,” she said. “I want this death to be different from Hank’s—for my girl.”
The decision was made to euthanize Cassie that afternoon. I left the two of them alone, and Bonnie and Cassie spent the next few hours lying outside under the maple tree. Bonnie talked to Cassie, stroked her curly black fur and helped her get comfortable when she seemed unable to do so on her own. A soft breeze moved through the trees, adding a gentle rustling to the peaceful scene.
When it was time, Bonnie brought Cassie into the client comfort room, an area that those of us associated with The Changes Program had adapted to be more conducive to humane animal death and client grief. I encouraged Bonnie to tell me if there was anything she wanted to do for Cassie before she died. She laughed and said, “She likes to eat Kleenex. I’d like to give her some.”
I laughed, too. “In this business we have plenty of that on hand,” I said.
The dog was lying down by Bonnie, who was on the floor on a soft pad. Bonnie began to pet and talk to her. “There you are, girl. You’re right here by Mom. Everything is okay.”
Over the next half-hour, Bonnie and Cassie “talked” to one another and “finished business.” Everything that needed to be said was said.
The time for euthanasia arrived and Cassie was sleeping peacefully, her head resting on Bonnie’s stomach. She looked comfortable, very much at ease. Dr. Bush whispered, “May we begin the procedure?” and Bonnie nodded in affirmation.
“But first,” she said softly, “I would like to say a prayer.”
She reached out to take our hands and we all reached out our hands to one another. Within this sacred circle, Bonnie softly prayed, “Dear Lord, thank you for giving me this beautiful dog for the past fourteen years. I know she was a gift from you. Today, as painful as it is, I know it is time to give her back. And, dear Lord, thank you for bringing these women to me. They have helped me beyond measure. I attribute their presence to you. Amen.”
Through our tears, we whispered our own “amens,” all squeezing one another’s hands in support of the rightfulness of the moment.
And then, while Cassie continued to sleep peacefully on her caretaker’s belly, the doctor gave the dog the final injection. Cassie did not wake up. Through it all, she did not move. She just slipped out of this life into the next. It was quick, peaceful and painless, just as we had predicted. Immediately following Cassie’s passing, I made a clay impression of her front paw. I handed the paw print to Bonnie and she held it tenderly against her cheek. We all sat quietly until Bonnie broke the silence, saying, “If my husband had to die, I wish he could have died this way.”
So do I, Bonnie, I thought. So do I.
Six weeks later, I received a letter from Bonnie. She had scattered Cassie’s remains on the same mountain where Hank’s were scattered. Now her two best friends were together again. She said somehow Cassie’s death, and especially the way in which she had died, had helped her resolve the death of her husband.
“Cassie’s death was a bridge to Hank for me,” she wrote. “Through her death, I let him know that if I had had the choice when he died, I would have had the courage and the dedication necessary to be with him when he died, too. I needed him to know that and I hadn’t been able to find a way. Cassie provided the way. I think that is the reason for and the meaning of her death. Somehow, she knew she could reconnect us, soul to soul.”
Eight months later, Bonnie traveled once again from Wyoming to the Veterinary Teaching Hospital. This time, she brought her new, healthy puppy Clyde—a nine-month-old Lab mix, full of life and love. Bonnie was beginning again.
Carolyn Butler with Laurel Lagoni
The Rainbow Bridge
TIME is
Too slow for those who wait,
Too swift for those who fear,
Too long for those who grieve,
Too short for those who rejoice.
But for those who love,
Time is not.
Henry van Dyke
There is a bridge connecting heaven and Earth.
It is called the Rainbow Bridge because of its many colors. Just this side of the Rainbow Bridge is a land of meadows, hills and valleys, all of it covered with lush green grass.
When a beloved pet dies, the pet goes to this lovely land. There is always food and water and warm spring weather. There, the old and frail animals are young again. Those who are maimed are made whole once more. They play all day with each other, content and comfortable.
There is only one thing missing. They are not with the special person who loved them on Earth. So each day they run and play until the day comes when one suddenly stops playing and looks up! Then, the nose twitches! The ears are up! The eyes are staring! You have been seen, and that one suddenly runs from the group!
You take him or her in your arms and embrace. Your face is kissed again and again and again, and you look once more into the eyes of your trusting pet.
Then, together, you cross the Rainbow Bridge, never again to be separated.
Paul C. Dahm
That Dog Disguise Isn’t
Fooling Anyone
Give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.
Isa. 61:3
On Christmas morning of 1958, my father had come to church with us, and I was to sing my first solo. I was eleven years old. After the service, in the parking lot, he leaned down, took my hand and confided to me how proud he was to be my dad. I dearly loved him, and it was one of the more perfect moments of my childhood.
The next day, when Daddy returned from a quick trip to the hardware store, he walked through the front door and, apparently feeling unwell, went to the bedroom, where he lay down on the bed and suffered a massive heart attack. Our family watched in helpless disbelief as the man who held our lives together fought bravely to hold onto his own. The ambulance arrived too late, for the tragedy that determined our family’s future was over in less than twenty minutes.
The American Indians have a phrase they use to describe children who have an intimate knowledge of sorrow. They say the child has developed sky-eyes. I have little memory of the painful years immediately following my father’s death, but photos of me from that period show a detached look, a distance in my gaze, as though my vision included a portion of the sky.
When I was twenty-four, I became engaged to a beautiful and charismatic European boy. In the enchantment of love, the numbing impact of my father’s death was put aside. I began to dream of the wonderful possibilities ahead of us. Until the morning I received the phone call informi
ng me that my fiancé had been robbed, shot and killed in south-central Los Angeles. The abruptness of it took my breath away.
This second tragedy was as sudden and devastating as the first, and it cemented my belief that life was brutally precarious. I closed my heart and I fell into a diminished living, unable to feel deep joy and worse yet, unable to pray.
I functioned as though two people lived inside of me— the public me and the private me. Publicly, my singing career flourished—I won a Grammy for the song “Up Where We Belong,” which I sang with Joe Cocker. I rejoiced in my music—singing had always been a “free zone” for me. But the private me withered; I felt strangled by resentment and deeply betrayed by God.
I survived seven years like this until a perceptive friend gave me a puppy—a badly bred golden retriever and a most unwelcome imposition on my life. Reluctantly, I decided to keep her.
I named her Emma and like every other puppy owner, I began telling her what to do, or more frequently what not to do.
“Don’t chew that, walk this way, eat here, poop there, sit up, get off the bed, stop barking . . .” Armed with a stack of training manuals, I became the puppy police, imposing the usual ridiculous rules and inane tricks upon this little creature. While Emma executed these performances well, she stared at me flatly, as if to say, “This is completely unnecessary.” Her boldness made me laugh out loud. Now I realize she was simply biding her time, waiting for me to understand.
Around Emma’s fourth birthday, our roles began to reverse. Something in me opened up to her and I found that she was often “telling” me what to do, such as “leave the desk now, sit here with me and watch the butterflies, go home and go to sleep, listen to the wild birds singing . . .” I began observing her natural patterns and impulses and noticing the grace with which she greeted the passing of the days. She showed me a view of the world that made mine appear silly by comparison.
I started bringing Emma with me on short trips. I sensed that she knew something and I was determined to find out what it was. We drove up the California coast, and I would stop and let her explore whenever she became especially interested in the surroundings. I let her take the lead and followed her as she trotted along old redwood paths and discovered hidden coves. We pawed around with starfish in the moonlight and barked joyfully back at the seals. We raced up and down the shoreline until we were exhausted. I began noticing the smell of it all—fresh clover, seaweed, sage. My hearing, overburdened by the recording studio, began refining and I heard the smaller sounds of nature, like mouse feet or a lizard on a twig.
The dog was my teacher. I watched as she greeted each stranger with curiosity and warmth, graciously prompting me to introduce myself to these often fascinating individuals. I grew to love her frank and friendly nature. The seemingly irreparable scars from my abrupt losses were slowly dissolving as I learned to appreciate the impossibly simple joys of a dog’s life.
Emma’s influence extended into my music career as well. We were inseparable in the recording studio during the making of two of my most successful CDs. Recording sessions went more smoothly when she was present. Whether sleeping at my feet or being the tireless greeter and relaxer of people, Emma brought musicians together. We laughed more when she was around, and that laughter found its way into the music. There is a photo of us on a stretch of open road in the booklet for one of my CDs and it captures the two of us accurately: wandering in the big world, satisfied just being together.
Some years later, when Emma was eight, she became sick. Exploratory surgery revealed that she had advanced cancer and her vet, a wonderful man named Dr. Martin Schwartz, told me that it was possible she had no more than a month remaining.
The following week was heavy with silence. Evenings, we sat together on the porch, waiting for the stars to come out. Like the many peaceful moments we had shared before, we sat shoulder to shoulder, listening for bits of news whispering down the leaves, watching the fall of light and savoring each other’s company. It was useless to talk, but sometimes I sang to her and she appeared to smile.
When I realized she didn’t intend to eat any more, I brought her to the vet’s for a day of IV feeding to bring back her strength. That whole day, all I could think about was picking Emma up and taking our walk on the beach at sunset. On my way out the door, I happened to look in a drawer and found an old tie tack of Daddy’s. I slipped it into the pocket of my jeans as a sort of talisman against the inevitable. I must have known we were near the end.
When I arrived at the vet’s and asked for Emma, the nurse said softly, “The doctor wants to speak with you.” I felt her gentle words slam into me as I sank into a chair, and the tears came up from an ancient river of defeat.
Dr. Schwartz told me that Emma wasn’t strong enough to leave the clinic. He took me back to where my best friend was lying on a blanket on the floor and left us alone together. I lay down beside her.
She had been dying all day, but she wasn’t going to go until I was ready. Filled with a deep gratitude that she had waited to share this with me, I rested my cheek on her neck, and with my hand laid softly over her heart, I began to sing.
Without any effort, a simple melody came to me. It was a love song, long ago forgotten, about a love as big as the world itself.
We had so little left, but I needed her to know, or somehow to feel, the steadfast loyalty of my heart. A song can go places unreachable by word or gesture, and despite her weakness, her eyes almost smiled.
Then her body began to strain and I knew that this was it. From my past experience with sudden death, I expected a struggle, a violent resistance to life’s end. Holding her with my eyes closed, I braced myself. Instead, I felt a sudden wave of ease and comfort wash over us. My fear vanished, and I marveled at how peaceful it was. She died right there next to me in the gentleness of that moment.
I opened my eyes to find just a body, still and empty. The joy, the spark that had taught me so much, had vanished. Emma was gone.
In my earlier, bitter years, I had angrily asked God to show me his face. But this evening, I had no argument with heaven. His answer, more perfect than I could have ever imagined, had come through this little dog. For it was Emma’s gentle dying that released me from the persistent pain of my early tragedies. And it was her surprisingly wise way of living that gave me back my life.
Jennifer Warnes with Shawnacy Kiker
Rites of Passage
Some of the most poignant moments I spend as a veterinarian are those spent with my clients assisting the transition of my animal patients from this world to the next. When living becomes a burden, whether from pain or loss of normal functions, I can help a family by ensuring that their beloved pet has an easy passing. Making this final decision is painful, and I have often felt powerless to comfort the grieving owners.
That was before I met Shane.
I had been called to examine a ten-year-old blue heeler named Belker who had developed a serious health problem. The dog’s owners—Ron, his wife, Lisa, and their little boy, Shane—were all very attached to Belker and they were hoping for a miracle. I examined Belker and found he was dying of cancer.
I told the family there were no miracles left for Belker, and offered to perform the euthanasia procedure for the old dog in their home. As we made the arrangements, Ron and Lisa told me they thought it would be good for the four-year-old Shane to observe the procedure. They felt Shane could learn something from the experience.
The next day, I felt the familiar catch in my throat as Belker’s family surrounded him. Shane seemed so calm, petting the old dog for the last time, that I wondered if he understood what was going on.
Within a few minutes, Belker slipped peacefully away. The little boy seemed to accept Belker’s transition without any difficulty or confusion. We sat together for a while after Belker’s death, wondering aloud about the sad fact that animal lives are shorter than human lives.
Shane, who had been listening quietly, piped up, “I know why.”
r /> Startled, we all turned to him. What came out of his mouth next stunned me—I’d never heard a more comforting explanation.
He said, “Everybody is born so they can learn how to live a good life—like loving everybody and being nice, right?” The four-year-old continued, “Well, animals already know how to do that, so they don’t have to stay as long.”
Robin Downing, D.V.M.
Saying Good-Bye
What troubled me most was the recurring thought: I didn’t get to say good-bye.
I was away from home for the weekend. The door was left open and my two white shepherd-mix dogs, Lucy and Hannah, had gotten out. My husband called me on Saturday night to tell me that Lucy had been hit by a car. She was alive, but her back legs were severely injured. The vets were observing her and would decide what to do on Monday. He told me not to come home since there was nothing I could do.
I started driving home on Monday morning, calling every few hours en route to get a progress report. With my first call I learned they had decided to amputate one of her hind legs. Many anxious calls later, the vet’s office told me the operation had gone smoothly and Lucy was resting comfortably. I knew I wouldn’t arrive home in time to see her that day, but they told me I could come as soon as they opened on Tuesday.
Tuesday morning, I was getting ready to leave when the phone rang. It was the vet.
“I’m sorry, but we lost her during the night,” he told me. “Last night, I went to the clinic for an emergency call around two in the morning, and I went in to check on your dog. She was laboring for breath, so I gave her some medicine. Then I sat with her—I was holding her when she died.”