Step 1: How to Know
See how slowly she walks, head and tail drooping, as if with each step, she has to remember all over again how her paws work. She looks at you with those eyes, glazed over, lost, searching. Wonder how much she still knows. Does she remember who you are? That the two of you grew up together?
She sleeps in your room, her bed next to yours like a sister’s, a silent presence guarding your sleep. She uses all of her strength to climb the stairs, one slow step after another. When you wake up, she’s moved from her bed to the tiny pink bath mat on your bathroom floor. She opens her eyes, looks at you, and stands shakily. She wants to leave. You let her out of the room so that she can go downstairs, but she refuses to walk down them, even when you try to walk down with her. You have to pick her up and carry her. You’ve only done this one other time, during a tornado warning.
Notice how she looks at the stairs now. They are foreign and frightening; she refuses to associate with them. You won’t know that the last time she sleeps in your room will be the last time.
Look at how little she eats. Eating has always been her greatest joy in this life, her self-appointed purpose. Squat by the microwave and watch the rotisserie chicken rotate in the merry-go-round of heat. Sit on the ground and feed her tiny juicy strips of meat. She accepts them reluctantly. There is no joy in the consumption. Notice when she stops eating. Put the juicy chicken under her nose. Find a steak in the fridge. Make a big deal.
Things you could say:
- “Ooh, look! Yummy!”
- “Just take a bite?”
- “Come on, you love steak.”
She looks away from the feast you’ve prepared before her.
See the way she stands like a statue. Everything about her droops as if gravity is working an extra shift on her body. She stares at nothing with eyes that look like they’ve just seen someone get shot. She doesn’t move from her trance until you come to her. You have to show her to her bed, or she won’t go. You pat the brown cushion, and she lies down with a sigh. You wonder if you didn’t intervene, how long she would stand in one place. Would she stand for hours? Days? Would she harden into stone and stare with unblinking eyes forever?
Step 2: How to Wait
Take her outside when she stands at the door, looking at you expectantly. Stand on the front porch while she assesses the two steps down to the yard. Shiver and watch your breath rise like a cloud as she paces, trying to find a way to get to the grass without having to go down the steps. She’s never been afraid of them like this before.
Stand at the bottom of the steps and call her. Pat your legs and smile.
“It’s okay,” you tell her. “Come on.”
When encouragement doesn’t work, nudge her toward them. She jumps back, distrustful of you now.
“Hey. Hey.”
Pet her head.
“Good girl. You’re okay.”
Remind her that you aren’t the enemy. Then, one arm under her front legs and one under her hind leg to scoop her up. She squirms and grunts, exerting more energy trying to escape your help than she has to help herself. You set her down, and she runs to the grass. She can only run when she’s running from you now. You watch her squat and pee under the stars. Feel the cold, rough concrete of the driveway through your socks. Hold yourself. Call her back inside.
When you wake up and walk downstairs, wonder whether or not she’ll wake up. Find her fast asleep in the living room. She breathes so slowly. Just enough to prove her life. She’s peed herself in the night, making her bed a soggy raft in a pungent urinary river. Make her stand, against her will, and walk her out of the river. Put her outside where she won’t track pee through the rest of the house. Call your brother down to help you with the mess. Watch the paper towels turn yellow. Ignore the rest of the mess because the thought of cleaning it up alone makes you want to break down.
Realize she’s shivering on the front porch. Let her back in, feel guilty, and begin wiping down her shaking tail, her weak legs.
Your best friend calls you. You don’t pick up. Then you realize why and call her back with dog pee still on your fingers.
“Guess what?”
She holds up her engagement-ring-adorned hand. The joy in her face is visible even through the pixelated, buffering screen. Scream and try to match her joy. Congratulate her. Say you can’t wait to hear all about it later. Mean it. Her voice crackles mid-laughter.
The call freezes and breaks up. You put the phone down and finish cleaning the dog. Your brother has mopped up the rest of the pee while you were on the phone. Thank him. There are tears in your eyes.
It’s just the seven of you in the house:
- You,
- your brother,
- the Saint Bernard,
- the blue heeler,
- the two cats,
- and the ailing black lab.
You and your brother are walking down the decline with her, alone. You pray she holds on until your parents get back. Two days down, one more to go.
The Saint Bernard is concerned. She walks carefully around the dog bed and sniffs the labrador as she sleeps. The orange cat perches on an ottoman above the dog bed and dangles his legs over the edge. He watches his sick friend. He doesn’t get close to her like he used to. He knows something is wrong.
Wait it out. Convince yourself she can still get better. Stand between her and the looming, slowly approaching sunset. Hold back the tide with sore hands.
Step 3: How to Let Her Leave
What not to say:
- “Listen. You can’t die yet.”
- “You have to hold on.”
- “I need you here.”
- “You are not allowed to leave me yet.”
She looks at you with a tiredness you know even you have not felt. You size one another up, both asking something of the other.
Put her to bed each night. Guide her to the brown cushion. Tell her what a good dog she is. Rub her velvety ear between your fingers. This part of her has not changed as she’s grown older. Think about when you met her: you were 9 years old, and she was 8 months. She is that much younger than you. She is so much older than you. You kiss her head. She heaves a sigh.
What to say:
- “It’s okay if you need to go.”
- “You can go.”
- “I will be okay.”
Pro Tip:
Don’t wait until the day of to process what is happening.
Look it in the face. Recognize it for what it is. When you see it coming, don’t turn away. Don’t pretend you didn’t see it marching toward both of you.
Let your dad drive so you can sit in the backseat with her. Ride half-bent over so you can keep your hand in her soft, dark fur for the whole drive. She does not mind the car; she climbs in willingly.
Maybe she thinks she’s going to Michigan to run through cold lake water and gather sand between her toes. To swim behind you, head bobbing above the waves, and shake the water and sand out of her fur and onto you. You think of how you used to run along the beach, through the woods, across the fields together. Her tail tall and waving among the golden weeds as you race. Her eyes closed, head in your lap as she sleeps.
This is how you should think of her when you remember. Not standing and staring for half an hour. Not cowering and running from your good intentions. Not looking at you like you are a stranger.
Know that you’re not a stranger to her now. Keep your hand on her the whole drive, so she knows you’re still there. And because you won’t get to feel her warm, soft body beneath your hands after today.
Sit beside her on the floor of the veterinary office. Your hand stays on her while the kind vets look her over, their faces full of the grief that is only just beginning to hit you.
It comes bit by bit, like stones being dropped one at a time into your gut. Your dad sits in a chair behind you. He’s just as quiet as you are when they come in with the injection.
“Have you ever done this before?” The woman asks gently.
“This is our first time,” your dad says. “Our last dog died at home in her sleep.”
The vets explain to both of you how it works and what to expect. That she will most likely be gone by the time half of the dose enters her system. That her eyes won’t close on their own. That her body might shudder, and her tongue may roll out. But they assure you, she will be unconscious and feel no pain.
There is no hiding from it now. You must look it in the face. Hold her paw as she faces it, too. Face it together. If she must leave this world, you must not let her do it alone.
Cradle her head in your hands. Watch as she takes tiny, shallow breaths that should have stopped after the first injection. The vets look at one another.
“That dose should have taken her out,” the man says. He goes to get a second dose.
Just go,” you whisper, pleading. “It’s okay.”
The woman looks at you with mournful eyes. “I’ve never seen a dog fight this hard.”
Your face is wet. The man shoots the second dose into her leg. This one works. She dies gently and slowly. There’s no crash or break, just a flickering flame growing dimmer until it’s dark. You hold her head and watch the life seep out of her drop by drop.
“No heartbeat,” the man says quietly. The vets leave the two of you on the floor. Don’t look at your dad unless you want to watch him cry. You rub her velvet ear and kiss her velvet head.
Step 4: How to Go On
Sit next to your dad in the car and don’t say anything because there isn’t anything to say. He sniffs. You wipe your eyes. The two of you share the silence that death leaves between people who have just witnessed it.
Don’t replay the image of the life draining from her. Don’t replay the feeling of her limp head on your lap. When you get home, don’t look for her. Don’t expect, out of habit, to see her in your periphery. Every dark and nebulous shape in the corner is not shaped like her. Try not to think about how hard she resisted her own mortality or how your presence made her want to stay, even in a state of misery. Try not to think about how you chose for her. You must go on now. If she fought so hard to stay on this wild and painful earth, so
must you. ◆
Anna Meegan is a junior at University of the Cumberlands. She is pursuing a bachelor’s in Integrated Communication with a minor in Creative Writing. She has been writing stories, poems, and songs for as long as she can remember. When she’s not at college, Anna lives with her family in the middle of nowhere outside of Corbin, Kentucky. In her free time, she can be found making art, talking to Jesus, laughing at her own jokes, or frolicking in the woods somewhere.
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