Halloween was always important when Jack was growing up. For his first two Halloweens, I purchased super-hero sleepers from a baby-clothes catalog. I entered him in a costume contest at a local science fiction convention for his first Halloween, when he was six months old. He wore his “Batman” sleeper, but I called him “Bat-baby.” I made a cowl, a mask that covered his entire head, complete with pointy bat-ears, out of a soft fuzzy stretchy black fabric. He was a little puzzled when I pulled it down to his nose but he tolerated it well, blinking owlishly, as I had often dressed him in hats. This was the first one with eye-holes, however! I created a Batmobile by covering his walker with the same black stretchy fabric and sticking a construction-paper “Batman” logo on the front. I also made a bat-belt for myself, complete with bat-diaper and bat-bottle. We won a prize. Jack waved his little hands and tried to scamper around the large hall in his Bat-walker, a huge grin on his little face under the black cowl.
The following year, Jack was walking under his own power, so his father took him out trick-or-treating. It was cold so I dressed him in two layers of thermal underwear, then covered them with his “Superman” sleeper, complete with little cape velcroed to his shoulders. I slipped his sneakers over the footies. I stayed home to hand out candy. John and Jack returned an hour later with their large bag just stuffed with candy. Jack smiled angelically as he sampled a few of the treats but he wasn’t that interested in eating much - it was the hunt that excited him (this continued throughout his childhood - imagine - a kid who never ate his candy collection!). John helped himself to several large candy bars. The next night, after I dressed Jack in his sleeper in preparation for bedtime, he trotted straight to the outer door, smilingly waiting to go out into the night again, visiting the neighborhood and collecting candy with Daddy. He furrowed his brow in some confusion when I explained that Halloween wouldn’t happen again for another year, but eventually he went off to bed instead of outside.
As he got older, Jack’s costumes grew more exotic. There was the year that he went as “Baby Godzilla,” waddling around in a foam soft-sculpture creation that I had spray-painted green. There was the knight’s costume; I had a hard time finding the stick-horsie that completed it. Then there was the year he discovered “Star Wars.” After much discussion and negotiation about what special effects were possible with reasonably available technology, he finally decided to dress as a Jawa, one of the little robed creatures that kidnapped R2D2. I made him an ankle-length, deeply hooded robe out of brown burlap, which closed with a rope-belt. I covered his face with black makeup, then took a black headband and equipped it with two large red LEDS, powered by 9 volt batteries. He wore the headband at eyebrow level. He pulled the hood of the robe so that, in limited light, it looked like the LEDs were his eyes, glowing weirdly over his hidden face. He also had an annoying electronic toy gun, to “zap” anyone who walked past him. At his first house, the owner gasped when she saw him strolling out of the dark, his “eyes” a piercingly evil sight. He was exactly the right height, too. When other kids saw him on the sidewalk, they stopped short or even jumped backwards in momentary fear, then came close to check out his costume. He was pleased with the entire effect. The candy was something to hoard until I threw it out in preparation for the Easter collection.
In addition to creating a costume for Jack, I liked to dress up the house with carved pumpkins lit with candles, to decorate the doorstep. One year, a neighborhood boy commented once that we always had the best jack-o-lanterns. I was surprised; I thought that lots of people had the carved pumpkins, but, as I thought about it, ours always were pretty detailed, and I made as many as I could in the week before Halloween, so it looked pretty spooky.
Once he got old enough to be in the Boy Scouts (fifth grade), Jack no longer did much trick-or-treating as he had to help with the community Halloween party in a local church hall. I stopped handing out candy as I was helping out at the party, too. I even gave up on carving jack-o-lanterns as I didn’t want to go to that much trouble only to have them smashed by some kid who was angry that there wasn’t anyone handing out candy.
This is the first year in a long time that I'll be home. I don’t have a lot of candy to hand out, so when it runs out, I’ll turn out the lights. I didn’t carve a pumpkin, either. Maybe next year. I miss the build-up to Halloween, pulling together the finishing touches on this year’s costume. We never bought costumes; they were too chintzy and expensive. Mine were always a lot better than anything we could have purchased. I think I liked making costumes as much as Jack liked wearing them.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
Friendship
My good friend Akacita defined levels of friendship for me a few months ago. I decided to share it as it's too good to keep secret.
A friend is someone you can call to help you move.
A GOOD friend is someone you can call to help you move a body.
I'm proud to say, I've got a bunch of good friends, even though I haven't needed to test the definition. Yet.
A friend is someone you can call to help you move.
A GOOD friend is someone you can call to help you move a body.
I'm proud to say, I've got a bunch of good friends, even though I haven't needed to test the definition. Yet.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Shenzi
Shenzi died Friday night. Shenzi was the puppy that I picked up from a breeder in Pennsylvania fourteen and a half years ago, as a present for Jack’s sixth birthday. He was a tiny six month old white miniature poodle, so he was almost exactly fifteen years old when he died. All he did was tremble when the breeder brought him into her living room; he was always a fearful animal. We drove home in a snowstorm, him in a crate on the seat next to me, whimpering almost continuously. I had to stop somewhere in Connecticut; I was afraid to continue in the blinding storm. I smuggled him into my hotel room and brought him into bed with me after he wouldn’t stop crying in his crate. The next morning, he was curled up next to me with his head on the pillow and his little body under the covers. He adored me from that moment forward. I guess I had become “mom.”
I put a bow on his collar and wrapped a big box and its cover separately. I picked Jack up from school while John kept the puppy in our bedroom. At the last minute, he slipped the puppy into the box, covered it, and presented it to Jack. The puppy squirmed and the box shifted in Jack’s hands. Jack was a little afraid to open it, as his father had a track record of presenting wild animals to people, but I reassured Jack that nothing bad would happen when he opened the box.
Jack was thrilled and happily hugged the little dog. Jack promptly named the puppy “Shenzi” after one of the hyenas in “The Lion King.” The name meant “Barbarian” in Swahili. And Shenzi was a little barbarian. He liked Jack well enough and he loved me, but he was afraid of most men, including John. He barked wildly whenever anyone rang the doorbell. And he had a number of defects to his health, which took some time to discover. He had a umbilical hernia, which didn’t bother him until the last year of his life. His eyelashes curled inward; they scratched his eyes every time he blinked, blinding him as a middle-aged dog. His kneecaps were set in too shallow a groove, which allowed them to dislocate sometimes when he climbed stairs. His ears grew a thick thatch of hair, which had to be painfully pulled out, to prevent ear infections. And he had terrible teeth; eventually all of them had to be pulled.
When John and I separated, John refused to take the dog when he picked Jack up, despite our prior agreement that Shenzi would move with Jack. So, Shenzi kept me company when Jack was at his father’s house. Shenzi adored any article of used clothing. He would try to take my panties, but I objected. Finally, we came up with a ritual. I would sit on the edge of the bed and remove one sock with the toes of my other foot. Then, I’d flick the sock with my toe-tips into the air and Shenzi would snatch it before it fell to the floor and trot off to bed with his prize. Every Saturday, I’d bribe him with a piece of freeze-dried liver to allow me to dig out all of the dirty socks and wash them. He would have collected loose bits of Jack’s clothing, too, which also had to be laundered, or Jack would run out of clothes!
When we went to Mexico for three months, we brought Shenzi to my sister’s house in Florida. Karen had two tea-cup poodles. Shenzi was significantly larger than her dogs and even though one was very dominant, Shenzi was so much bigger that he quickly became the alpha dog. He seemed to enjoy this change in status a great deal. Karen’s dominant dog would nip at Shenzi, but he had such a thick and fluffy coat, he was like a small sheep and the smaller dog could never pierce it to injure his skin. Occasionally, when he got a little peeved at her antics, Shenzi would place a paw on the smaller dog and knock her down. Then, he’d hold her for a short time but would release her and she would slink off. Shenzi was happy to see us return, however.
When we were living in Mexico without Shenzi, we put out bowls of cat food and table scraps every evening to encourage cats to linger in our garden. In return, they consumed the rats, mice, and lizards who tried to infest the property. Jack loved the cats, particularly a friendly white one that he named Hambre, which means Hungry. Most of the cats were feral and would run away when a human came too close. Not so Hambre, who starting coming into our living room to lounge on top of my warm laptop computer when we went shopping. Within a few days, he was allowing Jack to pat him and to eat the special treats that Jack offered him. We had to leave Hambre in Mexico, but I promised Jack that we would get a cat when we returned to Massachusetts.
It took a few months, but in October, we went to the Dakin Animal Shelter in Leverett, Massachusetts, to get a kitten. There were a lot of little black and white kitties; the caretaker told me that they had recently acquired a number of cats and kittens from a “cat collector,” someone who kept over twenty cats in a junk car. The animal officer had seized the cats for animal cruelty and the healthier cats were placed at Dakin for recuperation and eventual adoption. We picked out an adorable little black and white female, only to be told that someone else was filling out paperwork to adopt her already. So, we found another female kitten, black with a white underside, legs, and lopsided mustache. She was so tiny, she could sit on the palm of my hand. She was very curious and playful. Gatto had joined the family.
We brought her into the house and Shenzi immediately knew something was up. He had been napping in his dog bed under the kitchen table. He lurched out of bed, sniffing and barking. I sprayed both animals with some cologne (so they would smell alike) and brought the kitten down so he could smell her. He was incensed! He barked angrily and bounced up and down, lunging with his front feet. The kitten yawned. I set the baby cat down on the floor and she toddled up to Shenzi and leaned against his legs. Shenzi was distraught. This kitten wasn’t respecting his position or terrible doghood! Gatto bounced around the house, exploring and occasionally swatting at Shenzi’s tail or ears from the elevation of a chair seat. Shenzi didn’t know what to do.
That night, Jack got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. He noticed Shenzi’s eyes, wide open, glowing under the table and walked into the kitchen to see what kept him awake. Shenzi was curled up in his dog bed, but the kitten was curled up on top of him, purring loudly. Shenzi’s eyes silently begged for help but Jack nearly ruptured himself, laughing at the dog’s predicament. Gatto preferred to sleep in Shenzi’s bed but eventually, Shenzi would growl fiercely enough to ward her off when he already occupied it. She would seize the bed, however, when he wasn’t in it and Shenzi would look unhappy. I got a smaller bed for the rapidly growing cat, but she preferred to sleep on or in someone else’s bed.
We returned to Mexico for a month a few years later. I asked John to keep the animals so I wouldn’t have to drive to Florida, to bring them to my sister’s house. It turned out that John was severely allergic to Gatto so he sent her to a cat-boarding facility but he kept Shenzi. And I do mean, he kept Shenzi. He never returned the dog to me after we came back from Mexico. Admittedly, he and Martha took better care of the dog than I could; there was only one of me and I was trying to finish my PhD and had jobs at several colleges, teaching. Jack was busy with his own activities and the cat was self-sufficient. Shenzi wasn’t getting the attention from me that he deserved. So, I chose to not fight John over Shenzi.
Shenzi went blind a year or two later. The scars on his corneas turned into cataracts and he gradually went completely blind. Whenever I came to John’s new house, Shenzi would sniff and approach me, his little head cocked to one side. He never barked, once he had smelled me. I would pat him and he would lean against my leg, his little stump of a tail wagging furiously. He would prance about, smiling his little doggy smile. Everyone else got barked at. In time, all of his teeth had to be removed and he went deaf. He still tottered about, sniffing at everything. He was pretty happy, although his diet had to be adjusted as he became intolerant of many things that he loved, including cheese, which gave him terrible diarrhea.
When I had my second surgery four months ago, the one that reattached my intestines and got rid of my colostomy, I needed to stay someplace for a few days after I got out of the hospital, a place where I could step into the shower without having to climb over the edge of a tub, like at my house. I was also afraid to be alone, so I went to John’s house. John had divorced Martha and was going out of town, but he had another house-guest, Alex Plank, and Shenzi needed to be fed and let outside. Alex was intimidated by the cranky Shenzi, who still didn’t like men that he hadn’t known for life. Jack had brought Gatto to John’s house, too. Gatto stayed in the basement and caught a mouse almost immediately. John was happier about the cat’s presence, as he was terrified of mice infesting the collectable cars that he keeps in a garage/great room in the basement. Gatto and Shenzi had forgotten each other; Gatto was wary of the dog.
Jack came over for most of the day, every day, and I recuperated well. The only problem came when Jack was at his grandmother’s house, helping her, as he does every Saturday and I couldn’t pick up Shenzi to bring him outside to pee. Alex had helped me the night before, with Shenzi sniffing me while Alex picked him up, but Alex had left early in the morning. Shenzi couldn’t walk down the steps and about thirty staples were all that held my abdomen together. And the poor little dog had to pee! Finally, after many telephone consultations, Jack called Martha and asked her to help with the dog. This was not comfortable for either of us; after all, I had referred to her as “That Bitch” for years, as her affair with John ended our marriage. I’ll talk about this another time, but she was about the farthest thing from my favorite person. Still, we had something in common - the love of a silly little dog. After she brought Shenzi back in, we chatted about the animals and laughed when Shenzi lunged at the place where Gatto had lingered, five minutes earlier. To Shenzi, Gatto must have been a ghost - something that he could smell but could not catch.
Martha returned later that evening to bring Shenzi outside again. We were again able to converse without incident, although we were both on our best behavior. In general, Shenzi did very little moving around but he was excited to have me in the house. Jack’s girlfriend was surprised to see Shenzi doing his little prancing routine after I petted him; she had never seen him so lively before. John returned the next day and I went home.
Shenzi went to live with Martha in late June; John decided that he was better off with her. I agreed. In September, Shenzi had a prolonged seizure. He wasn’t himself after the seizure and he was only able to circle when he walked. Martha brought him to the Boston Road Animal Hospital. They kept him overnight and ran a number of tests. They thought that he probably had a brain tumor, but he started to act more like himself the next day, so they sent him home with Martha. They prescribed an anti-seizure medication. We all talked. I wanted Shenzi to live as long as he wasn’t in any additional pain and Martha agreed.
Then, Shenzi had a bad night Wednesday night/Thursday morning. He was up repeatedly. Martha called me but I was in Pittsfield, about fifty miles away. I drove back via Greenfield (which is not on the way), picking up Jack before we met her in Springfield. He seemed better as the afternoon wore on, but we decided that his time had come. The next day, Friday, Jack and I would dig a grave at John’s house, then visit with Shenzi at Martha’s condo. When she returned from an errand, she and I would bring him to the animal hospital for the last time. And that’s what happened. She drove Shenzi. I drove separately. I picked up two cheeseburgers at McDonald’s. I broke them into bits and fed them to him, one bite at a time, in the parking lot of the animal hospital. The cheese wouldn’t hurt him this time.
The people at the animal hospital were very kind. They let us hold Shenzi and pat him as long as we wanted both before and after the injection. Shenzi just fell asleep. I held his little head and told him that he wouldn’t have any pain any longer. Then, the doctor injected the rest of the syringe and his strong little heart finally stopped beating. We both cried but I couldn’t bring myself to hug Martha. We both loved that little dog so we patted and hugged him for comfort. Martha kept apologizing to Shenzi, but I was glad that he would never feel any pain, ever again. He had probably been in pain for his entire life. A technician took Shenzi out of the little exam room on his blanket and brought him back, all sealed up in a cardboard coffin. She taped a crepe-paper rose to the top.
The technician carried the coffin out to my car; Martha couldn’t stand to have a dead Shenzi in her car. I was comforted by his presence. After my sister’s boyfriend died, the family brought him for burial to Asheville, North Carolina, in their van after he was embalmed in Florida. It took about twenty hours and they took turns sitting next to the coffin, talking to Dave. Karen said it was comforting and I suddenly understood as I found myself petting the top of Shenzi’s coffin as I drove to Amherst, remembering our first big road trip when I brought him home. I talked to him the same way, to reassure him and myself. I know it was the right thing to do, but it was still difficult.
The grave wasn’t big enough; Jack and I didn’t realize that they would give us a coffin and we hadn’t planned on its size. Alex came out and helped to enlarge the grave as the twilight turned to night. Martha placed one of Shenzi’s favorite toys on top of the coffin but it fell under as we lowered the coffin into the grave. I removed my socks and tossed them in on top. Then, we pushed in the dirt and covered him up. Jack will put a large flat stone on the grave in the next day or so, to prevent any animals from disturbing the grave. We’ll both feel better once the stone is in place.
I’m sorry we had to do this while John was out of town, but he said goodbye to Shenzi on Thursday, before he went to the airport. And he has Shenzi’s grave on the edge of his lawn, next to the woods. Shenzi was a good dog. He was in pain for most of his life and was fearful of almost all other humans, but he loved his people. And his people loved him.
I put a bow on his collar and wrapped a big box and its cover separately. I picked Jack up from school while John kept the puppy in our bedroom. At the last minute, he slipped the puppy into the box, covered it, and presented it to Jack. The puppy squirmed and the box shifted in Jack’s hands. Jack was a little afraid to open it, as his father had a track record of presenting wild animals to people, but I reassured Jack that nothing bad would happen when he opened the box.
Jack was thrilled and happily hugged the little dog. Jack promptly named the puppy “Shenzi” after one of the hyenas in “The Lion King.” The name meant “Barbarian” in Swahili. And Shenzi was a little barbarian. He liked Jack well enough and he loved me, but he was afraid of most men, including John. He barked wildly whenever anyone rang the doorbell. And he had a number of defects to his health, which took some time to discover. He had a umbilical hernia, which didn’t bother him until the last year of his life. His eyelashes curled inward; they scratched his eyes every time he blinked, blinding him as a middle-aged dog. His kneecaps were set in too shallow a groove, which allowed them to dislocate sometimes when he climbed stairs. His ears grew a thick thatch of hair, which had to be painfully pulled out, to prevent ear infections. And he had terrible teeth; eventually all of them had to be pulled.
When John and I separated, John refused to take the dog when he picked Jack up, despite our prior agreement that Shenzi would move with Jack. So, Shenzi kept me company when Jack was at his father’s house. Shenzi adored any article of used clothing. He would try to take my panties, but I objected. Finally, we came up with a ritual. I would sit on the edge of the bed and remove one sock with the toes of my other foot. Then, I’d flick the sock with my toe-tips into the air and Shenzi would snatch it before it fell to the floor and trot off to bed with his prize. Every Saturday, I’d bribe him with a piece of freeze-dried liver to allow me to dig out all of the dirty socks and wash them. He would have collected loose bits of Jack’s clothing, too, which also had to be laundered, or Jack would run out of clothes!
When we went to Mexico for three months, we brought Shenzi to my sister’s house in Florida. Karen had two tea-cup poodles. Shenzi was significantly larger than her dogs and even though one was very dominant, Shenzi was so much bigger that he quickly became the alpha dog. He seemed to enjoy this change in status a great deal. Karen’s dominant dog would nip at Shenzi, but he had such a thick and fluffy coat, he was like a small sheep and the smaller dog could never pierce it to injure his skin. Occasionally, when he got a little peeved at her antics, Shenzi would place a paw on the smaller dog and knock her down. Then, he’d hold her for a short time but would release her and she would slink off. Shenzi was happy to see us return, however.
When we were living in Mexico without Shenzi, we put out bowls of cat food and table scraps every evening to encourage cats to linger in our garden. In return, they consumed the rats, mice, and lizards who tried to infest the property. Jack loved the cats, particularly a friendly white one that he named Hambre, which means Hungry. Most of the cats were feral and would run away when a human came too close. Not so Hambre, who starting coming into our living room to lounge on top of my warm laptop computer when we went shopping. Within a few days, he was allowing Jack to pat him and to eat the special treats that Jack offered him. We had to leave Hambre in Mexico, but I promised Jack that we would get a cat when we returned to Massachusetts.
It took a few months, but in October, we went to the Dakin Animal Shelter in Leverett, Massachusetts, to get a kitten. There were a lot of little black and white kitties; the caretaker told me that they had recently acquired a number of cats and kittens from a “cat collector,” someone who kept over twenty cats in a junk car. The animal officer had seized the cats for animal cruelty and the healthier cats were placed at Dakin for recuperation and eventual adoption. We picked out an adorable little black and white female, only to be told that someone else was filling out paperwork to adopt her already. So, we found another female kitten, black with a white underside, legs, and lopsided mustache. She was so tiny, she could sit on the palm of my hand. She was very curious and playful. Gatto had joined the family.
We brought her into the house and Shenzi immediately knew something was up. He had been napping in his dog bed under the kitchen table. He lurched out of bed, sniffing and barking. I sprayed both animals with some cologne (so they would smell alike) and brought the kitten down so he could smell her. He was incensed! He barked angrily and bounced up and down, lunging with his front feet. The kitten yawned. I set the baby cat down on the floor and she toddled up to Shenzi and leaned against his legs. Shenzi was distraught. This kitten wasn’t respecting his position or terrible doghood! Gatto bounced around the house, exploring and occasionally swatting at Shenzi’s tail or ears from the elevation of a chair seat. Shenzi didn’t know what to do.
That night, Jack got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. He noticed Shenzi’s eyes, wide open, glowing under the table and walked into the kitchen to see what kept him awake. Shenzi was curled up in his dog bed, but the kitten was curled up on top of him, purring loudly. Shenzi’s eyes silently begged for help but Jack nearly ruptured himself, laughing at the dog’s predicament. Gatto preferred to sleep in Shenzi’s bed but eventually, Shenzi would growl fiercely enough to ward her off when he already occupied it. She would seize the bed, however, when he wasn’t in it and Shenzi would look unhappy. I got a smaller bed for the rapidly growing cat, but she preferred to sleep on or in someone else’s bed.
We returned to Mexico for a month a few years later. I asked John to keep the animals so I wouldn’t have to drive to Florida, to bring them to my sister’s house. It turned out that John was severely allergic to Gatto so he sent her to a cat-boarding facility but he kept Shenzi. And I do mean, he kept Shenzi. He never returned the dog to me after we came back from Mexico. Admittedly, he and Martha took better care of the dog than I could; there was only one of me and I was trying to finish my PhD and had jobs at several colleges, teaching. Jack was busy with his own activities and the cat was self-sufficient. Shenzi wasn’t getting the attention from me that he deserved. So, I chose to not fight John over Shenzi.
Shenzi went blind a year or two later. The scars on his corneas turned into cataracts and he gradually went completely blind. Whenever I came to John’s new house, Shenzi would sniff and approach me, his little head cocked to one side. He never barked, once he had smelled me. I would pat him and he would lean against my leg, his little stump of a tail wagging furiously. He would prance about, smiling his little doggy smile. Everyone else got barked at. In time, all of his teeth had to be removed and he went deaf. He still tottered about, sniffing at everything. He was pretty happy, although his diet had to be adjusted as he became intolerant of many things that he loved, including cheese, which gave him terrible diarrhea.
When I had my second surgery four months ago, the one that reattached my intestines and got rid of my colostomy, I needed to stay someplace for a few days after I got out of the hospital, a place where I could step into the shower without having to climb over the edge of a tub, like at my house. I was also afraid to be alone, so I went to John’s house. John had divorced Martha and was going out of town, but he had another house-guest, Alex Plank, and Shenzi needed to be fed and let outside. Alex was intimidated by the cranky Shenzi, who still didn’t like men that he hadn’t known for life. Jack had brought Gatto to John’s house, too. Gatto stayed in the basement and caught a mouse almost immediately. John was happier about the cat’s presence, as he was terrified of mice infesting the collectable cars that he keeps in a garage/great room in the basement. Gatto and Shenzi had forgotten each other; Gatto was wary of the dog.
Jack came over for most of the day, every day, and I recuperated well. The only problem came when Jack was at his grandmother’s house, helping her, as he does every Saturday and I couldn’t pick up Shenzi to bring him outside to pee. Alex had helped me the night before, with Shenzi sniffing me while Alex picked him up, but Alex had left early in the morning. Shenzi couldn’t walk down the steps and about thirty staples were all that held my abdomen together. And the poor little dog had to pee! Finally, after many telephone consultations, Jack called Martha and asked her to help with the dog. This was not comfortable for either of us; after all, I had referred to her as “That Bitch” for years, as her affair with John ended our marriage. I’ll talk about this another time, but she was about the farthest thing from my favorite person. Still, we had something in common - the love of a silly little dog. After she brought Shenzi back in, we chatted about the animals and laughed when Shenzi lunged at the place where Gatto had lingered, five minutes earlier. To Shenzi, Gatto must have been a ghost - something that he could smell but could not catch.
Martha returned later that evening to bring Shenzi outside again. We were again able to converse without incident, although we were both on our best behavior. In general, Shenzi did very little moving around but he was excited to have me in the house. Jack’s girlfriend was surprised to see Shenzi doing his little prancing routine after I petted him; she had never seen him so lively before. John returned the next day and I went home.
Shenzi went to live with Martha in late June; John decided that he was better off with her. I agreed. In September, Shenzi had a prolonged seizure. He wasn’t himself after the seizure and he was only able to circle when he walked. Martha brought him to the Boston Road Animal Hospital. They kept him overnight and ran a number of tests. They thought that he probably had a brain tumor, but he started to act more like himself the next day, so they sent him home with Martha. They prescribed an anti-seizure medication. We all talked. I wanted Shenzi to live as long as he wasn’t in any additional pain and Martha agreed.
Then, Shenzi had a bad night Wednesday night/Thursday morning. He was up repeatedly. Martha called me but I was in Pittsfield, about fifty miles away. I drove back via Greenfield (which is not on the way), picking up Jack before we met her in Springfield. He seemed better as the afternoon wore on, but we decided that his time had come. The next day, Friday, Jack and I would dig a grave at John’s house, then visit with Shenzi at Martha’s condo. When she returned from an errand, she and I would bring him to the animal hospital for the last time. And that’s what happened. She drove Shenzi. I drove separately. I picked up two cheeseburgers at McDonald’s. I broke them into bits and fed them to him, one bite at a time, in the parking lot of the animal hospital. The cheese wouldn’t hurt him this time.
The people at the animal hospital were very kind. They let us hold Shenzi and pat him as long as we wanted both before and after the injection. Shenzi just fell asleep. I held his little head and told him that he wouldn’t have any pain any longer. Then, the doctor injected the rest of the syringe and his strong little heart finally stopped beating. We both cried but I couldn’t bring myself to hug Martha. We both loved that little dog so we patted and hugged him for comfort. Martha kept apologizing to Shenzi, but I was glad that he would never feel any pain, ever again. He had probably been in pain for his entire life. A technician took Shenzi out of the little exam room on his blanket and brought him back, all sealed up in a cardboard coffin. She taped a crepe-paper rose to the top.
The technician carried the coffin out to my car; Martha couldn’t stand to have a dead Shenzi in her car. I was comforted by his presence. After my sister’s boyfriend died, the family brought him for burial to Asheville, North Carolina, in their van after he was embalmed in Florida. It took about twenty hours and they took turns sitting next to the coffin, talking to Dave. Karen said it was comforting and I suddenly understood as I found myself petting the top of Shenzi’s coffin as I drove to Amherst, remembering our first big road trip when I brought him home. I talked to him the same way, to reassure him and myself. I know it was the right thing to do, but it was still difficult.
The grave wasn’t big enough; Jack and I didn’t realize that they would give us a coffin and we hadn’t planned on its size. Alex came out and helped to enlarge the grave as the twilight turned to night. Martha placed one of Shenzi’s favorite toys on top of the coffin but it fell under as we lowered the coffin into the grave. I removed my socks and tossed them in on top. Then, we pushed in the dirt and covered him up. Jack will put a large flat stone on the grave in the next day or so, to prevent any animals from disturbing the grave. We’ll both feel better once the stone is in place.
I’m sorry we had to do this while John was out of town, but he said goodbye to Shenzi on Thursday, before he went to the airport. And he has Shenzi’s grave on the edge of his lawn, next to the woods. Shenzi was a good dog. He was in pain for most of his life and was fearful of almost all other humans, but he loved his people. And his people loved him.
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