Woody's Garden
" M'boy"Brampton Moors
Cary, NC
No Rainbow Bridges, yet, please...
I.
When did my puppy stop scampering and start hobbling?
I see Woody limping to the door and suddenly I realize he is 12. In “people” years, sure, but they are our years together – fully a third of my life – and I want Time to stop for him so that I can catch up. When the awful, awful thought of his death flees across my mind I chase it out like an old hag with a sharp stick. It’s as if someone – Fate? – has put a noose around my neck and given it a quick yank, down to an inch in diameter. All oxygen cut off. All Life.
C’mon.
I find myself getting angry and impatient – intolerant – with him for getting old. Not that I’m a Spring chicken but he is my little cream-colored chick and it never occurred to me, moronic as it sounds, that I would outlive him. The Christmas cards have always been signed, “Love, Dara, David, Woody (and Rebecca in parentheses, since she is the cat who adopted us when Woody was four). To imagine him not here is unthinkable. Therefore, I will not think it. No. He is not old, just stiff from sleeping all day.
There.
Some people look troubled and say, “It’s just a dog,” but that, to me, is like saying to a parent, “It’s just a kid. You’ll have more.” He’s been that much a part of me, and it feels – literally, I can feel the ripping and twisting – as if someone is tearing my heart muscle out from beneath my breast bone. That’s how real the pain is. For twelve years, I’ve fed him, cared for him, walked him, ran with him (and after him); I’ve brought him to the doctor and stayed up nights with him when he was sick. He has been my ever-present buddy; “my secretary”, I called him, since he spent so much time in my office, dozing on my lap, mostly. Woody is my little 12 year old boy.
So, please, don’t let me dwell on this. I am counting on at least another five years together, here on Earth. Every night I tell him about our bond that cannot be broken, that I love him more than the stars love the sky. He’s my little papoose, the vision that warms me, no matter what.
That is Eternal already.
**
It started off the way it always does: 3 pm, I get home. Woody’s in my office or in the bedroom waiting for me or dozing. I clap my hands gently and tell him it’s time to go out. His head pops up and he gives me searching, slightly alarmed puppy eyes. He’s 12 now, hard of hearing, but he still has the puppy eyes. He gets up, stretches, and stands still, slightly hunched, head down as I scoop him up and carry him down the stairs, whispering sweet nothings in the pink of his little ear. Sometimes I tell him what he smells like – something good like wheat toast or butterscotch. Occasionally it’s not so good, but on him it’s always, always cute and rascal-y. “Mmmm, let’s see. You smell like… a lil’ bit of fruit that’s been in the sunshine too long.” I flick on the light in the stairwell so that he can see when he runs back up, as he does every day.
On the way back in after our walk we pass David in his workshop. Woody scampers through a pile of sawdust and David shakes his head and smiles. I open the stairwell door and he bounds up the stairs, me in tow- all those stairs, have to spot m’boy – and I watch him trot back into my office while I go into the kitchen and start breaking Pupperoni dog treats into the little pieces he loves….
That’s when I heard it – a high-pitched moan. Whining. Wailing. I later found the plate of Pupperonis on the floor. I ran in two steps down the hallway to my office and there on the rug was my baby, wailing, lying on his side. I fell beside him and started stroking his little belly. “What, Sweetie? Woody! Woody!”
Thoughts of doggie CPR raced through my head – I was going to try, damn it – but then I moved him and he was heavy and limp but warm, so warm. Heat stroke, yes, bring him downstairs and let him lie on the cool concrete… cold water causes shock… too many stairs…. I cry as I pick up his lifeless body and cradle his head as I fly down the stairs….David, David, help – it’s Woody, please, he’s had an attack, he…. I stroke his little belly and my hands shake so hard, from the elbow they tremble and I don’t want to pet him too hard, with these hands, they jerk, they just don’t work….
He comes around. He whimpers. I whisper and murmur and pet him and cry. I’m crumpled on the concrete floor next to him. David says he’s getting better, gonna be okay….
I call the vet, just in case. He’s okay. Now, I know 12 is old for a dog. He has a heart condition, the valve thing that I have, and I know now that Life is mean.
The thing is, I wouldn’t feel so uncomfortable about Death – about the concept of going to Heaven, since I know Woody will wind up there – if I could just go there and check it out first. Make sure it’s okay – clean and safe, and that there are Pupperoni treats there and at least two water dishes in the house.No. I can’t accept that Woody must go some place without me. No. I know people There. I could hook him up with someone I know will take care of him the best, someone who will make sure he has what he’s used to having. The thought of him leaving, before me, without me by his side, to carry him up the stairs – Heaven has stairs, right? – he’s too little, 3.9 pounds at last weigh-in….What if he gets hit by an angel?
