One Last Time

This morning, we’re off on what I anticipate will be filed in the category labeled Finale.  As in the last time you engage in a life event (not something as mundane as going to the grocery store) with the full knowledge that, given your place on your particular, unique timeline, this will not, of your own volition, occur again.

It’s not unlike the feeling I get when a salesperson asks if we want the extended warranty on whatever we’re purchasing.  “Oh, that’s great,” you say, taking the length of that proposed time, adding it to your current age, and thinking two things simultaneously.  A) I hope I live that long and B) if I do, what will my life look like at that point?

Perhaps it’s emerging from the post-pandemic cocoon of unrelenting stress and worry, but I’m noting a plethora of conversations among my peers having to do with, “I could be next.”  It's no longer enough to feel badly for the people in the shared stories who have experienced the dreaded fall  or that little lump turning out to be Stage 4 cancer or “Just was feeling off and it turns out she’s got ________ (insert name of disease state here).”

Any time you can’t retrieve the word or phrase on the tip of your tongue, your mind jumps to the dreaded diagnosis: cognitive impairment.  Dementia.  Alzheimer’s.  We exchange a furtive glance, fill in the elusive word for each other, feeling relieved we can still do so,  laugh nervously. “Ha, ha.  Too much irrelevant stuff crowding my brain that prevents me from maintaining my train of thought.”  And all the while worrying, will they be coming to see me in the Memory Care Unit soon?

There begins at least a modicum of urgency in decision making that impacts both the nuts and bolts of daily life, as well as the quality of what inevitably becomes a more diminished life.  Creeps up slowly, but surely.  “Ha, ha.  We used to watch Stephen Colbert all the way through every night, but now it’s Everyone Loves Raymond reruns if we can stay awake until 9:30.”

Ha ha indeed.

So, I understand the expression on many people’s faces when we announced that we were getting a puppy.  Because retired people usually say, "When our current dog dies, that's it.  We're done with dogs."  They don't announce that they're getting a puppy, right?

“Oh, that’s great!” friends and family say.

“Better you than me” say others.

“They’re a lot of work,” some warn.    

I strongly identify with their fleeting thoughts which translate to their faces, if only briefly.  Mostly around their eyes.  You’re too old to be doing this, they’re thinking through the smiles of (real or feigned) excitement.  Do you really think you can handle a puppy?  Or even another dog, much less a baby animal?  I’ve had that conversation with myself, multiple times.  Is it fair to the dog to bring him into a home of old people?  Granted we’re still pretty active and haven’t passed into the couch all day phase, but in the course of the puppy’s lifetime, it could happen.  Maybe sooner rather than later because every retelling about someone in our decade of life who is heading south (and I'm not talking about Florida) begins to serve as a reminder to me that I am higher on the rung to heaven (one can hope) in our family hierarchy than perhaps I like to admit. 

My mother in law, the inimitable and magnificent Margaret Louise Lemmon O’Brien, loved the poodle she brought into her life after she retired.  Charles, who she dubbed Charles de Poulet because he was afraid of everything and everybody, was an important companion for her.  He gave her purpose.  She had to walk him, feed him, and her schedule revolved around his.  Shortly after Charles died, Maggie adopted a Siamese cat named CoCo who was on the foot of her bed when she died.

When Hank passed into double digits, I initiated a conversation with the Spousal Unit™ about the “next dog.”    After Bubba, the rat terrorist, crossed the Rainbow Bridge, we had agreed to shrink to a one dog household.  But I couldn’t see us as a no dog household.

“I’d like to see what it’s like without a dog for a while,” said the Spousal Unit™ then.

A couple days after Hank crossed the Rainbow Bridge, he asked me if I had contacted the breeder where we got Hank to see about getting a puppy.

That was a little over three months ago.  In that time period, the void we felt immediately upon Hank’s passing  only intensified.  It’s no use denying you’re a dog person when that’s precisely what you are.  Gus (my fox terrier); Mike (Dan’s Dalmation); Pierre (my French poodle, inherited from my grandmother); Sandy (Dan’s mixed breed); Rufus (our mutt); Emmitt (our first beagle); Hank (our second beagle).

And now, Benny.  Benny Walter William, if you please.

Of course he's adorable...we'll see how adorable we think he is when he whines his way to sleep, and again multiple times in the middle of the night.  But when Benny walked through the door, this house felt complete again.