Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul (35 page)

Gene’s wife, Phyllis, had been dead only six months when we married. Sometimes when Gene came in from walking, he looked . . . pained, sad. But he’d give me a quick smile. I’d search his handsome face, wondering what might be beneath the sometimes not believable smile.

After walking, Gene liked to tell me about a pair of ducks on the pond located five houses down from ours. “The ducks know me, honey, and they talk to me,” Gene said one day. “I’ve been feeding the mcracked corn. Even when I don’t have corn, they come out of the water to greet me. I want you to come and see them.” So I went. At the sound of his voice, they came quacking from way across the lake. He bent down to them as they waddled out of the water. And each day after that I’d ask, “What did the ducks say today?” as Gene came in from his walks. Once he told me, “They said, ‘Don’t you dare leave the bank before we get there. See how fast we are swimming to you!’”

One crisp fall day I heard Gene calling my name over and over as he came in. Something was drastically wrong. I ran from the back of the house to the living room. He sat in his recliner, bent over, his head in his hands. He was crying. He didn’t make any effort to hide his tears. That’s one of the things I love about my husband. He doesn’t run into the bathroom or pretend he has sinus trouble when he cries. I knelt before him, waiting.

“He’s dead!”

Who?
I wondered.
Who is dead? A neighbor? Talk to me,
Gene.

Finally, he looked directly into my eyes and spoke softly, haltingly. “One of the ducks . . . is dead.” I looked into a face filled with fresh grief unleashed without restraint. “He’s lying there in a pile of feathers. The mate is swimming around in circles by the bank, hollering.”

I wasn’t sure what to do, so I waited. After a few moments Gene stood up and said, “I must bury the duck. The survivor doesn’t understand why her mate can’t get up.”

I stood up, too, and watched him walk to the garage. He picked up a shovel. Suddenly our garage seemed like another world. A world I wasn’t certain I should enter. Without my shoes and without any knowledge of how to comfort my husband, I followed him, feeling almost like an intruder. I touched his shoulder so gently he could have easily ignored it. “Would it be okay if I go along?”
Why am I whispering?

“Yes, I want you to go,” he said immediately.

Lord, I don’t know how to help him, or even why I’m going.
Please help me.
I ran to get my shoes and threw on a jacket. Together we set out for the grim task.

We heard the survivor’s screams before we reached the water. As Gene dug silently in the red Georgia clay, I sat close to him on the ground, my arms encircling my knees. Rather than look at Gene or the dead duck, I stared at the stunning reflection of the bright red-and-yellow trees in the clear lake. I tried very hard to concentrate on the beauty of fall—but the duck’s panicky calls disturbed any attempts at serenity. The lone duck swam near where Gene dug.
“Quack! Quack! Quack!”
she wailed. I guess she thought that Gene could somehow make everything okay again. This was the spot where Gene visited with the ducks on the bank. The duck continued to honk.

I felt like saying, “Look, Duck, it’s over. You must accept death and pain. I know because I’ve lived through it. All this hollering isn’t going to help.” But the duck had never “talked” to me, so I remained quiet, still uncertain of my role in this unusual drama. Then I saw that Gene had brought a plastic sack. We made brief eye contact and he nodded. I gently lifted the still-warm body of the duck and slipped it into the sack.

Gene kept his eyes on the grave as he dug and started talking to the surviving duck, softly, without ever looking up. She appeared to listen intently as she treaded water inches away. “I know it hurts, Girl. I understand. Really, I do. Life isn’t fair. I’m so sorry, Girl.”

“Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack . . .”

I tightened my arms about my knees and looked up at the incredibly blue sky, thinking,
You have to stand it, Duck.
You have no choice when you are . . . left.
Something akin to agony stirred within me briefly, and tears suddenly stung my eyes.

To be left—the horror of being left! Gene placed an enormous rock on the grave and we stood looking down at it for what seemed like a long time.

As we turned and walked away, the lone duck shrieked at us. Then she swam slowly, without purpose, back across the lake. I turned to look at her and was immediately sorry. I’d never seen her swimming across the lake alone before. The picture stuck in my mind.
She thinks she
has no real reason to live.

The next morning Gene went walking before I was awake. I was sitting on the sofa when the doorbell rang. An attractive, energetic woman dressed in walking clothes stood there. “Hi. I’m Mary Jo Bailey. I live down the street. Is your husband at home?”

“No. But please come in. Gene’s walking.”

Mary Jo got right to the point as we sat down. “I walk too. I discovered the dead duck just before your husband found him. I was back in my house and I saw from the window. I could tell that your husband was deeply upset from the way he walked—fast, but sad.”

Yes, I knew that walk well.

“Anyway,” Mary Jo continued, “I have a friend with forty pet ducks, and tomorrow I’m going to get three.” She had an idea that Gene might want to be there when she released them in the lake.

“I’m sure he would,” I said.

The next morning Mary Jo came by in her Jeep and we drove to the lake. Gene lifted the large wire cage and set it down gently on the green bank beside the water. The male mallard inside was especially handsome, with lots of green. The two other ducks looked like the lone survivor, except they were much larger. The grieving duck was nowhere in sight, but we heard her lonesome wails. Gene cupped his hands to his mouth and called, “Here, Girl!”

She came quacking desperately, leaving a large, graceful V trail in the water. It still shocked me to see her alone. She heard the excited quacks of the new arrivals and swam so fast that she looked somewhat like a speeded-up movie. Her calls changed unmistakably to ones of possible hope.
“Quack? Quack? Quack?”

She approached the bank excitedly as Gene released the three eager ducks. They blended together and quickly went through some kind of get-acquainted ceremony: touching their bills together lightly, again and again, almost as though they were kissing.

The larger, new ducks swam in big circles back and forth in front of Mary Jo, Gene and me, as though to communicate: “Yes. This will work nicely.” They, being more mature, were sophisticated enough to glide over the water silently. However, the younger duck kept quacking loudly: “Oh, happy day! I was so terrified! I thought I’d be alone forever in this big lake.” Amazingly, I was learning to understand duck talk!

Mary Jo drove off, waving. Gene and I waved back, and then Gene reached out and pulled me to him. Tight and close. In fact, I’d never felt quite so close to him, or so needed.

“Let’s go home,” he said. We walked past the grave with the large stone marker and up the hill with our arms around each other.

Marion Bond West

With These Hands

With my bare hands, I finished mounding the dirt over Pepsi’s grave. Then I sat back, reflecting on the past and absorbing all that had happened.

As I stared at my dirt-stained hands, tears instantly welled in my eyes. These were the same hands that, as a veterinarian, had pulled Pepsi, a little miniature schnauzer, wiggling from his mother. Born the runt and only half-alive, I had literally breathed life into the dog that was destined to become my father’s closest friend on earth. I didn’t know then just how close.

Pepsi was my gift to Dad. My father always had big dogs on our farm in southern Idaho, but instantly, Pepsi and Dad formed an inseparable bond. For ten years, they shared the same food, the same chair, the same bed, the same everything. Wherever Dad was, Pepsi was. In town, on the farm or on the run . . . they were always side-by-side. My mom accepted that Dad and the little dog had a marriage of sorts.

Now Pepsi was gone. And less than three months earlier, we had buried my dad.

Dad had been depressed for a number of years. And one afternoon, just days after his eightieth birthday, Dad decided to take his own life in the basement of our old farmhouse. We were all shocked and devastated.

Family and friends gathered at the house that evening to comfort my mother and me. Later, after the police and all the others had left, I finally noticed Pepsi’s frantic barking and let him into the house. I realized then that the little dog had been barking for hours. He had been the only one home that day when Dad decided to end his life. Like a lightning bolt, Pepsi immediately ran down to the basement.

Earlier that evening, I had promised myself that I would never go back into that basement again. It was just too painful. But now, filled with fear and dread, I found myself heading down the basement stairs in hot pursuit of Pepsi.

When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I found Pepsi standing rigid as a statue, staring at the spot where Dad had lain dying just hours before. He was trembling and agitated. I picked him up gently and started back up the stairs. Once we reached the top, Pepsi went from rigid to limp in my arms and emitted an anguished moan. I placed him tenderly in Dad’s bed, and he immediately closed his eyes and went to sleep.

When I told my mom what had happened, she was amazed. In the ten years Pepsi had lived in that house, the little dog had never once been in the basement. Mom reminded me that Pepsi was scared to death of stairs and always had to be carried up even the lowest and broadest of steps.

Why, then, had Pepsi charged down those narrow, steep basement steps? Had Dad cried out for help earlier that day? Had he called good-bye to his beloved companion? Or had Pepsi simply sensed that Dad was in trouble? What had called out to him so strongly that Pepsi was compelled to go down to the basement, despite his fears?

The next morning when Pepsi awoke, he searched for my father. Distraught, the little dog continued looking for Dad for weeks.

Pepsi never recovered from my father’s death. He became withdrawn and progressively weaker. Dozens of tests and a second opinion confirmed the diagnosis I knew to be true—Pepsi was dying of a broken heart. Now, despite my years of training, I felt helpless to prevent the death of my father’s cherished dog.

Sitting by Pepsi’s freshly mounded grave, suddenly things became clear. Over the years, I’d marveled at the acute senses dogs possess. Their hearing, sight and smell are all superior to humans. Sadly, their life span is short in comparison, and I had counseled and comforted thousands of people grieving over the loss of their adored pets.

Never before, though, had I considered how it was for pets to say good-bye to their human companions. Having watched Pepsi’s unflagging devotion to Dad and the dog’s rapid decline after Dad’s death, I realized that our pets’ sense of loss was at least equal to our own.

I am grateful for the love Pepsi lavished on my father. And for his gift to me—a deeper compassion and understanding of pets, which has made me a better veterinarian. Pepsi’s search for Dad is over now; together again, my father and his loyal little dog have finally found peace.

Marty Becker, D.V.M.

©Lynn Johnston Productions Inc./Dist. by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.

Soul to Soul

I work at the Colorado State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital as a counselor in The Changes Program. We help people deal with the experience of losing a pet, whether through illness, accident or euthanasia.

One time, I had a client named Bonnie, a woman in her mid-fifties. Bonnie had driven an hour and a half from Laramie, Wyoming, to see if the doctors at the hospital could do anything to help her fourteen-year-old black standard poodle, Cassandra, affectionately called Cassie. The dog had been lethargic for a week or so and seemed to be confused at times. The local veterinarian had not been able to diagnose any underlying medical problem, so Bonnie had decided to head to CSU for a second opinion.

Unfortunately, Bonnie hadn’t gotten the answer she had hoped for. She had been told earlier that morning by neurologist Dr. Jane Bush that Cassie had a brain tumor that could take Cassie’s life at any time.

Bonnie was devastated to learn that her companion animal was so ill. She had been given detailed information about all the treatment options that were available to her. They all would only buy Cassie a few weeks. There was, they emphasized, no hope for a cure.