Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul (36 page)

That was when Bonnie was introduced to me. The Changes Program often helps people while they wrestle with the difficult decision of whether to euthanize a pet or let nature take its course.

Bonnie had graying, light-brown wavy hair that she pulled back into a large barrette. The day I met her she was wearing jeans, tennis shoes and a white blouse with pink stripes. She had sparkling light blue eyes that immediately drew my attention, and there was a calmness about her that told me she was a person who thought things through, a woman who did not make hasty decisions. She seemed familiar and down to earth, like the kind of people I grew up with in Nebraska.

I began by telling her I realized how tough it was to be in her situation. Then I explained that the doctor had asked me to become involved in her case because there were many difficult decisions she needed to make. When I finished, she commented quite matter-of-factly, “I know about grief and I know that sometimes we need help to get through it.”

For twenty years, Bonnie had been married to a man who mistreated her. He was abusive and neglectful in all ways possible. He was an alcoholic, so it was often impossible to predict what would happen from one day to the next. Bonnie had tried many, many times to leave him, but she just couldn’t do it. Finally, when she turned forty-five years old, she found the courage to walk away. She and Cassie, who was four years old at the time, moved to Laramie, Wyoming, to heal the old hurts and begin a new life. Cassie loved her and needed her and, for Bonnie, the feeling was mutual. There were many rough times ahead, but Bonnie and Cassie got through them together.

Six years later, Bonnie met Hank, a man who loved her in a way that she had never been loved. They met through her church and soon learned they had a great deal in common. They were married one year later. Their marriage was ripe with discussion, affection, simple routines and happiness. Bonnie was living the life for which she had always hoped.

One morning, Hank was preparing to leave for work at his tree-trimming service. As always, he and Bonnie embraced one another in the doorway of their home and acknowledged out loud how blessed they were to have each other. It was not unusual for them to say these things. They both were very aware of the “specialness” of the other.

Bonnie worked at home that day rather than going into her office, where she held a position as an office assistant. Late in the afternoon, her phone rang. When she picked it up, she heard the voice of the team leader who headed the search-and-rescue service for which Bonnie was a volunteer. Bonnie was often one of the first volunteers called when someone was in trouble.

That day, Margie told her a man had been electrocuted on a power line just two blocks from Bonnie’s house. Bonnie dropped everything, flew out of her house and jumped into her truck.

When Bonnie arrived at the house, she saw an image that would be engraved in her mind for the rest of her life. Her beloved Hank hung lifelessly from the branches of a tall cottonwood tree.

All of the training that Bonnie had received about safely helping someone who has been electrocuted left her. She wasn’t concerned about her own safety. She had to do everything she could to save Hank. She just had to get him down. She grabbed the ladder stowed in her truck, threw it up against the house and began climbing. Bonnie crawled onto the top of the roof and pulled Hank’s body out of the tree toward her. Miraculously, even though she touched his body, which was touching the power line, she was not electrocuted herself. She pulled Hank onto the brown shingles of the roof and cradled his head in the crook of her arm. She wailed as she looked at his ashen face. His eyes stared out into the bright blue Wyoming sky. He was dead. Gone. He could not be brought back to life. She knew to the core of her being that the life they shared was over.

In the four years that followed Hank’s death, Bonnie tried to put her life back together. She was up and down, but mostly down. She learned a lot about grief—the accompanying depression, anger, sense of betrayal and the endless questions about why Hank had been taken from her in such a violent and unpredictable way. She lived with the frustration of not having said good-bye, of not having the opportunity to say all of the things she wanted to say, of not being able to comfort him, soothe him, help him leave this life and move into the next. She wasn’t prepared for this kind of ending. It was not the way she wanted her best friend, her lover, her partner to die.

When Bonnie finished talking, we both sat in silence for a while. Finally I said, “Would you like Cassie’s death to be different from Hank’s? By that, I mean would you like to plan and prepare for her death? That way, you won’t have any surprises, and although you may shorten her life by a few days, you will ensure that you are with her to the very end. I’m talking now, Bonnie, about euthanasia. With euthanasia, you won’t have to worry about coming home from work and finding Cassie dead, and you can ensure that she won’t die in pain. If we help Cassie die by euthanasia, you can be with her, hold her, talk to her and comfort her. You can peacefully send her on to the next life. The choice is up to you.”

Bonnie’s eyes opened wide. Her shoulders relaxed and her face softened in relief.

“I just need control this time,” she said. “I want this death to be different from Hank’s—for my girl.”

The decision was made to euthanize Cassie that afternoon. I left the two of them alone, and Bonnie and Cassie spent the next few hours lying outside under the maple tree. Bonnie talked to Cassie, stroked her curly black fur and helped her get comfortable when she seemed unable to do so on her own. A soft breeze moved through the trees, adding a gentle rustling to the peaceful scene.

When it was time, Bonnie brought Cassie into the client comfort room, an area that those of us associated with The Changes Program had adapted to be more conducive to humane animal death and client grief. I encouraged Bonnie to tell me if there was anything she wanted to do for Cassie before she died. She laughed and said, “She likes to eat Kleenex. I’d like to give her some.”

I laughed, too. “In this business we have plenty of that on hand,” I said.

The dog was lying down by Bonnie, who was on the floor on a soft pad. Bonnie began to pet and talk to her. “There you are, girl. You’re right here by Mom. Everything is okay.”

Over the next half-hour, Bonnie and Cassie “talked” to one another and “finished business.” Everything that needed to be said was said.

The time for euthanasia arrived and Cassie was sleeping peacefully, her head resting on Bonnie’s stomach. She looked comfortable, very much at ease. Dr. Bush whispered, “May we begin the procedure?” and Bonnie nodded in affirmation.

“But first,” she said softly, “I would like to say a prayer.”

She reached out to take our hands and we all reached out our hands to one another. Within this sacred circle, Bonnie softly prayed, “Dear Lord, thank you for giving me this beautiful dog for the past fourteen years. I know she was a gift from you. Today, as painful as it is, I know it is time to give her back. And, dear Lord, thank you for bringing these women to me. They have helped me beyond measure. I attribute their presence to you. Amen.”

Through our tears, we whispered our own “amens,” all squeezing one another’s hands in support of the rightfulness of the moment.

And then, while Cassie continued to sleep peacefully on her caretaker’s belly, the doctor gave the dog the final injection. Cassie did not wake up. Through it all, she did not move. She just slipped out of this life into the next. It was quick, peaceful and painless, just as we had predicted. Immediately following Cassie’s passing, I made a clay impression of her front paw. I handed the paw print to Bonnie and she held it tenderly against her cheek. We all sat quietly until Bonnie broke the silence, saying, “If my husband had to die, I wish he could have died this way.”

So do I, Bonnie,
I thought.
So do I.

Six weeks later, I received a letter from Bonnie. She had scattered Cassie’s remains on the same mountain where Hank’s were scattered. Now her two best friends were together again. She said somehow Cassie’s death, and especially the way in which she had died, had helped her resolve the death of her husband.

“Cassie’s death was a bridge to Hank for me,” she wrote. “Through her death, I let him know that if I had had the choice when he died, I would have had the courage and the dedication necessary to be with him when he died, too. I needed him to know that and I hadn’t been able to find a way. Cassie provided the way. I think that is the reason for and the meaning of her death. Somehow, she knew she could reconnect us, soul to soul.”

Eight months later, Bonnie traveled once again from Wyoming to the Veterinary Teaching Hospital. This time, she brought her new, healthy puppy Clyde—a nine-month-old Lab mix, full of life and love. Bonnie was beginning again.

Carolyn Butler with Laurel Lagoni

The Rainbow Bridge

T
IME is
Too slow for those who wait,
Too swift for those who fear,
Too long for those who grieve,
Too short for those who rejoice.
But for those who love,
Time is not.

Henry van Dyke

There is a bridge connecting heaven and Earth.

It is called the Rainbow Bridge because of its many colors. Just this side of the Rainbow Bridge is a land of meadows, hills and valleys, all of it covered with lush green grass.

When a beloved pet dies, the pet goes to this lovely land. There is always food and water and warm spring weather. There, the old and frail animals are young again. Those who are maimed are made whole once more. They play all day with each other, content and comfortable.

There is only one thing missing. They are not with the special person who loved them on Earth. So each day they run and play until the day comes when one suddenly stops playing and looks up! Then, the nose twitches! The ears are up! The eyes are staring! You have been seen, and that one suddenly runs from the group!

You take him or her in your arms and embrace. Your face is kissed again and again and again, and you look once more into the eyes of your trusting pet.

Then, together, you cross the Rainbow Bridge, never again to be separated.

Paul C. Dahm

That Dog Disguise Isn’t
Fooling Anyone

G
ive them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for
mourning, and the garment of praise for the
spirit of heaviness.

Isa. 61:3

On Christmas morning of 1958, my father had come to church with us, and I was to sing my first solo. I was eleven years old. After the service, in the parking lot, he leaned down, took my hand and confided to me how proud he was to be my dad. I dearly loved him, and it was one of the more perfect moments of my childhood.

The next day, when Daddy returned from a quick trip to the hardware store, he walked through the front door and, apparently feeling unwell, went to the bedroom, where he lay down on the bed and suffered a massive heart attack. Our family watched in helpless disbelief as the man who held our lives together fought bravely to hold onto his own. The ambulance arrived too late, for the tragedy that determined our family’s future was over in less than twenty minutes.

The American Indians have a phrase they use to describe children who have an intimate knowledge of sorrow. They say the child has developed
sky-eyes
. I have little memory of the painful years immediately following my father’s death, but photos of me from that period show a detached look, a distance in my gaze, as though my vision included a portion of the sky.

When I was twenty-four, I became engaged to a beautiful and charismatic European boy. In the enchantment of love, the numbing impact of my father’s death was put aside. I began to dream of the wonderful possibilities ahead of us. Until the morning I received the phone call informing me that my fiancé had been robbed, shot and killed in south-central Los Angeles. The abruptness of it took my breath away.

This second tragedy was as sudden and devastating as the first, and it cemented my belief that life was brutally precarious. I closed my heart and I fell into a diminished living, unable to feel deep joy and worse yet, unable to pray.

I functioned as though two people lived inside of me— the public me and the private me. Publicly, my singing career flourished—I won a Grammy for the song “Up Where We Belong,” which I sang with Joe Cocker. I rejoiced in my music—singing had always been a “free zone” for me. But the private me withered; I felt strangled by resentment and deeply betrayed by God.

I survived seven years like this until a perceptive friend gave me a puppy—a badly bred golden retriever and a most unwelcome imposition on my life. Reluctantly, I decided to keep her.

I named her Emma and like every other puppy owner, I began telling her what to do, or more frequently what not to do.

“Don’t chew that, walk this way, eat here, poop there, sit up, get off the bed, stop barking . . .” Armed with a stack of training manuals, I became the puppy police, imposing the usual ridiculous rules and inane tricks upon this little creature. While Emma executed these performances well, she stared at me flatly, as if to say, “This is completely unnecessary.” Her boldness made me laugh out loud. Now I realize she was simply biding her time, waiting for me to understand.

Around Emma’s fourth birthday, our roles began to reverse. Something in me opened up to her and I found that she was often “telling” me what to do, such as “leave the desk now, sit here with me and watch the butterflies, go home and go to sleep, listen to the wild birds singing . . .” I began observing her natural patterns and impulses and noticing the grace with which she greeted the passing of the days. She showed me a view of the world that made mine appear silly by comparison.