Die before you die - Zen saying
When Death comes,
may it find you alive - African Proverb
A dear teacher of mine has reminded me that change is constant, that all things shift, and move, and come to an end.
So it goes. -Kurt Vonnegut, jr.
As another teacher recently said, "I have an announcement to make. You are all going to die." We all understand this, but not often do we embrace the impermanence of life (or any moment, really). Not only do we die, but every condition, good or bad, passes away after a time.
After watching a dear companion and teacher wither from the effects of cancer and heart failure, I said a last goodbye to her when she died this Saturday last.
When I first met her, she immediately set about showing me not to take things so seriously by pooping on the stone hearth before my fireplace, like a little exalted shrine to all things puppy.
For the last decade and a half or so, she stayed true to her shepherd instincts,
helping raising my kids and supervising all activities to make sure we were doing it right. She kept her own paths, though she was a faithful companion on our runs and rambles through the forests. And so she grew from puppy to strong adulthood, always patient with the younger pups. She loved the woods, and she loved to bathe in cool water.
Until one day, she decided she did not like running as much, and sat down in the middle of the road. I'd thought it just a dislike for my new habit of the leash.
Then she started to cough at night. As some of you know, this is the sign of a failing heart that can no longer circulate fluid through the lungs and out to the body. Apparently, she had always had a heart condition.
Our vet gave her four months left.
And so, she decided to give me a lesson in perseverance. After some months on various medications, she hung in there, and improved even. She did not give up, and still supervised us to make sure we were doing whatever right.
We even took her to a canine heart specialist and ordered expensive tests to give her the best care we could. Back then, I earned enough that my dog got better health care than most Americans do today. Think on that.
She weakened, but she persisted. The medicine worked. (It'd be hard to tell from American discourse, but in fact, science is a good way to discover how things work, and western medicine can successfully treat a wide array of afflictions).
So, I learned a little of the relationship between hope and inevitability After several months, the heart medication succeeded in reducing her congestion.
However, the x-rays revealed a lung cancer that had appeared almost overnight. Our vet said she had maybe a few weeks.
That was three years ago.
Over those years, she slowly declined. First, slowing. Then not running. Then not walking far. She lost weight, despite the switch to chicken. She lost her ability to keep her heat. She lost much of her fur and nearly all of her muscle. She had so little flesh she could barely stand, and no ability to climb back up the hill if she wandered down the hill in our yard. (Many nights she'd yelp her husk of a bark and we'd rescue her) In the end, she couldn't remember how doors worked, how to get out of corners, or that she was supposed to pee outside, after a lifetime of habit.
That didn't stop her from going out to the deck on cold nights to enjoy the night sounds and the moon. Even then, she'd lie out and watch the world and wag. My wife caught what was the last wag we saw in a video last May. Looking at it now, she looked so healthy.
For my part, it gave me time to accept what I'd of course always known: that I would lose her.
It gave me time also to understand, again, that nothing remains with us forever. We may have joys and loves for a time, and we must embrace and feel them to the fullest, but also too we must also recognize that everything changes and gives rise to new things.
Worlds on worlds are rolling ever
From creation to decay,
Like the bubbles on a river
Sparkling, bursting, borne away. -Shelley
Last Saturday, I was away, out of contact, when she walked out into the yard in full view of the mountains, and collapsed. My wife found her a few minutes later, dead, slid down the hill.
When I returned and my wife told me she had died, I was filled with a lightness of heart and relief that it had all ended well. I felt great gratitude for the lifetime my dear dog had given me, so faithfully, so graciously. I had nursed her with twice daily pills and peanut butter, and kept her from harm as best I could. And she kept me from harm also.
So, too, one of these days I will decline (with luck!) and die, as will my mother, my wife, my children, all of us, all of you reading this. Hundreds of years from now, maybe not even that long, next to no trace will exist that we ever lived here on a rock circling one of a trillion trillion suns.
Next time we are upset with a comment, or outraged by some news, consider that too in its proper perspective.
So it goes
So, in this way, that dear dog is still making sure I'm doing it right in reminding me to keep all things in their proper perspective. Embrace what is, even when what is, is the leaving.
Only in silence the word,
Only in dark the light,
Only in dying life:
Bright the hawk's flight
On the empty sky. - Le Guin
So it is. The consequence of life is invariably death, and often disease, and dying. Yet, by understanding and recognition we take comfort and feel peace in knowing going in that the joys shared are a precious, limited thing that are for all that the more glorious.
O best beloved, thank you
So, she has gone on ahead, as always, showing me the way.
We will come down at night to these resounding beaches
And the long gentle thunder of the sea,
Here for a single hour in the wide starlight
We shall be happy, for the dead are free. - Teasdale
Think on these things
(and many thanks for all your kind words!)