14. January 2009 by Robert Sokol.

Ron brought Jasper home today. The hospital staff was very considerate. They closed the abdominal suture and placed him in a towel and then in a plastic bag. We unwrapped these items to see him. He was curled up like a sleeping little lamb, nose resting on paws. He often slept that way and the familiarity of the pose cut deep inside me. He really did look like he was just resting, but I knew he was not.

I stroked him and cried. He had two coats - a soft undercoat and a wild and wiry top layer. He shed like crazy and the next housecleaning will be particularly hard. I brushed back the long hair that was forever obsuring his gentle, now-closed brown eyes. I made one final Jaspersaurus - twirling the fur on top of his head until it stood like a unicorn’s horn - and then smoothed it out.

We brought Skeeter out to see him. No one knows what animals think or sense, but we thought it would be better for Skeeter to see and intuit in whatever way he might that Jasper was gone. He already sensed something was wrong with us. Dogs know things.

Ron brought out Japser’s favorite toy, his small blanket, knitted by our friend Karen, and a clean sheet. (Desirée had also been buried with her blanket from Auntie Karen.) We gently bundled him and then held the bundle and cried. We carried him to the top of our terraced yard and gently placed him in the space that Ron had made in the ground. He faces the house so he can always see us even if we can’t see him. Ron prayed.

Like a couple who each keeps taking a progressively smaller bites of the shared dessert, we gently returned the mound of earth to the void,  slowly working around the blanket until the dirt began to topple down from the sides and obscure the whiteoval with moist, dark brown soil. Only a sliver was left. As if on cue, the local church bell began to toll for noon. We looked at each other and waited. “You,” I said. After all, Ron was the dog person. He lowered another shovel-full and all was dark.

We worked more quickly now. Ron paused. He steppen on the soil to compress it. “Sorry, buddy,” he said, much like the innumerable apologies one of us would offer when we accidentally step on a paw. He raked in the last clumps of loamy earth and torn grass and it was done. We held each other in tears and gave thanks for the joy of twelve years.

“Don’t anthropomorphise your animals. They hate that!” Not sure whose joke that is but it is one we used again and again. We spoke for all of our critters. Sometimes to say things out loud we weren’t willing to say in our own voices, but mostly to deepen the love, the fun and the pleasure of being in communion with God’s other creatures. We have been deeply blessed by all our companions whom Jasper has now gone to join - Miss Phredde, the sky-diving hamster; Oscar and Harvey, the transcontinental guinea pigs; Mary-Ann, Mona and Anna, matriarchs of our mouse colony; and my girls Desirée, Griz and Annie. We miss them. Each has given us something unique and special and we are grateful.

Now we are three. Skeeter is thirteen, but small dogs tend to have greater longevity and, except for his socially-inappropriate Maybelline problem, he is in good health. We’ll be loving him extra hard from now on.

As a guardian of a life, you never want to favor one of your children over another - whatever the species. That said, Jasper was somethin’ special. A cuddler, a love-puppy, a gentle soul who hated loud noises and loved bits of raw vegetables. His favorite spot was in bed between us where, for a small dog, he could get incredibly long and would stretch and push until we were hugging the edges of the mattrass and he was the cross-bar of the H. If you held him, he’d nestle completely into your chest and then twist his head upward until he could look you in the eye. He napped a lot and we think he chased rabbits in his dreams. He understood the concept of a doorknob and probaly coud have used one if he had thumbs. He loved W-A-L-K-S, of which whenever got enough, and like his more delicate daddy, was prone to car-sickness. On the rare occasions when there was “an accident” in the house, he was abject in his embarrassment.

I don’t know what made me a cat person early on. I don’t think I’ve lost that - the way I lost my feeling for Christmas or rhinestone jewelry - but I’ve definitely become a dog person as well. I guess that makes me bispecial!  What I do know is no other creature on earth can be a better embodiment of the existential, unconditional love that humankind aspires to (or should) than a dog can. If you experience that gift in your life - the joyously dancing, licking, barking greeting everytime you come through the front door, whether you’ve been gone five weeks or five minutes - you are a lucky soul. Among the many life gifts that flow between Ron and me, I shall always be especially grateful for the gift of Jasper.

Dogs rule!

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14. January 2009 by Robert Sokol.

Jasper - 7.17.96 to 1.13.09

Death has come as an unwanted guest to our house for the third time in less than a year. Each visit more sudden and brutal than the last.

I’ve been at the same address for almost 28 years - more than half my life. You experience a lot in that span of time. Joys, sorrows, accomplishment, loss. The last twelve months have been particularly cruel.

Desirée, named for the lead in Sondheim’s A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, saw me through so much. The ends of my first and second marriages, changes in career, and meeting Ron and starting the best of my life. She was born in this house. Her mother was young, too young, and I midwifed the litter of three grey fluffballs. (There was a fourth, but he came too late and despite the best nursing we could offer, he didn’t make it. I called him Rocky.)

A year into our relationship Ron started to do the puppy dance. I had always been a cat person and I had three at the time we met. In defiance of his allergies, Ron was the best stepfather to matriarch Grizabella, mother Anastasia and daughter Desirée. (I’m a show queen. Sue me!) Ron was a dog person and after much negotiating, Jasper came into our life, quickly followed by Skeeter. (There were also Harvey, Oscar, Miss Phredde and the mischkas, but that’s another story, another post.)

The dogs and cats formed an initially uneasy alliance, but the seven of us traipsed along for several years, until a warm sunny day when Grizabella went to sleep on the deck and never woke up. She was 18 and to be forgiven for her decision to go to the Heaviside Layer. Annie, as we called her, loved to prowl the alleys. It’s how she got knocked up in the first place. As she got older, she would disappear for days, then weeks, but always returning eventually for food and loving. Each time I thought it might be the last and then she would surprise me. But the surprises stopped.

So Desirée was my last “little girl” and she became a great companion to Rosemarie, my mother, who came to live with us five years ago. She also trimmed up - we used to call her Meatloaf - and became something of a dog. When Ron prepared dinner, she would line up with the boys and beg scraps. They even sharted sharing beds and food plates. In her last months, even as her hips started to give out, she’d rise up on her haunches and snag a piece of cheese. (Despite certain similarities, I am still talking about the cat at this point.)

Last March, it was clear that Desirée was reaching the end of her life. It was not a surprise. She was almost 20 and, for a cat, that is a long time. On her last day, she still had the will to eat, but not the ability. I wiped the food from her face and we took turns holding her into the night. When sleep became a necessity, we cranked up the heat for her comfort and put her to bed near the vent. I said goodbye because I knew she would not be there when I awoke. She had a good long life and it was her time.

In May, my mother had cataract surgery. Complications ensued and she died on the 11th. I am brief in writing this here and now because there is still too much that is raw in that loss. Still too much to process and I am not ready.

Just before noon yesterday, Ron took Jasper to the doctor. He had been sluggish for several days, without his usual sparkle, cocked ears and wagging tail.  He was admitted to the hospital with internal bleeding and surgery to remove his spleen was scheduled. There was also a tumor and x-rays were taken. We went back around 4:00 to visit him and learn the results of the tests. Tied to a transfusion machine, he hopped up and perked his ears when he saw us. The tail that had been tucked under for days wagged furiously. The doctor told us there was a 70% chance that the tumor was cancerous and could have spread to other organs.

Jasper had cheated death twice already. Before he came to us, the shelter holding him wanted to “put him down” because of kennel cough. He was rescued by the now-closed Hearing Dog Program at the SF SPCA and trained to work with the deaf. (Skeeter came from the same program.) Jasper was too timid to be an effective guide dog and came to us in 1997. Two years ago, he became very ill and two different vets could not effectively treat him. Fortunately an excellent doctor at San Francisco Veterinary Specialists was able to dignose his condition - by feeling his ankles, no less - and got him on a quick road to recovery. Jasper had to be third-time-lucky. He had a 30% chance. Things happen in threes.

We held him and loved him as much as we could in that sterile room with other animals and medical staff coming and going. He trembled and wanted to leave with us. As the time for surgery drew near, we went home. The doctor would call and update us. The thought that he might have only moths instead of years settled in my mind. Then came the thought that I might never again see his beautiful and inquisitive bright eyes looking back at me. I pushed it away. It was just NOT going to happen that way. If we only had weeks or months then we would make them the best.

At 7:10 the call came. The spleen had hardened and attached itself to other organs. Continuing would have been extremely difficult and it was not likely that he would even survive the operation. At the moment he was sedated and pain free. Waking him up to “say goodbye” would have been cruel. Ron and I stood by the speaker phone. We told the doctor to administer euthanasia and then crumbled into each other with long and bitter tears. The thought I tried so hard to push away did not budge. We lost our boy.

The progression of death has become increasingly fast for me. With Desirée we were aware to weeks that she was getting weaker and would likely leave us soon. The stages of decline for my mother were rapid, but paced themselves over several days. Yesterday, in just seven hours, we went from worry to grief.

If it is true that things come in threes, then I’d like to be done with death for a long, long time. My plate is too full. There are too many times when I want to tell my mother something. Too many times when I listen for the sound of that rusty-hinge that was Desirée’s greeting cry. And now we hold Skeeter close and look for Jasper in the corners of every room.

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