"If I die before my dog, let him see my body.
He understands death; if he feels my death he can cry for me.
If he doesn't see me again he will think I abandoned him and
he will continue waiting for my return."
-- Unknown
Oncology tells me to keep looking at my feet.
They're on this side of the ground. Despite years of
lenten Wednesdays I have not returned to dust.
The
PA asks that I fill out the forms and report all the symptoms. State of mind. Every time.
"Did you know my Caroline sat at my bedside?"
Nausea and delusion. Unwarmable cold. Systemic pain. No music. No color. Perpetual ineffable sadness. Can't remember. Anything.
Except for Caroline.
"Dogs have a way," says the
angel in
tubeland.
"Look at your feet. I still see them," says my angel Heather who keeps me in this life by cutting into veins that have hardened by
chemo. Tubes descend from crystalline bags of poison : someone's life's work, to disagree with nature.
"This vein is no good anymore," Heather says. "Next time you should get a port." Try another stab. There's the flash. There's the diseased blood.
"Please, no more surgery." No next time.
The pain is meaningless. Simply to be endured.
"You have plenty of veins. Don't worry. I can always find one."
Caroline sat at my bedside. Sometimes nose against my arm. Sometimes a paw on the mattress.
She reminds there is still a world. Sunlight and snow to play in. Touch her head and see all the mountains and sunrises, stars and streams. Feet buried in wet sand, cool foamy surf rolling over the ankles.
I paid a vet to put a tube into her paw.
I lay next to her. They let you do that.
"I'll be with you soon."
"Her heart's stopped." The vet's work, disagree with nature.
Dear God, what is it I have done to offend you so?
Report the symptoms of the chemicals on a form nobody reads.
"My Caroline. We put her down. Maybe, just put me down, too."
She sat with me while science killed my traitorous bone marrow.
WBC was a basketball score.
Through nausea and delusion I see her concern. She nuzzles the sheet on the bed next to me. That year is a blur except for
Caroline.
She did not dread the thunder.
I write, "I'm not God's child anymore."
Who cares about an old man and his dog?
The PA asks, "Scale of one to five." Caroline bounds through the tall grass. Always happy to see me.
Two. Sometimes one. Why bother asking?
Would I have done it if I wasn't cancerous? Would I have done it if I hadn't retired and was still making money?
"I betrayed her. She was scared. She didn't know what was happening. She was faithful and I killed her."
"You did the right thing."
Those needles. That tube in her leg, and one in my arm.
Chemistry dictates life and death when nature disagrees.
"Looks like you're ok. Remission. I see your feet are still on this side of the ground."
Caroline's are not.