I first had this thought a week or ten days ago, as I took
Grendel for a late-night walk. Then the
fear was an occasional companion, and the pain seemed manageable. He was very much interested in food and in attention. But I knew this to be true—that he was scared and in
pain and that I could take it from
him. It was then that I decided that the
time to bid my final farewell to him would be when this thought was uppermost.
I think the time is here.
He has been on a slow decline since we found out about the tumor, with
good days and bad days. Recently,
though, it has become harder to square my desire to keep him in my life with my
wish for him not to suffer. The weekend
was good. We had company and for a
moment, he seemed inclined to play with my parents' much younger dog. He seemed relatively happy at the attention
he was getting. He wagged frequently.
Yesterday, his birthday, was also good for the most
part. Of course, as with most days, he
slept the greater part of the day, but he received many extra-special treats,
treats which had to be cut up so that they did not irritate the growing mass in
his mouth, the red horror that is visible if he yawns widely enough and that is
the source of his fetid breath.
It also bleeds.
Grendel has always slobbered. His
drool has been wont at times to form into long "droolcicles" that
hang down several inches from his mouth, and these have become more viscous and
more likely to have a crimson tinge to them.
His water dish occasionally has the same tint. And in many places the floor is stained with
his blood, where he has either licked the carpet—perhaps
in an attempt to ease the irritation the growth causes in his mouth—or where blood has
dripped from his mouth.
Today, though, he seems to have taken a turn for the
worse. He has been even more lethargic,
it seems. When I tried to give him his
pain pills, wrapped this time in a small ball of bread, it must have hit the
growth and hurt him, to the extent that he fled as I approached him with the
bread again and would not eat for awhile.
The strands hanging from his jowls are bloodier than usual. He is weaker and less interested in
walking. And the scared look in his eyes
stays and he seems to beg for release from his fear.
But…
This is the hell of it.
This has not been an easy day, as you might guess. There have been tears aplenty, from me and my
wife. In those moments, he has looked to us with concern, apparently worried
more about our pain than his. Then, when I think he is down for
the count, when I think that, yes, the time has come, he gets up and climbs on
to the sofa, reducing me to tears. Whatever else has gone wrong, his heart is
loving and strong as ever, his will seemingly inexhaustible.
In that moment, I permit myself to think that this isn't the
time, that he has some good days left.
I know, logically, that I am fooling myself. I don't know how to calculate the value of a
good day against a day of suffering, but with so many good days behind him—I place the number at over
4650 of the 4749 days he has lived, but I didn't know him for about the first ten
weeks—I'd rather
potentially rob him of a few "good" days than add to his
suffering. It is both awful and awesome
that I bear this responsibility, that I am left to perform this calculus.
And so, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps the day after, but
probably no later, I will give Grendel a large dose of diazepam. It will render him unconscious, whereupon I
will swaddle him in the blanket that has been under my desk, the space we refer to as one of Grendel's
"caves," and take him to the vet for euthanasia. Afterwards, his body will be cremated and I'm
not yet sure what will become of the ashes.
Unless he goes quietly in his sleep, it's the best I can do.
Our family, then, will be reduced. Spots on the carpet will be cleaned, perhaps
the carpet itself eventually replaced.
We will find his hair in unexpected places, probably for as long as we
live here. Avery, the adorable scamp who
came into my life along with Serena, who already knows something is amiss, will
mourn in his own way. Our daughter will
be born, and we will regale her with tales of Grendel, whom she will never
meet, but whom we hope she will know.
Grendel sleeps on the sofa now. He is stretched out to his full length so
that the entire thing is his.
Occasionally, one or more of his legs twitches as he pursues imaginary
prey. I would like to freeze this
moment, so that I can look at it from all angles, so that I can cherish it, because
this could be any one of thousands of such moments and because I know that time
will dim the memory of each.
I have never known the like of him before and I doubt I ever
will again. It is a rare privilege to have such a
companion, and the sadness of the end a small price to pay.
No comments:
Post a Comment