When we think about big moments in life oftentimes we can categorize memories into the before and after.
Before. A time that is either happier or more sad. The good old days or the days you don’t want to go back to.
After. The same potentiality, only inverted.
These are defining moments. The end of a chapter. The single solitary moment of change. Sometimes self induced, other times not.
Alongside this, something else that reigns true is that each moment is a defining moment. Each moment shifts us into the next. Each path we choose or decision we make is one that sparks the winds to change in that direction.
Four years ago today I experienced a defining moment. A moment so huge that it seemed to propel me right into an alternate reality that I cannot seem to claw my way out of. The type of moment that has infiltrated each and every moment of my life from 6:14 p.m. March 20, 2020 to 11:39 a.m. March 20, 2024 - the moment I am typing this.
Friday, March 20, 2020. A day that I don’t exactly remember but one that I will never forget.
Most likely, your March 20, 2020 was a little unusual as well. The first official week of Two Weeks To Flatten The Curve and life was strange. Everything was cancelled and everyone was home. The hockey game I had on the calendar was not happening. No one was going to school and many weren’t going to work. Stay home. Stay home. Stay home.
I decided to spend that time at my parents. My (now ex) boyfriend was working away and I did not want to be stuck in a townhouse alone for what I thought would be two weeks when I could stay with my parents and have ample outdoor access. Nature and fresh air, yes please.
And so, I was there.
I guess I woke up that Friday. I say I guess because I don’t remember anything about that day other than the fact that I went for a walk. I walked with my mom and the dogs. As we were walking I noticed my German Shepherd Roxy’s stomach looked big. I even commented on it but innocently assumed that it was just from gaining weight over the winter or something like that.
The day carried on as days do. Dinner was had and after that everyone was hanging out in the living room. I started to fixate on Roxy’s stomach again. When she way laying down it seemed even bigger and not from weight gain. Her stomach was hard and it reminded me of a cows stomach. I felt that something was wrong but I was brushed off by my family because they oftentimes think I am a hypochondriac when it comes to health. To be fair, they’re not wrong, but sometimes, like this time, they’re not right either.
I couldn’t stop thinking about her stomach and I just felt like something was wrong so I decided to call the vet.
I called our regular vet and described what was going on. He ended up being quite dismissive and I believe it was due to the Covid situation and not wanting to see patients unless absolutely necessary. Since Roxy was mostly acting normal, it didn’t seem like an emergency to him.
A little while later I couldn’t shake the uneasiness I felt so I ended up calling the emergency vet located about 90 minutes away. They were attentive and asked a lot more questions, one of them being “what color are her gums?” I lifted up her lip to see gums as white as could be and I didn’t know what that meant but I knew that it was bad. My answer prompted them to tell me that she needed to be seen.
At this point I thought she must be bloating. That was the only explanation. They didn’t tell me that but that is what I hypothesized as I was getting ready to go. My mom joined me and my dad said goodbye to us at the door along with Lily and my sisters dog Evie.
Off we went. I was driving and I was driving fast. Since I thought she was bloating it was a race against time to get her there soon enough. No one was on the road. The world was eerily vacant the entire drive there. Finally, we arrive and I call to check in, knowing that we’re not allowed inside. Someone came out to get Roxy and to do an intake. The tech told us that they’d call with an update as soon as they knew something.
I don’t know how long we waited. Long enough, but not long at all, before a guy exited the doors and began walking towards us. We were the only other car in the parking lot at this time so I knew he was coming for us. “It’s not good. They were supposed to call.” I told my mom.
I rolled the window down and he introduced himself as Dr. Martinez. He began to speak, “something something, bad news, more words I don’t remember, hemangiosarcoma, a form of cancer, something something, stomach full of blood, more words that are wedged deep in my mind, limited options, death or risky surgery, I’m so sorry.” This right here, this was one of those defining moments.
In a few short minutes I had to decide if I wanted to try risky surgery where there was a good chance she’d die on the table. If she did survive then she’d have a couple of months, at most, which would include chemo. Or I could choose to end it all, which I still refer to as deciding to kill my dog. I know that she would have ended up dying anyways. She was dying. But phrasing it as “putting her to sleep” or whatever nice way you’d like to describe it doesn’t really resonate with me. I find it to be a comfort to those of us still here trying to cope with the realities of death, dying, and pet ownership. A comfort that is not comforting to me in the least. At the end of the day there was no comfort in choosing either choice and I signed those papers to kill my dog. That interaction and tiny moment in time took me from believing I was rushing Roxy to the vet to be saved to realizing that I was rushing her directly to her death. If I would have known there would have been lots of treats and a better goodbye before we left. I would have drove a normal speed and pet her the whole way there.
If I would have known.
But I didn’t know and I found myself in the very brief middle space. In between the before and after.
Dr. Martinez went back inside to “get ready” and told us it would be a few minutes. During those few minutes I proceeded to lose my mind in the parking lot. Pacing and crying and fucking angry at God. Why, why, WHY?! An actual display of grief and hysteria. When they called us in we had to mask up and put on gloves. We weren’t allowed to take them off at any point. I didn’t care at that point. I would have done anything they asked to get myself in that room.
From 9:19 p.m. to 10:15 p.m. I am present. I am floating in the space that hoovers between life and death. Roxy is still alive, she is here in front of me. I am keeping my shit together. I am talking to her and FaceTiming my dad and sister for them to say goodbye. I am taking her picture and telling her she’s the best dog in the world. I am here. We are here. But Roxy is no longer living. Her heart is still beating, just a little while longer, but life for her is over. This room is a suspension of that state.
The between.
The middle space.
We are here, but only for a moment.
And soon, that moment ends. The time comes. “Are you ready?” the tech asks as she peeks her head in. Who is ever ready for that moment? But what other choice do you have than to be ready? A whole new meaning to “ready or not” settles over me.
She is here one minute and gone the next. Like many other devastated pet owners before me and the ones that will come after, I am sitting on the floor holding her head in my lap repeating “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you” to remind her as she goes even though I know that she always knew.
As I walk out of that room I realize that something inside of me has died too. Stepping outside onto that sidewalk I am hit with the crisp fresh air of the after and it brings me to my knees.
By this point there are three other cars in the parking lot. I say a pray that they leave here tonight with happier stories and at the same time I am hysterical. I held it together for an hour. I held it together to savor that liminal space. I collapse in the middle of the parking lot and say another prayer. This time praying that someone will come hit me and end me too because how will I live with this. How will I live in the after? I do not know and I do not think. I feel. I feel. I feel.
I feel it all.
Eventually they bring her body out and load it into the car. I peel myself off of the asphalt with tiny stones pressed into the palms of my hands and head to the drivers seat. My mom offers to drive but I need to. I need something to hold onto, something to tether me to this new reality.
My townhouse is right down the road and we stop to pee before heading back to my parents. I pull up out front and all I can think about is how fucked up it is that my dead dog is in the backseat and none of my neighbors know about it. I want to scream. Instead, I walk inside and feel like someone else lives there. The familiar is unfamiliar. This house was from a happier time, I think.
Once we get back to my parents I open the back door and sob while laying on Roxy until my parents tell me not to because she is leaking blood. Of course she is. The hemangiosarcoma ruptured and filled her with it. Of course it is ruining this moment too!! I think about her spending the night in the backseat of the car and I think of all of us in the house as I robotically walk through the door and collapse in tears while the dogs lick them away. If only they could lick away the pain too.
I cry all night long and I wonder how there are that many tears within me. I do not know how to live in this new world. I do not want to live in this new world of after.
It’s a cold and cloudy day. We bury Roxy beside the family dog, Pebbles, we had growing up. She lived to be 17. Roxy lived to be 7. I am mad at all of the time we won’t get together. And for as much as that angers me, it saddens me even more.
The days after were long and horrible. Covid isolation combined with grief is a recipe for getting fucked up. Unexpected loss on its own is a heavy hitter in the trauma space. And it’s interesting when an animal dies. People care at first but they soon forget. And that’s fine, but I haven’t forgotten. It still impacts how I go through life.
I am living in the after and the after is hard. The after is fraught with fear of something similar happening again. I am terrified that someone will die unexpectedly. Each day for four years I wondered how I could continue to live with this fear running on autopilot in my mind and each day I just carry on. That’s what we do, we carry on and in that we do the best we can. I am doing the best I can.
This is life. That much I know. Each little moment leads us to the next. Each moment prior to May 2013 lead me to adopting Roxy. Even if the moments were seemingly insignificant or unrelated, they were connected. Each moment I make now leads me to the next thing and the thing after that. These moments make up our lives and they are filled with the vast range of joy, sadness, elation, grief, surprise, shock, happiness, and everything in between. What a gift it was to have Roxy in my life for 6 years and what a gift it is to feel all of the ways that her death has helped me to become more present and grateful with Lily. It hurts and it heals. It’s beautiful and it’s ugly. It’s the very laws of nature that keep us living this human experience and feeling it all.
What a gift it is to feel it all.
In loving memory
Roxy
May 9, 2012 - March 20, 2020
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