In Remembrance of the Sky

I had a “minor” emergency yesterday. At least that is what I told my boss. It is funny how something can be so significant to someone, and abysmal to the rest of the world. I watched and sat with you as you became a shell. I stared into the eyes that were full of confusion, pain, and fear as your body betrayed you. These eyes you had at that moment weren’t the joyful deep brown orbs that I was accustomed to. They were unfocused, unseeing, and distant, their gaze fixed not on any object in the room but on some undefined point far beyond. They were brown, but remarkably also somehow very grey. Either from vanity or out of fear, I called your name to capture your gaze. Your eyes lazily pivoted to me, lingered, and then looked past me once again. I prayed that your pain, fear, and the confusion would stop. I prayed that you would return to normal and stay with me. All things must come to an end though.

The night before, I had to work late, and my wife called to tell me that you were having a hard time. I was so afraid that you would leave without my having a chance to thank you or tell you goodbye. I prayed that you could have one more day. My prayers were answered, but getting your way doesn’t always make you grateful.

If you were a person, your death would be more noteworthy. You could never be a person though. A person, at the time, could not do what you did. You were a lost soul. From a home that did not want you. You were me. The only difference is that you loved everyone.

Years ago, I found you roaming the streets. Upon first meeting, I shooed you away. Every day I would see you and each day you would walk with me while I tried to clear my head. My head was so busy with thoughts then, buzzing. We became friends. Our friendship was unchanged for a couple of months. Each day, I would go for a walk, and you would always find me and walk alongside. I never gave you food. I only talked to you.

On a particularly stormy night, I spotted you outside, nested in a culvert. I decided to take you inside. You entered the house immediately upon invitation. It was probably a decision made impulsively, but it brought me comfort, nonetheless. Perhaps, I had established some trust in you. To a boy that wasn’t sure he could trust himself, the feeling was refreshing.

In the morning, the dark clouds had come and gone, and you willingly went outside, ready to embark on life of adventurous freedom. I felt the dark cloud over me start to dissipate too.

Even at rock bottom, I believed in God. Just back then, I believed that I hated God, and mutually He reciprocated those feelings. I am not sure how, or when it happened, but I started calling you by a name. I suppose that it was proper. Afterall, we did talk every day. I had this idea that you fell from the sky for me. For that reason, I named you Horace after the Egyptian sky god Horus. And that’s when I started feeling different about God. And I hoped He began to change his mind about me.

Yesterday, as I said, your eyes looked odd to me, but I had seen that look before in them. I had seen that fear, that confusion, that pain. Once upon a time, our roles were reversed. I felt hopeless. I thought there was nothing to live for. I knew that you loved me, but I felt like you were the only one. I had been abandoned by my family, and everyone else said they loved me. I was not as strong as you. I hated myself and I did not want to live. I scoured my parent’s house for every pill that I could find and threw down my throat in a manic frenzy. I remember vomiting and convulsing minutes after doing so. The way you looked at me was the hardest pill to swallow. You looked at me through those same eyes that I saw yesterday. In response, I was ashamed. I was leaving you on your own.

You were helpless as you tried everything that is within a dog’s power to comfort me. Curling up beside my convulsing body, you licked vomitus from my face. If dogs could pray, you surely did then, begging Him to keep me here with you. Those prayers, if you were indeed capable of making them, were answered.

After having narrowly survived that ordeal, haunted by your fearful stare, I realized that my mind wasn’t well. Many people think that mental illness can just be cured with a pill. I wish it were that easy. It took years to rid myself of that looming cloud. Each day I worked to make it dissipate, but it did so little by little. Some days, my sky would be a little overcast, and others my shoulders would be sore from the weight of the rain. Progress isn’t always linear. It never mattered how the sky was that day because you walked with me the whole way.

Fast forward to a little over a decade and I now sit with you, curled up beside your convulsing body. Yesterday morning, I was overjoyed that you had survived the night after my wife had called me the night before. You padded up to me like normal, greeting me at the door. Looking up at the sky, I thanked God. I thanked Him, because you put that love for Him into me. My gratefulness outlived my joy, because by midday, you were gone. Before, I said that I prayed for the fear, the confusion, and pain to stop for you. That is true, but after you stopped responding to your name, the name that I gave you, I whispered, “Please just rest buddy. You have walked so far. Please just rest. I will be okay this time.” Your soul was gone and that was evident as your eyes stared blankly. Your tongue, bloody from your own teeth as a result from involuntary gnawing, was hanging limply out of one side of your mouth and resting on the carpet. While whispering, “Please Buddy, just rest.”, I wedged a toilet paper roll in your mouth to safeguard it from being bitten off completely.

I was helpless as I tried everything within a man’s power to comfort you. Later that day, I made the decision to euthanize. I do not regret it. I am sorry that you felt pain for as long as you did. You convulsed the whole time to the hospital. It was a grotesque sight. In disbelief, mind kept replaying that morning. You had been so full of life to see me when I walked through the door, and now mere hours later, your body was limp and gaunt. As the veterinarian prepared the syringe, the only clue that you were still alive was the expanding and constricting motion of your all too noticeable ribcage. The bones protruding like tiny mountains. Then once the needle went in, those tiny mountains stood like mountains. Still and unmoving.

I buried you in the blanket that I forbade you to touch. Suspiciously, it smelled exactly like you. I knew it was your favorite, whether it be out of defiance or familiarity.

I’m okay Buddy. I am sad, but I’m not the sad boy you once knew. The sky is still clear.

Today, I have talked to you so much. I saw you coming to the door when I got home from picking up my daughters from school. Daughters, that I never would’ve had without you. I saw you lazily sitting at your spot on the couch, curled up and compacted at the arm of it. When we ate dinner tonight, mentally, I asked you to lie down as you casually tried cleaning the floor under my daughter’s chairs. You went to your spot and collapsed in front of your bowl after being reminded of your own food. But your food bowl was not there, and neither were you.

I will be okay Horace. When I feel hopeless, you taught me to look at the sky. I will always remember that. As my wife, daughters and I gaze at the stars tonight, silently, I talk to you. You were just a dog, and when you died, it was just a “minor” emergency, but I never would have seen past the dark clouds to these stars without you.

You can rest now. You’ve walked far enough.