Karma, our beloved family dog and my guide and companion in Words from the Northwest Woods, died on July 14, 2011, in the early evening.
It had been a mere six weeks since we had noticed some odd changes in his behavior and took him to the vet. He was eating less, and less often greeted us at the door - he who had always seemed almost prescient, like so many dogs, in anticipating our return. He had stopped wanting to go out on his late night walks with Mark; on daytime walks he was slower and would sometimes just come to a halt and look around in confusion. I was convinced something was wrong, but an Internet search led me to believe it was "merely" canine cognitive dementia. He was, after all, thirteen years old.
It was much more serious than that. When we took him for an appointment on May 21st, his vet immediately noticed Karma had a "baseball-sized" tumor on his spleen, with liver metastases.
We were stunned. Karma had always given the impression of eternal youth. People on our walks were incredulous when we told them his age. I think at some level we believed he was immortal.
Our first move was to see a canine oncologist - the desperate hope of chemotherapy. Mark would have offered his own spleen and liver for transplant if possible, but Karma's first chemotherapy treatment was merely a presentiment of the hopeless difficulties that lay ahead.
The timing of all this was complicated: we had to visit San Diego, where we needed to see Mark's ailing father and beloved sister Brenda. So between chemotherapy treatments and with the oncologist's blessing (as well as that of an animal communicator whom we fortuitously contacted) we drove with Karma all the way to San Diego, stayed for almost five days, and drove back, taking a full three days each way; our sweet companion, as always, was a complete trooper every mile of the way.
We began the trip with great hopefulness. A stunning rainbow - well, not a bow, per se, but more a rain band - some inexplicable atmospheric phenomenon - greeted us near Merlin, California,
and all along I-5 we stopped several times in lovely, magical places. Most of the time we were able to persuade ourselves that Karma was stable, that this was just another of the many wonderful trips we had taken with our "Diggy."
There were so many sweet moments on this trip. We had an organic brunch at a restaurant in lovely Ashland that offered an outdoor picnic table just for travelers with dogs.
We visited many random parks. One in particular called Miradero outside of LA, was so exquisite we were convinced we had slipped into heaven, or at least an alternate universe. Another time we stopped at a lovely orchard somewhere between Salem and Portland, Oregon,
where Karma seemed his usual happy self. Like many dogs, his delight in the subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) olfactory pleasures of the natural world was always boundless. We never fully understood it (the puzzling pleasures of putrefaction and whiffs of nether regions in particular) but it was indubitable. The only joy rivaling that of his nose was his ever-evident joy at being with us.
After arriving in San Diego, where the kids had flown to meet us, we took Karma to the beach at La Jolla with Nat, his friend Josie, and Amira,
and on the return home stopped at the splendid Sundial Bridge along the Sacramento River,
where Karma had what was to be his last frolic in a river.
Miles later, at the infamously named Weed, California, where loyal residents blithely proclaim their civic allegiance as follows,
we stopped and walked Karma along a closed road where, uncharacteristically, he wandered off alone way ahead of us until we called him back. It was as if he had been drawn to the refuge of the transcendentally noble Mt. Shasta,
whose northwest face displayed its perfect heart-shaped love at sunset as we departed.
Later, when I downloaded photos, I discovered I had inadvertently made a brief video of, you guessed it, a heart-shaped flower and Karma on some other random walk with him.
It had seemed to be a successful trip in every way. We had several sweet minutes of connection with Mark's father (who otherwise had been unable to rise to consciousness for some time previously) and many wonderful times with Brenda (who proved to be in a more medically stable place than we had all worried) and Joyce, our other "sister." But I now realize that these lovely lace mist hangings which appeared on the car window early one morning were a presentiment of all the tears that were to follow.
Despite Karma's diagnosis, in our naive hopefulness it never really crossed our minds that this trip would be the last of his many past wonderful trips with us.
We returned on July 3rd, had a week of worrying about what to do next medically, and then Karma simply, inexplicably, stopped eating. Neither his steroids and appetite stimulants nor the usual incentives (poached organic chicken breast, wild salmon, hamburger patty) could inspire him to take a bite.
For his whole life Karma kept by our sides, indoors and out, but in his last few days he began staying for long stretches by himself in either the area to the left just outside the front door,
or in the side yard near the bird feeder. It was as if he was trying to return to the earth.
For hours over those last two days he and I lay outdoors. I would curl up beside him, propping an umbrella over us when it started to rain, cradling his muzzle in the palm of my hand,
and staring up at the intricate green lace of the adjacent trees against an unseasonably sombre, drained sky.
I placed a wooden bowl of heart-shaped rocks to watch over him when I went indoors.
For three days Karma seemed to drift in and out of consciousness for longer and longer periods. At one point I walked with him outside and right in front of my eyes he disappeared down the wooded slope of our driveway. I shouted for Mark to come help. We were panicked since initially we couldn't see him. There was no response, no movement. When we finally were able to scramble through the thick underbrush we discovered that he was curled up in a recess in the ground in what appeared to be a coma.
We made him as comfortable as we could and wondered if he had chosen that place to die.
Finally, at some point he roused, and in what seemed at the time like a Herculean effort (given Mark's knee, the steepness of the slope, and the denseness of the underbrush) we managed to pick him up and scramble up to our driveway. It wasn't his time yet.
Our animal communicator said that dogs are adept at "leaving their bodies" when reality becomes too painful. We desperately hope that is true. It is certainly what Karma appeared to do, having not responded to the other medication that had previously seemed to stimulate his appetite and energy. He would occasionally seem to wake up, lift his head, and look around, but then would lapse again into some other unreachable state.
It nonetheless felt like a betrayal of him to give up hope that he might miraculously rally.
By Thursday, Karma was more often in a state of having left his body (if that's what dogs do) than he was conscious. A couple we had met at that magical park in Glendale where we thought we were in heaven had reassured us that we "would know" when it was time. They were right. His back legs could no longer hold him up without assistance, he was more often asleep than conscious, and we finally acknowledged that we had to let him go. Although Nat and Amira were scheduled to come home late Thursday afternoon, that morning Mark and I desperately debated about driving right then and there to the veterinarian's office to have Karma put to sleep without them.
As it happened Mark had no choice but to leave before the plan could be put in place, so we waited until the vet could come after office hours later that day. By that time Karma seemed to have already left us spiritually. He lay on the ground on his side, largely unresponsive until I told him "Daddy's home" and Mark arrived, when he lifted his head in greeting.
That was his last acknowledgement. Not even the vet's arrival roused him. He seemed to have no more wherewithal to live. His death was swift and painless.
As evening fell, Mark and Nat laboriously dug a three-foot deep grave and buried Karma in our backyard near a scarlet maple tree planted just a couple of months ago. We covered him with the turquoise Quicksilver sweatshirt Mark always wore for their morning walks and a zippered jacket I had worn the past two days as I lay with Karma outdoors. In his grave we placed an errant butterfly's wing I found on the ground right after his death, a tiny clay goddess figure, a "chewy-bone," some of his Wild Kind dry food, and a plastic rainbow from my sandplay collection, to ensure his finding the Rainbow Bridge. We then each spoke of a sweet moment with him, and each placed a heart-shaped rock in the four corners of his grave, along with a small lit candle.
We were sobbing in ways we have never done. I wanted to howl with the anguish. I had represented his death as a release unto peace, but it was not peace for us. It was, and sometimes still is, agony. His loss seems to have resurrected every loss we've ever suffered. And yet even at his grave, as Nat stomped and jumped on the ground to tamp down the dirt, amidst all the tears Amira and Mark spontaneously and hilariously made up and narrated an imaginary marketing video on how for a one-time only price, you too, can learn to be a "grave jumper," dead pet provided if needed. Anguish and inanity, our family's way to cope.
The following day, of all ironies, was Mark's birthday. I was in such straits that I could not even go out to look for a card for him and asked Amira to find him a card for me. Mark, too, was in grief and in shock, but he rallied, as he always does, and did what he needed to do professionally. That evening we all met in Seattle for dinner at an Italian restaurant and managed to enjoy the meal and the occasion despite the clutch in our hearts every time we realized we would not be returning home to Karma. Sitting across the table from our two sweet and loving children was our one consolation.
On the third day following Karma's death, a Sunday, we both woke up and felt we couldn't bear the loss. It occurred to me that although Karma was now free, his suffering still lingered in the house. I recalled the smudging I had learned to do from a Lakota woman elder years ago, so Mark and I lit some sage and cleansed every room of the house - not of Karma, but of his suffering.
A few hours later we both remarked that the house felt different. What was left was just the sorrow, not the suffering. That night we placed another set of candles on his grave.
Just for the record, it was only when Karma and I began walking together that I began seeing hearts everywhere. Initially I grumbled about these walks, wondering why he couldn't be a dog like other dogs who just went outside when they needed to. Instead Karma was habituated to three daily walks, Mark's loving policy. Out of my own boredom and curiosity I began taking Karma places he and I had never been, and in so doing I gradually began to notice that all around me, no matter where I was with Karma, there were heart shapes, in the rocks, in the leaves, on the ground, in patches of sunlight, in the trees, in the clouds... and then everywhere, all the time.
People have made fun of me about my evident heart-shaped fixation, but it was because of Karma, always Karma who was surrounded by, who embodied, pure love. I'm convinced that's what dogs are, pure love. Our gods on this earth. That love in Karma manifested in more ways than we can recount, in ways profound and trivial, poignant and silly. He was the most considerate creature either of us had ever met, always quick to adapt to our mood or needs. When we wanted to play, he wanted to play. When we needed to work, he needed to... well, doze. He patiently waited every morning until we could take him for his walk; he never held a grudge even when we disappointed him by not bringing him when we left for places he couldn't accompany us. Despite being unneutered (which is always thought to make a dog more aggressive) he was a Buddha in the face of conflict. Other dogs would occasionally challenge him aggressively, and he would seem to go "meta," as we called it: simply rise above the conflict of the moment, defusing it completely (sometimes to the amusing confusion of the other dog).
And hearts - everywhere we went there were heart-shaped images. Everywhere. He even left perfect little heart-shaped crumbs after devouring the biscuits he would get after eating his meal;
and on the one occasion in which he had an accident on the living room carpet, I discovered a heart-shaped stain.
We have yearned for evidence that Karma is still with us. He is clearly here in our hearts and in every impulse of our days. His presence was the axis of our daily lives, the barometer of our days. He brought us such love, such joy. He seemed to positively beam with joy, the way dogs do.
We continue to talk to him every day. On the morning after his death, Amira and Mark took the same walk they would have always taken with him in the morning at Grandview. As they sat at what Mark calls the "high desert plateau bench," they discovered this lovely amulet on the ground.
I was convinced it was a sign of him, his golden self amidst the heavens; Mark and Amira were not so sure. Still, Mark continues to feel Karma's presence in the house. I thought I heard him bark one day, but for the most part for me Karma seems so utterly, utterly gone.
The only other bit of "physical" evidence so far of his still being with us was when, two days after his death, on an utter whim, I bought a 300-piece Ravensburger children's puzzle. I mostly just liked the picture, innocent and silly as it is.
It was positively eerie, some random little image that appeared out of nowhere. At first I was certain it was some mistake and thought they must be pieces of another puzzle that had been inadvertently added to the box, but by the time the puzzle was completed it was clear: that sweet little golden face belonged there, however mysteriously it had inserted itself. (As the above image did, completely inexplicably, when I posted a link to this tale on Facebook.)
We have always called Karma our Golden Boy (among countless other nicknames). I continue to be utterly "puzzled" at the coincidence of this golden puppy face being part of the puzzle. Of course logically I know that the amulet was something someone dropped; the cover of the puzzle simply missed the right margin. Still, I ask myself, were those signs? Are there signs? Is death the end? Is the difference between life and death merely an illusion, as some say?
Yesterday for the first time since several days before Karma's dying, I walked one of our favorite paths, one of so many trails (McCormick Forest, Mallard's Landing, Wilkinson City Park, Grandview, Cushman trail, Kopachuck Park, etc.) Karma and I had so happily done for so many years. I was stunned to see that the ubiquitous Scotch broom, which had been roaring in joyful yellow blossoms what seemed only days before, was now heavy with seed pods, as delicate and lovely as Chinese snow peas, though utterly and uselessly inedible.
There was a poem in this, I was certain. A metaphor for something. The task was to find the redemption. I looked everywhere along the path for signs, for clues of Karma's presence, his painful absence. The shadows of blackberry bushes seemed to be a script that if only I could decipher it, would tell me something I needed to know.
Then, oddly, at one point I noticed that someone had chalked a sketch of a dog's head with a heart at its mouth. Or so I imagined.
But maybe it was a monkey. I couldn't tell. I could make no real sense of it, no real sense out of anything, it seemed, and I continued the walk. I had brought along Karma's leash, determined to share this walk with him, to carry on his presence and to face his loss. Let people think what they like, I thought, but at one point I passed a little girl who, seeing me, stepped forward and asked in sweet confusion, "Where is your dog?"
Where is my dog? That, of course, is my question. Does his spirit live? Do we have spirits, souls? Is there more to us than the material? What is the shelf life of love, of grief? Is it like the half-life of uranium, billions of years old? Are we surrounded in nature by the ancient, eternal expressions of those who have been loved and lost throughout the millennia?
I spared the little sweetheart above these ruminations, of course. We simply talked about dogs we have loved, who have died. About how our loved pets can live with us in our imagination as long as we like.
Thus Karma and I walked the five miles. And just as I had reconsecrated the ground where he died with flower blossoms, fallen from a bouquet indoors,
I reconsecrated each step of this walk, filled with love instead of pain, simultaneously being with him and without him.
His absence is as deeply felt as his presence was.
It now occurs to me that grief is a way of not letting go. We keep him here, in our sorrow. Our animal communicator assures us he will return to us in some form, most likely as another dog. But I think we are slowly setting him free. Perhaps we need to set him free in order for him to return.
Sometimes I see him coming indoors, surrounded by light, as he did two evenings before he died.
Other times he seems to be fading, taking on the ghostly presence that memories often do over time, just as he appears in this candle lantern to which I added a photo transparency of him.
I will perhaps never fully know how to understand his loss. But what I now realize, as I write this blog and tell the story of his final days, is that at this moment I am at peace. I find that I am at peace.
Sonnet XIX, from my beloved Edna St. Vincent Millay
And you as well must die, belovéd dust,
And all your beauty stand you in no stead;
This flawless, vital hand, this perfect head,
This body of flame and steel, before the gust
Of Death, or under his autumnal frost,
Shall be as any leaf, be no less dead
Than the first leaf that fell, - this wonder fled.
Altered, estranged, disintegrated, lost.
Nor shall my love avail you in your hour.
In spite of all my love, you will arise
Upon that day and wander down the air
Obscurely as the unattended flower,
It mattering not how beautiful you were,
Or how belovéd above all else that dies.
