How Do I Know When It's Time? - Nov 7 2024

 

How Do I Know When It’s Time?

Nov 7 2024



How do I know when it’s time?

When, if she could speak

she’d agree

life is no longer worth living?

When, if she could understand death

would herself request it?

When even a dog’s life

  —  eating and sleeping,

and on our slow short walks

on swollen joints and wobbly legs

forensically sniffing

before sleeping again  —

seems full enough.

So I’m forced to guess.

To consider how wasted she is.

How frail, deaf, incontinent.

Her arthritic pain.

Which I can only infer;

because, like most of her kind

she’s a stoic dog

who hides weakness well

and forges doggedly on.

Not to mention the confusional spells,

when she circles erratically

with a faraway look in her eyes.

And the malignancy

slowly filling one ear;

like a parasite,

engorged with her blood

draining her of life.

Time comes for us all.

But hard to imagine

that when it does

we would welcome death,

invite it in,

give up without a fight.

Yet the person she’s always trusted

snowing her with drugs

that take the fight out of her?

    … Unable to resist

even if she would.

At least here,

in this clinical setting

on the examining bed

as the Vet leans in.

Because she trusts me

to do what’s best.

Because she knows nothing of death.

And because this day

was just like all the rest

that came before.

At least, until it ends

in a deep and dreamless sleep

in less than a minute from now.

Skookum is scheduled to be put to sleep tomorrow (Friday). (We say “put to sleep” instead of “killed”. The ultimate euphemism.) I’m really struggling with ambivalence.

Her good appetite is telling me she would choose to keep going. And how can I judge what’s a worthwhile life for a dog without the risk of anthropomorphizing: that is, seeing her quality of life as critically lacking? After all, isn’t a life of just eating and sleeping good enough for a dog?

But if I’m jumping the gun, how much longer? A few weeks? And do I wait for something bad to happen, wait until she’s suffering?

This is all the harder because she loves going to the Vet: happily wagging her tail, greeting everyone, sniffing all the interesting smells.

My coping mechanism is to write my way out. I think better in prose. But the distillation of poetry forces me to simplify, which can help clarify my thoughts.

(I’m adding this on the Friday Nov 8 (the next day, and the day it was scheduled). of. Cancelled the appointment. Didn’t go through with it. It became clear to me Thursday night that she wasn’t ready to go.

Having a good day like that, I naturally question myself. But again tonight, seeing her, I’m feeling reassured this is a good decision. Even if it is give or take a week or two. And what’s a few weeks when you live in the moment, as dogs do?)