I have previously written several accounts of February 12, 2021. Of course, that date would mean little or nothing to most people, but it is one of many singular dates in my own life.
For on this date, almost four months
ago at this writing, my dear little Shih Tzu, Queenie, crossed the Rainbow
Bridge and joined Princess, Buddy, Bobby and Lucy in a lovely place where, one
day, I expect to be reunited with them, along with many of my dearly departed
family members.
And as I implied in the first
paragraph, I have all but exhausted what I wish to relate about my dear
Queenie’s final minutes on earth. However, there are a few things I would like
to add to my account of her final weeks as a member of our household.
Queenie’s time with my family and me
were quite obviously drawing to a close, and though it would have been easier
to ignore “the elephant in the room,” it was becoming almost impossible to do
so.
Although we could not be sure of her
age since she wandered up in a friend’s yard years ago, the vet thought she was
between 16 and 18. She had long since lost all her teeth, and her eyes had
developed cataracts. (I could only wonder how much sight remained to her).
But worse than her physical deficits,
during the past year, or perhaps somewhat longer, my dear little pooch had been
displaying the troublesome symptoms of dementia. Queenie would walk into my
bedroom, and moments later she would begin barking, as though she couldn’t find
her way out. If and when it rained, she would walk into our hall bathroom, push
the door shut, and finding herself in the dark would begin scratching on the
door, ‘til she left permanent claw marks in the varnish; (which still remind me
that she once graced us with her presence). And then there were times she would
jump up on the couch and sit a few feet away from me. (Shih Tzu’s aren’t great
social animals). However, whenever my wife would walk by the sofa, Queenie
would begin to bark and generally “raise Cain,” as if to say, “Hey, this is my
human being. Go find one of your own!”
Pt. 2
Of course, as the days and weeks and
months tick-tocked themselves into the annals of my personal history, I began
to dread the inevitable. In the movie, “Marley & Me,” there is a scene in
which the blonde Labrador’s owner, John, is seated next to his aging pet pooch
under a large tree, and surrounded by a beautiful field of grain.
Gazing intently at Marley, John
speaks.
“Hey fella, I can’t do this by myself.
You let me know. You let me know when it’s time.”
I love that movie, and, of course,
given Queenie’s age and symptoms that scene became increasingly relevant to me
and my precious pooch. So much so that in the last few months of her life I
found myself repeating John Grogan’s words.
“Hey little girl, I can’t do this by
myself. You let me know. You let me know when it’s time.”
Of course, a dog is incapable of
replicating human speech. But they speak to us, nonetheless. (Yes, they do).
And while Queenie’s troubling symptoms
of dementia might well have been sufficient and spoken volumes to most people,
it was a more sedate, perhaps almost mundane occurrence which spoke the loudest
to me.
Six or eight days before our precious
pooch crossed the proverbial Rainbow Bridge, I picked her up and sat down on
the sofa. Now she did something she had never done in the seven plus years she
spent with us.
Suddenly, her little head drooped onto my left shoulder, as if to confirm what I already knew. And like a whisper in a wind storm she told me.
“It’s time.”
Afterward
Just days later I stood next to her as the vet did what vets do best (or worst, as the case may be). Queenie resisted slightly, but I held her close, and whispered in her ear. Now she bowed to her fate, and softly pitter pattered across the Rainbow Bridge; a bridge which we must all assuredly cross one day.
by William McDonald, PhD. Copyright pending
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