GOD Spelled Backwards
There’s a joke that hits waaay too close to home for any dog lover that my wife shared with me a few months ago—it goes like this:
“I went to a psychic the other day, and she told me in 10-15 years I would experience a devastating heartbreak. I was so upset about this news, I went and bought myself a puppy.”
I have lost my grip on reality. I have been sitting on my kitchen floor hand feeding my once-eighty -pound pitbull twice a day for nearly a year. To any outside observer, it would certainly seem as though I should be committed. Who turns themselves inside out like this for a dog? Ziggy (short for Ziggurat Holiday Binary Robins) is thirteen and a half years old, and has been in my care since she could fit in the palm of my hand. Breakfast and Dinner time have become ordeals not only because I am having to coax an elderly dog to eat the food I literally just cooked for her in rituals that have become more and more complex over time, but also because my heart simply cannot take it.
It’s like I’ve been thrown into another room. I’m locked out from what is actually happening for me emotionally because my system knows I can’t handle it. It’s too much. I do not have the emotional capacity to be present to this, but here I am. Granted I can’t even be physically present every time because it is just TOO. MUCH. I am eternally grateful for my wife for stepping in when I can’t handle the devastating grief of even entertaining the idea of this relatively small creature not being in my life.
I am writing this through ugly tears in my favorite coffee shop. Because I just rode my bike here after another failed attempt at feeding my beloved pup. Because I know I will try again when I get home.
There don’t seem to be any words to accurately describe what I’m feeling. It is so far beyond my intellect. It is pure emotion, pure being, a grief born of maybe the deepest intimacy I have ever known.
I don’t think we ever really know what we’re getting when we bring home a puppy. I certainly didn’t. I had just gone through a terrible breakup and my life was in the process of completely falling apart. I was on the precipice of the most difficult period of my entire life, and literally less than twenty four hours from moving across the country. So of course, I went to a Petco in Denver and adopted a puppy.
I distinctly remember the feeling of holding her against my chest with one hand as I slowly pushed a shopping cart around the store, picking out the things I would need for her. Puppy pads, the best dog food I could afford, toys, treats, a collar, leash, a crate, dog bed. The longer I took in the store, the more the excitement and puppy-exuberance faded into a feeling of dread. What had I just done? This was a huge commitment that I was suddenly realizing I was NOT ready for.
I didn’t have a job. I was about to move across the country to live with my grandmother (who did not particularly like animals) because I had nowhere else to go. I was in no way prepared to care for myself, let alone another being.
But I looked down at the tiny creature against my chest, shook the feeling from my heart and mind, and whispered gently: “No turning back now. It’s just you and me.”
This was the first true commitment I ever made.
Was it a good decision? Absolutely fucking not.
And it was the best decision I’ve ever made.
Ziggy has been my constant since the moment I scooped her up into my hand and signed the adoption paperwork. I have come to see that her presence in my life is the precise thing that was both catalyst and container for the spiritual journey I’ve been on the last 13 and a half years. She has seen me at my worst. She has seen me more clearly and more directly than anyone else in my life. Yes, more than my friends, yes, more than my therapist, yes, more than my wife.
She saw the parts of me I would never show to anyone, and yet each night she would curl up on my lap and rest her head against my chest as if I hung the moon.
And now I’m crying again, trying to type through the tears that I can feel are getting uglier and uglier as I go.
If I see myself as her parent, I know I have failed. I was never able to give her the life she deserved, the life I wanted to give her. I carry a deep grief and shame around this. I should have done better. Like any child of parents who are poor and struggling, she didn’t have the life she could or should have—but somehow she was still happy and content. Of course, it wasn’t just the money—although that was a lot of it—it was also me. I was a mess. I hardly knew which way was up, and much to my dismay she was subject to the onslaught of uncertainty I was creating both in and around myself.
This is almost too much to take. I have no out. No one else to blame. No excuses. Just my failure. And to fail someone I love so much is enough to break me.
What is both adding to the pain and somehow simultaneously healing it is the fact that she loves me more than my failure. Somehow she loves me more than I comprehend. This is nothing short of a miracle.
If I don’t see myself as her parent, though, and I can see myself as her student, I believe I have made her proud. On our walk this morning we were in no hurry. Her hip problems prevent her from ever being in a hurry these days, and I feel proud that I can match her energy and pace. I’ve not just learned patience, I have the room for it in my body. I can move slowly, I can stand and watch her sniff, and be as curious and present as she is. This is a miracle.
I am sitting on the floor of my kitchen, coaxing my dog to eat a literal can of Campbell’s Chunky Soup. Somehow I still have a smile on my face, and can cheer her on as she starts to lick and slurp. This is a miracle.
I’m holding her sleeping body in my lap, weeping over the fact that her time is coming to a close. When Danielle suggests that she could take her to the vet when the time comes if it’s too much for me, there is a resolve in me deeper than anything I’ve ever felt. I love her too much to care about how badly I will hurt when she goes. I will not leave her. And somehow I know I have what I need to see her through until the end. This is a miracle.
I have been kept up half the night for nearly a week straight because the medication she needs for her autoimmune disorder makes her anxious. She paces around the house and paws at the side of the bed to be lifted up into it so she can lay next to me and gently nudge me back awake every time I find a way to fall back asleep. In the morning I crumple to the floor when Danielle and I discuss making the call. Exhausted and distraught, I choose to pick her back up and put her in bed next to me as I try to get thirty minutes more sleep. This is a miracle.
I am afraid of letting her go, because I’m not sure who I will be without her—and, I know she has made me into a person I’m actually proud of, a person who can let her go. Facing her death feels like a twisted graduation ceremony for my spiritual Ph.D. Because she loves me, and I love her, I know I can face it. This is a miracle.
She has changed me. She has healed me. She has loved me. These are all miracles.
We all know that only God can perform Miracles—I think we’ve just been spelling it wrong.
All the things you said about being Ziggy's parent I completely related to--it's so painful to fail and yet we haven't. I've also sent this to a friend who I know will be sobbing at this, but will not send it to my daughter. I'm dreading the day she and her husband lose their beloved Mona.
Thank you for this, Abi.
Abi, what an incredibly moving post. It sounds like you are both so lucky to have found each other. And what a beautiful reflection on the gift of presence for our animals, who can only tell us how are they are doing through their behavior. I’ll be thinking of all of you.