#18 - Involuntary Time Travel

Involuntary Time Travel

1/26/04

Winnie was a black lab and weimaraner mix, adopted by our family when I was 1 year old, so growing up I knew nothing of life without her. If you looked up "family dog" in the dictionary, her picture would be an appropriate addition to the entry: loving, kind, protective, and almost eerily human in her expressive qualities. While it is common for folks to anthropomorphize their animals, I am not one prone to such descriptions--case in point, our current dog Boo Radley. Boo is a dog, a dog's dog, and while he is certainly deserving of our mockery when we call him "soft" (when he came from the pound, he would not sleep on anything except the floor; now, he not only sleeps on the couch, he puts his head on a pillow), Boo retains a Pandora's box of canine instincts, a snarl and a bark that we only witness when he encounters an aggressive dog. It's clear from these encounters that he still likes how the snarl and the bark feel as they rush past his bared teeth. As loving and kind as he is, Boo could return to the pack with minor adjustment.

Winnie, on the other hand, would have stood out from the pack like a tuxedoed pooch at an illegal dogfight.

But that was how Winnie preferred it. While she would cavort with the neighborhood dogs when opportunities arose, I believe she felt that she was on the cutting edge of canine advancement---not "domestication", but actual "civilization". She was a member of the family, to a level where she would raise her eyebrows if Mom filled out a form that asked, "How many family members live in your household?" and the inserted figure did not include her four-legged self in its total.

Her disconnect from the Wolf family tree was best exemplified in a strange moment of expression: Winnie was left behind from a family ride, but was unaware that I was still in the house. From upstairs in my room, I heard the strangest noise I had ever heard: It was a Tarzan yell, of sorts, if Tarzan had been 80 years old and had just thrown his back out. I snuck downstairs cautiously, only to find Winnie staring out the window, howling. But this was not a clean, clear "Hooooooowwwwwwl" like Boo does now, the sound of a predator channeling his heritage. It was more like Carol Burnette impersonating that predator's elderly grandfather after it had swallowed an old Ford Ahooga horn, a descending pitch that wavered on an unsteady exhale: "How-oooo-ah-oooo-uhhhhh-oo-uhhhh". It was frail, it was pathetic, and if our Boo Radley had been rating the yawl on the standard Olympic judging scale, I'm certain Winnie would not have advanced to the quarterfinals. But it was unmistakably the sound of longing and loss.

During a pause, I quietly spoke, "Winnie?" Her head spun to me like a person who presumed they had solitude but were instead caught singing a loud, boisterous tune---and badly. I was certain that I could see in her eyes an expression of, "How long have you been standing there?!?", unsure how bruised her pride should be. Part of her shock seemed to be simple embarrassment for her off-key wail, but the other was a discomfort with my having seen her very un-humanlike display, as if a player long ago traded to the Bruins had been caught in the B's locker room trying on his old team's jersey.

Winnie was a wonderful dog, a faithful companion to all of us, though we all knew she was really Mom's dog. There's a picture in the family of Winnie kissing Mom's face, a document of love that simultaneously warms and breaks my heart every time I see it. The warmth comes from remembering the 17 years we had with Winnie; the pain comes from remembering the day that the truck pulled into the yard and I went to the back door for the ritual of Winnie jumping from the truck and running over to say hello. Winnie didn't come out of the truck, and instead I saw an expression on Mom's face that you never want to see on anyone, least of all your Mom. Winnie had been on a downward slide, and we knew the end was coming soon, and in fact it had come that day. Even knowing it was the best thing for Winnie, goodbye had been brutal on Mom. I remember that moment at the back door as if it were a photograph, a mental image in the scrapbook of my mind, its relative location in said scrapbook memorized so that I can carefully avoid that page when flipping through memories.

I didn't know what to do with the news of Winnie's death. I remember sitting alone at the top of the stairs that afternoon, unable to process it. Years later I would read a line in Jim Carroll's "Basketball Diaries" about his experience attending a funeral of a schoolmate, particularly the viewing the casket: "I guess it was so that if you had anything to say to him, you could say it. Otherwise, it was just a chance to stand there and feel shitty about everything." It was the latter that I felt that day.

It was actually several weeks later that it hit me. Winnie had a particular chair where she would sleep, but she would not take that position until everyone was home. (Lest it seem like I'm painting an idealized portrait, it should be noted that she'd sleep like a log on the floor. But it was a nice gesture.) As a consequence, when I returned home late and the lights were out, I would sometimes stumble on her sleeping form as I navigated the dark living room. This particular night I warned myself, "Be careful not to step on Winnie", and I was struck by the realization: I would never again step on Winnie. That was the night I fully realized the loss.

This has all been present in my mind lately because we had to put our cat down last week. ("Put down" being the veterinary euphemism for euthanasia.) Djama was 12 years old, suffered from diabetes, glaucoma, and a litany of other ailments, and we had known for several weeks that the end was near. But on Friday, I heard a voice from the top of the stairs, "Bill can you come up here for a minute." While that phrase has no particular bad news in its syntax, it is second only to "We have to talk" in its assurance of bad news to follow. Indeed, Djama had taken his final turn for the worse. We all said our goodbyes, and I put on the brave face required for such activities and took Djama away.

I remained stoic through the process, but was overwhelmed when I walked out the door of the humane society. My face contorted as the tears came, and in the glass of the vet's office I saw my reflection, and my visage startled me: Despite a lifetime of being told I look just like my Dad, which I do, I was looking at my Mom on the day Winnie didn't come home with her. It felt like losing Djama and Winnie, and I can't help but wonder if this is a cumulative ritual, if a life's worth of loyal companions will all be there each time a new friend leaves us and joins the ranks of the departed. Lovely to see them again, but wishing it could be under different circumstances.

Now I think of Djama, and despite having months to prepare for his exit, it still hasn't hit me. He was a wonderful, cranky, loving, lazy creature, true to his feline nature. He possessed many of the traits that make people love cats and many of the traits that make others loathe them (are those the same traits?), but we loved him completely and his absence is palpable. I expect a day will come soon when I will remind myself to watch out for him as I traverse the dark house, and I will realize the sobering fact that such caution is no longer necessary. That night, I wonder if the floor will be crowded: Djama, Winnie, and others who have passed before. I hope so. I'd like to sit with them all in the darkness for a few minutes before shuffling off to bed.

©2004 wpreagan