A Cool Breeze on My Face

At some point during the Finn pregnancy this ominous feeling of pressure leaked into my life. Thanks to Jeremy's constant complaining about the difficulties of being a parent I knew I was not very prepared for the workload. The amount of energy I expended in an average day in say 2017 was much lower than what I expected to be the minimum workload as an parent and so I set out to increase my capacity. To do this during the pregnancy I ran around putting pressure on myself to get things organized, and do certain tasks like decorating the house that I knew wouldn't be approached again for years into parenthood. 

Despite the stress it brought into my life before it was required, this plan worked out. When Lindsey somewhat shut down during parts of the first year of Finn's life I found myself in some of the toughest days I have ever faced one after another. Plans for help I was originally counting on like my mom were stripped bare in the first month, and there was no cavalry coming! It got to the point that my dad chided me prior to a heart procedure it was time for me to stop counting on anyone else and figure it out myself, and this inspired me to ask for help even less. So I mustered all the strength I could and lived stressed out at a maximum personal capacity to get through those early months. 

Sometime around the time he turned one it changed some. He got easier to manage and Lindsey had more capacity to do more, but soon after COVID hit and a new kind of stress was on my doorstep. First it was the stress of COVID, aka us being sick. Then it was the stress of finding supplies and doing basic things we needed to do like Finn's therapy. But as work from home dragged on there was a new work stress I have talked about before, and suddenly a job I used to keep confined from 9-5 was happening all day and I found myself checking my work email (something I wouldn't even let on my phone pre-COVID) at night. 

After Luna survived her first encounter with death in March this stress intensity heated up because of a push at work for the quarantine to end. I was determined to not be the last person back at work but I had a huge project dumped on me that was easier to mange from home and so that is what I basically was. Suddenly the stress of getting back to the office was on top of a habit of checking my phone all night, and being in the office meant shifting domestic duties like the dishes from something I did during lunch break to something I was doing late at night after Finn was asleep again. I couldn't keep up, and eventually just being at home was stressful because there was either work work I felt I needed to do or domestic work I felt I needed to do literally ever free moment I had. I did my best to try and appreciate Luna every day after she was saved that March, but after a month this stressful life won out and I began to take her for granted again. I didn't have the space for anything else. The daily miracle of her survival faded. 

What this all meant is when Luna started declining again in May it felt hopeless. The day her eyes rolled into her head was one of the worst days of my life as I cranked so hard all day at work to give myself the space to give her some time the next day when she needed the time right then. The night I took her to the emergency vet a day prior to the appointment I did it simply because I knew I would regret it if she died on a day like that, a day I didn't have any time to enjoy her or say goodbye. When I got through the hospital gauntlet described in the last blog post I knew it was over. I knew Tuesday the 13th was her last chance to be saved and it was very likely it would simply be the end of her life. I was mostly worried about her making it there, so I busted ass all day Sunday doing chores just in case Monday morning meant another emergency trip. Lindsey set up a GoFundMe that in a way was a Luna memorial and we were touched when people cared and contributed. It meant a lot and dialed back the stress some as we got ready for a week where we didn't know what to expect. 

Monday morning came and I had a new motivation for that day, a new mission for the moment: to nurse Luna. At the end of Roscoe's life I always wondered what it would be like when Luna got old, and I assumed maybe one day she would need to be handfed and carried everywhere. Monday was that day, and I was happy to assume a role I felt was coming for years. I knew I couldn't save her, but I felt if I could get just her to Tuesday in the best shape possible she was going to get the best last shot possible and I wouldn't feel regret afterwards I didn't do more. I finally got to pay the dog back for years of taking care of me when I was sick, and I knew I would get some time to say goodbye. What I got instead was more than I bargained for.

Monday July 12th, 2021 was the most relaxing day I have had in YEARS, since probably 2016 or so. Because I had to spent time taking care of Luna I couldn't do anything else, but since sitting around with Luna was one of my favorite things to do I ended up basically having to relax! I would feed her some baby food, water her with a hose (at this point she didn't want to drink but she wouldn't turn down hose water), carry her from outside to the piano room and back again. She threw up Sunday night so at this point all hope of her being saved was basically lost, nothing was stopping her digestion issues which meant treating anything else was pointless. Instead of getting upset about this conclusion the time was spend sitting with her in the yard on a nice cloudy day. All of my mental focus was on her. 

She laid on nice soft grass that the younger versions of her never had access to, and a nice cool breeze blew on us as we sat outside on what should have been a crazy hot July day. I thought of my favorite different memories I had of her, some I hadn't thought of in years and I likely would have forgotten forever if I hadn't been so relaxed that day. I did no dishes, I did no work work. I just soaked up Luna in a way being a dad with a full time job wouldn't let me during the last years of her life. I soaked her up in a way I wish I could have done with Xena, and in return she gave me a final reset of my perspective that I needed in life to move on from both her death and the COVID year. Relaxing in the yard moved to relaxing inside, and that eventually moved to cuddling in the piano room on the floor that night. The whole day was about her, and all I wanted was for it to keep going forever. After she had gotten me over the deaths of Xena, Roscoe, and Buddy now my favorite therapist was helping me accept one last death: her own. And I couldn't get enough of it. 

Eventually I couldn't stay awake anymore around 1:30 am and the magic Luna day was over. The next morning I didn't want to get up at all. Partially because a quick peak showed he she had thrown up again, but mostly because that meant I was taking her to die that day. It was time, and that morning I dreaded getting going. Eventually I did and I took her on that drive I have done so much recently one last time. As we waited at the vet to get her checked in we worked out a position on the rental car seat where her leg didn't hurt, and I hugged her for the last time where she looked at me with a love and an awareness of what I was doing. They wheeled her in and I left to expect the call. When I got it the decision was made for her to have the final appointment that afternoon just like I expected all weekend. 

I worked it out where we could go early and see her prior to being in THAT room, but knowing the day would be our final day of dog motivated Lindsey to want to get the house cleaned some. I knew I wouldn't want to clean up after her appointment so I worked as hard as I could picking up her stuff, throwing away dog stuff we wouldn't keep, mopping floors and doing dishes. We even put back on the back door without the door flap we had saved from the day Steve replaced it the day we moved in. We ran a little late for my plans but by the time we left the house the damage of her being sick the last few weeks were gone, and it felt like we were ready. 

We went to the vet and after a wait they met us by the side door with her. She wanted to obviously leave the place but couldn't walk. She collapsed under a nearby tree, legs spread out at usual, and just laid there. I sat next to her and petted her ears and neck in the way I had learned the day before didn't hurt her- maybe the last thing I could do for her in any capacity to make her life better. As I sat in the shade and pet her the hot sun of that day went away and clouds came. Suddenly there was a cool breeze on my face like the day before. I remembered the lesson from that day and allowed myself to completely relax one more time, to let my focus be 100% her one last time and let the scramble of the day leave my mind. I just focused on the breeze and how soft she still was, how she was still alive. How I wasn't in a post-Luna part of my life just yet. 

Soon they came to get her and put us in a room that was meant to be a consulting room but would be the last room she would see. Eventually they took her away to prepare her and Lindsey and I just sat in mostly silence. I read some words of support on social media that people had posted that day and tried to compose myself for a moment I had dreaded for almost a decade. Then they wheeled in Luna on a bed strapped down with two techs who were crying. The tech at the head of her bed bent down and gave Luna a huge kiss and hug. She told me when the news broke that it would be Luna's last day people in the clinic made it a point to all visit her that day and say goodbye. Also she said we went further than almost anyone did to try to save her, and that they could tell she was a loved dog. After they left I got to meet in person the vet that saved Luna's life back in March when no one else would. I tried to thank her for the time but she was too concerned about the fact she couldn't get us more time and she was focused on executing those final steps. Lindsey and I both pet Luna and said how much we loved her as the injection went in. After Luna died I didn't want to let go of her neck, it was soft and warm still. It felt like she was still there, we were all still special people in her eyes. 

But we didn't linger, we quickly left the clinic and it turned out the clouds and breeze from earlier were because it was about to rain. We then walked to the car in pouring rain like a movie scene. Part of me felt relief she was no longer in pain, that I would no longer have to travel to that vet, there there wouldn't be any more huge dog bills to manage, and that Finn wouldn't have to see her like that anymore. But that silver lining fell apart as soon as we got home, and the grief began to hit me in waves for days after. One thing that was really hard through all of it was Finn. At daycare that week he got three write-ups for biting kids three days in a row: one the day before she died, one the day of and one the day after. Luckily a conversation with Mr Amy who ran the place got that fixed and got Finn some extra sympathy from them. 

But it was more than the daycare. The days before Luna died he actually attacked her a little, upset that she wouldn't "woof woof" or move. His buddy wasn't doing her job! Then after she died he kept looking for her. The day after she died he walked in the door from daycare saying "hey Abu! where is Abu?" which made both Lindsey and me sad. Eventually though he and we moved on, and he got to be the focus again (maybe more than ever). That week it was proven my last wish for Luna- that he would remember her- came true, as he would look at pictures of her in the house and say "there is Abu!" The overlap of him just getting old enough to appreciate her only really happened after his second birthday, ie after she was saved the first time. It turned out those three and half months extra had cemented her legacy with him, which is how I will remember her. It makes that story now seem like a real victory rather than a delay of the inevitable. 

But there was and is one more legacy still left over from her final days: the piece and calm I felt the Monday she reset my perspective. It has been exactly one week now since she died and in that time I have done everything I can to not let my brain fall back into its old stressful habits. I am trying to embrace that final mindset she gave me, the last gift from a dog who just wanted to see us happy. I have kept my head down at work to avoid more, I don't push myself to do extra chores, I relax at night and try to keep my work email out of my face after 5pm. When this has failed and I feel the stress coming back I close my eyes and I remember how that breeze felt, what it felt like when my favorite dog was the only important thing in my life at that moment when she was still there. I am not past the grief yet- when they called today about the ashes I found myself crying another time. But I feel like if I can carry forward this feeling, and Finn carries forward her memory, and Lindsey carries for her a Luna love then the best parts of Luna will stay with us. Our best friend took care of us all one last time. 

Our house has felt so empty in the last week without her or any dogs in it. For days my mind played tricks as I thought every pile of dark clothes in a corner or every shadow might be her, but after the head turn the realization would set in again. This made me motivated to do something to memorialize her for posterity so I did my research and picked out a new bush to plant to be a memorial for Luna in the front yard. I picked Texas Sage, a plant that would flower when it rained but couldn't be tricked into flowering with hose water aka a stubbornness that Luna always showed. Finn helped me pick it out and I planted it on Sunday. Yesterday when I went to work the breeze blowing through it's leaves was my reminder of her and the way I wanted to be going forward. Hopefully its blooms will be with us for years so we never forget what she meant to us. 

Bye bye Luna, we will always love you! Thank you for everything!