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September 30th, 2014

9/30/2014

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It won't be long now. Champagne refuses everything but canned food from my palm and small pieces of cheese. Even turned down peanut butter. A few days from now will mark 5 months since she was diagnosed. It's strange to look back and see how far we've come, how easily we transitioned to every stage of care taking. Though in many ways life is radically different now, the changes feel logical and comfortable.
That's how love works.
We are living in suspension, making every minute last a full 60 seconds, hoping to make plans (her ears still perk up when I ask if she wants to go) but realizing that the present moment is all we have. She likes me to touch her while she eats. Meals take a long time. I mash her food around in bowl so that she can grab chunks off the fork. I sit on the floor, she stands, and croon to her. After a bite or two she circles me, coming to rest against my side or under my arm. More spoonfeeding, globs of canned puppy formula and doggy drool flecking my pants, hands, arms, and the floor. She never finishes anymore. I am proud to get anything inside her, happy to gaze into her eyes for 15 minutes. The sun is setting on our quality time.
Her liver, which is responsible for metabolizing her pain medication, is giving out. I took her off the medication and she was so miserable that I compromised by reintroducing half the dose. What does it matter? Her time is limited anyway. Mercy is sparing her what pain I can. Yet even in terrible pain, unable to breathe comfortably, she wags her tail and walks around the yard. Champagne doesn't know how to give up.
We had The Talk tonight. Zeke interrupted continuously. When I told her she could go and I'd be okay, she rolled her eyes at him, then looked at me. I said, "I know, he's an idiot. But so were you, and you turned out okay." She cocked one eyebrow and licked me. I told her I love her, that she is a good dog, my best girl. I told her she doesn't have to fight anymore, but that I will fight for her as long as she wants me to. I told her that wherever she finds herself, I hope it's what she needs, and that my deepest regret is that I can't join her. I held her head in my hands and recalled the puppy whose entire self filled that same space. I thanked her for being mine.
She's lying beside me on the bed; neither of us seem to want to sleep. She sleeps all day while I'm at school, dreaming of her like a kid with a new pet. Still crazy after all these years.... I hope she sheds this plane in her own time and by her choice. I don't think she's ready yet; she doesn't seem to understand what I mean. 'It's okay to leave? But why would I want to?' As long as she stays, I will stay beside her. And I'll be there at the end, if she wants me. Shakespeare wrote, "Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove. Oh no, it is an ever fixed mark, that looks on tempests and is never shaken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass come. Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom."
I'm not going anywhere. I will bear these brief hours and look on you, and love, sweet girl. Good night.
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A Lesson in Grace

9/26/2014

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 Grace is both noun and verb; a name, state of being, and action. Definitions from Webster include:
1) simple elegance or refinement of movement
2) the unmerited favor of God
3) do honor or credit by one's presence
You have all these things, my dear, and since all that grace embodies has been relegated to a name for our daughters, I give this name to you. Champagne Grace.

We are approaching a fork in our infinite journies. You will go where I cannot, where I have never been. What can I give you to help you move forward, and what can I save of you to help me walk alone? I am not ready to be without you. I will never be ready for that. Opportunities for grace occur when we meet circumstances that we do not control. They are windows of possibility wherein we see ourselves truly and can reshape our characters. I see you remaking yourself. You're kinder to others. You are more apt to let things go, as if you've recalled the answers to why we are here and what really matters. I see you shedding nuances of life. You always had an agenda; now you are not selfish, greedy, possessive, or sly. You and I have cleared away the world to spend these last weeks together. I lament that it took this for that to happen. I regret everything I prioritized ahead of you, and every day I took you for granted. You have honored me with your presence for almost twelve years.

I have loved you since the moment you were placed in my cupped hands, blind and squirming and deceptively quiet. I love your ingenuity, passion, and loyalty. I love how much you are like me. I love that you are clever enough to drive me crazy. I love the sadistic joy you get in hating everyone (although you're trying to get into heaven now - you'll let any stranger pet you and you allow me to trim your nails). I love how compassionate you are to creatures smaller than yourself. I love how easily you adapt, how remarkably versatile and eager you were in all your training. I love that you worm your way under the covers without waking me up. I love every Frisbee or piece of popcorn that ever hit you in the head because you couldn't learn to catch. I love the way you smell the ocean miles before we see it. You know how I feel before I do and you do your best to make it okay.

You depended on me to see for you, feed you, teach you, care for you, save you, find you, and keep you safe. I've done my utmost for twelve short years. You have, I'm sure, outlived your parents, your siblings, and any of their children. You have survived abuse, homelessness, poison, foreign objects, and smallpox. You are succumbing to a disease I know well, and partly understand. I can't protect you from this. My love is not impregnable. Knowledge is power, yet I am powerless.

I promised we wouldn't treat you like you were sick. I promised you could eat anything you wanted. I promised I wouldn't cry in front of you. I've broken all three promises, but not by much. I know how much you want sugar - if cancer is anything like my sinus infections, your body is craving it - but the doctors said sugar will make your tumor grow. The homemade food you get must suffice, and anyway you're getting more organic treats and rawhide now than you had your whole life. I've held it together fairly well, I think. I tear up now and then, but I save the waterworks for the shower, or in my car. Our time together should be joyful. It's getting harder not to treat you like a patient. You acquiesced to use the steps up to the bed. We've been lifting you in and out of the car for a month so you don't face plant. You won't eat kibble, so you get fancy-schmancy wet food, and duck flavored pill pockets. I even sit on the floor spoon feeding you in the mornings, princess. You can't roll over anymore, can hardly wiggle to scratch your back. You cough. You pant. You're so hot I have to sleep with the windows open and no blanket. You get tired easily and your balance is shaky. You have to know something is up. But you handle it all with such grace! Every time you fell out of the car, every time you stumble, you pick yourself up and smile at me. It exhausts you to follow the lawn mower so you find a vantage point and nap, putting me in mind of the Royal Guard passing before the Queen. You look forward to Champagne Fridays as much as I do, even though you can't sit up to look out the windows anymore. No matter what happens you smile at me. You wag your tail; your eyes say, "Hey, that's ok. We'll figure it out." And we do.

I am raging for us against the sunset of your life, as if the fire of my anguish could extend the days appointed to you. I know you know how much I need you; I don't think you will go as long as you think that's the case. For that I feel both relieved and deeply guilty. I want the best for you, and the best for you is to be with me so I can love you and take care of you and make it better. Mine is a deeply selfish love, heart of my heart. I want to expel everything bad from a world where I can watch you thrive. This is not an end I dreamed for you as I rocked you in my arms. No suffering, not the rift of betrayal having to choose when you will go. I see in your eyes that you aren't ready. We still have time. So my life can wait while yours ebbs, while we spend precious moments making pawprint art, walking in the park, and Being together. My spirit is made bigger by the presence of your grace. Like every dog, you are a divine being of pure love, but you are not like every dog to me. For the first four weeks of your extraordinary life I did not know you. My parents didn't meet me for ten days; are you any less my daughter?
You are my teacher, my best friend, my smaller self with four legs but the same sardonic wit and capricious spirit. My better self. Teach me - we still have time - to accept. Give me a portion of your grace. Prepare me to write chapters of my life without you. You are the most obedient of my dogs. You know the difference between stay and wait. I won't ask you  - I can't ask you - to stay. Wait, Champagne. A little longer. Please. Wait until my grace catches up to yours.


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    Author

    Madeline is a fiber artist, author, shepherd, and music student. Ballyhoo Farm is the culmination of her passion for animals, horticulture, and sustainable farming practices, a dream she's worked to build since childhood.

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