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Saturday, April 12, 2008

Knock, Knock, Knockin' On Heaven's Door

My father passed away Friday at 4:38 PM [PST] I cried. I was with him when he went. My step-brother was there as well as my step-mother. It was gentle I think. We can't be certain because he was non-responsive. His chest rattled with each gasp as he tried to breathe. He was on oxygen. It sounded terrible. Every time he took a breath I wanted to clear my throat because of the sound he made. His eyes never opened, his gasping came in longer intervals sometimes as long as 15-20 seconds between. During these pauses in breathing we thought he may not take another it seemed so long. Finally his breathing got weaker, his intake quicker and not as deep. His shallow breathing did not muffle the rattling in his chest and my step-brother and I looked at each other knowing he was fading fast. I went to get my step-mother who was out on the porch. She came and at this point his breath was hardly even noticeable, his mouth hung open. If you watched close you could see his chest rise faintly about every 30 seconds. The rattling had stopped. I felt for a pulse on his neck. He had a rather strong pulse all things considered, and as my step-mother cried and kept telling nobody in particular that he wasn't breathing, I tried to reassure her that he was alive still and I could feel his pulse. It didn't matter because soon the pulse faded as well. Nothing. He was gone. There was much crying and people started to show up, friends, a nurse, the coroner, more friends.. My step-brother and I had to carry his body to the hearse. He was wrapped in a sheet. I remember he was heavier than I expected. Several lady friends of my step-mother stayed for a few hours. I drank some beers with the nurse [also a friend of the family] and another woman. My step-mother seemed alright at times and then would start crying again. My step-brother was somber. Eventually everyone left and we all just went to bed. Labels: Cancer

10:41 PM | Posted by Dave

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Monday, February 4, 2008

Bree, Snapshot & The Black Death

Well I put Bree into the ground today. The vet had her stored in a freezer and we went to pick her up. This freezer was a full of corpses.. The adult dogs were in thick black plastic bags, but there were puppies in there too and they were in clear plastic bags. It was like something out of Hellraiser as I gazed into that frozen pile of shapes. Faces stared back at me.. tiny faces with clear plastic pulled tight over them, frost coated their eyelids and lips.. everything was stiff and rock hard.. a ghastly collage of frozen death preserved in my mind forever. We brought her home and I buried her next to Shapshot, another of her personal dobes that was taken by cancer late last year. Snapshot was only three years old.. Bree was six, or would have turned six in April. She was the mother of Snapshot. The cancer must have been passed to her pups. Between my father and these dogs I've had about as much as I can stand of this fucking disease. I had the chance to bond with Bree when I took her to Carson City, NV for a breeding almost two years ago. She was delightful the entire time and I fell in love with her. She got to see some things that most of the dogs here at the rescue don't get the chance to. I was glad to give her that brief escape from the routine that was her life here. Bree used to talk to me and the landlady would scoff and pretend I was just another of those 'simple-minded' pet owners who treat these animals as though they could actually have feelings for humans. To her it was all strictly instinct and routine or training. These are basically the only things that determine a dog's behavior as far as she's concerned. Nevertheless, Bree would talk to me. She talked to me all the time as a matter of fact. Not with words. She spoke to me with gestures and body language mostly but there was something a bit deeper than that. I can't really explain it but it was there as real and solid as the ground we stood on. I'm not saying that she carried on conversations with me. I'm just saying that we were able to communicate far beyond the Sit, Stay, Off and Down commands. Is it really that absurd? I don't think so, she's not the only dog that speaks to me, most of them do but she seemed to do it more frequently and I was able to understand her more easily than with some of the others. Snapshot was another of my favorites here. She was so cool. Snapshot had this vulture-like stare that she would do to you. She dropped her head just slightly and her eyes got real dark and spooky.. Her ears went flat, not against her head but straight out to the sides.. She would do it from across the yard or sometimes when you walked past her in her outside run. Once she'd locked onto you with that stare she kept it until you got tired and walked away. She never broke the gaze. Snapshot was a spaz. If you could harness the energy within her you could power a reactor with it. She used to do this one thing that I will never forget.. Each night when I would bring the dogs in from their runs they would get excited and come tearing up the ramp into the house and blaze a trail all the way to their crates. Snapshot went one step further.. She would run around the yard passing each of the other dog runs and bark at a few of them as she built up momentum. On her second pass she was going at full speed and would then come flying up the ramp so fucking hard and fast that she literally came off the ground and ran along the wall for about 2 seconds. No shit, it was like that scene in The Matrix where Trinity goes all slo-motion and runs across the room and the up the wall. I miss Snapshot so much, and I will miss Bree equally as much. They were both unique personalities that touched my heart and brought a smile to my face. I hope they are at peace now and I am proud to have been a part of their lives. Labels: Cancer, Doberman Pinscher, Dogs

10:31 PM | Posted by Dave

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