On Losing My Friend

I lost my friend two days ago. It was unexpected. I was sitting right here at my desk working when I got the call.

Who was my friend?

My friend was not your usual friend. He lived with me, and he was a dog.

For the last 7 and a half years, it’s been this way — just him, my wife Kristin, and me.

Little things

We developed a language, one that evolved over the years. Kristin called him “sweetums” or “small man”. She might arrive home and announce “Is there a small child home?” and he would perk up and scamper to meet her at the front.

His walk was often described as “a shuffle” — how his feet would kick out side-to-side as he moved.

He was quite a loud dog, but not in the way you might be thinking — his bark was hilariously quiet (much to his chagrin I’m sure). What I’m referring to is hard to explain — there was the panting after a walk or when he inexplicably spent too long sunning himself by the window — but that’s not what I mean either.

The sounds I’m thinking of are more like “wab gwaab nub nub…” and these were most often associated with eating, but could also happen “at random”. If you have a bully breed dog then you probably know what I’m talking about.

Needless to say, all these sounds made certain activities like recording music or YouTube videos extremely challenging. But this was all part of our language, and I loved it.

If I playfully tackled Kristin onto the bed, as I am known to do, we could count on our little boy taking notice and climbing up his little staircase at the bottom of the bed to be with us. Specifically, to be right up in our faces.

And if we danced, he would demand to join us. And that was just fine, because dancing with a dog in your arms is much better anyway.

I liked to pet his little head, and I would cup my hand and he would turn his head up to meet me. I could tell he liked being pet because he would start making sounds, like a cat purring, and maybe roll onto his side.

He was always so playful. Many years ago, when we went to his breeders to pick from the litter of puppies, this one little guy happened to find a pen on the floor, and he picked it up and he ran around joyfully with this exciting item — as most of the other dogs went around chasing him.

And he never lost that spirit. His favourite toy was “big head kid”, who he would fetch and return proudly.

Or his 8-inch wide soccer ball that I serendipitously found at a grocery store — many years ago — with which we’ve developed our own version of keep away.

Every day he would be up for a game of keep away, any time. I could probably wake him up in the middle of the night and he would be game.

But mostly, he patiently waited. He let me work and go out and live my life and only asked me to play when he absolutely couldn’t wait anymore.

But even then, I would say “it’s been such a busy day and I just want to relax” or “I just want to get some more work done on the computer” or “ok, but I’ll put on an audiobook to entertain me while we play.”

What I wouldn’t give to play with him again.

Routines

From day-one he slept with us on the bed. He wanted to be close to us always. A year or two ago he took a preference for resting his chin on our legs through out the night. I would slip a leg out of the covers and subtly invite him to nuzzle in, so that I could feel him against my skin.

We fell into a morning routine where I would often be the one to wake him. This would involve sliding him off the bed and supporting him as he made a big huge superman stretch onto the floor, if wasn’t too tired. And then we would slowly make our way down the hall and out onto the streets.

The walk had to be calculated. There were only a couple options — only a handful of ways he would be willing to go. At each crucial turn in the walk, I would have to strongly assert my preference of direction. People often made the joke that “your dog is walking you!” but in fact this was the reality of it.

Even though I loved the routine of our morning walks and then the every-day joy of arriving back home and preparing him breakfast, and maybe watching him climb back onto the bed to see Kristin. Even though I loved these things, I also saw the ways he was holding me back.

I envied people with dogs who would walk anywhere they wanted, and who could walk fast. I wanted to beeline for the nearest park and walk — or maybe even run — all around it. Even more, I wanted to forget the dog walk altogether and go for a high-paced bike ride or save that half hour and hit the gym early.

I truly never knew what my friend meant to me.

Now I see the emptiness of these other activities without him around anymore. I can feel it.

I feel the gap left in his wake and I don’t understand how to continue. I don’t understand anything.

Acceptance

Two days ago, he is sitting on the floor — 10 feet to the right of my — resting from our morning walk.

He’s right there. I can walk over and pet him, or pick him up and hug him. I can carry him over to the couch and he will sit for a while in between my legs as I read a book.

But instead I keep on working. It’s a Sunday and I have a YouTube video to edit, and there’s so many other projects I need to accomplish as well.

Death is definitive, but I’ve never experienced it so suddenly. I’ve always had time to process it before hand. Maybe this is why I’m having so much trouble transitioning from “is” to “was”.

He is such a sweetheart.

He was such a sweetheart.

He is my baby guy!

He was my baby guy.

It just doesn’t compute yet. I don’t get it.

Lost time

There was another life I imagined. There were years.

He would grow old and move slower, and shrink down a bit as he lost the muscle of his youth.

His brindle fur would continue to lighten, the patches of white hairs around his chin would become more prominent, and his little teeth would shift a bit more out of place.

Our walks would get shorter, and we would buy a dog stroller to get him around town.

He would get old, but deep down he would still be our sweet guy. The little sounds he would make, his playful nature and his enthusiasm, his curiosity. The pure joy at simply seeing us each and every day.

I thought there would be years.

Impermanence

There’s a meditation practice on impermanence where you seek a “clear, strong feeling of the ever-changing nature of things” by focusing on the ways that everything around you is in constant change.

I’ve done this practice. I thought about the cells in my body — always in motion, always dying and being reborn. I visualized the wall of the room I was in crumbling with the passing of time and the buildings of Toronto being overtaken by nature.

I never got it. Not really. Not until now.

The reality is that in this life we operate under an illusion of permanence. Each day ends with a promise of another one like the last. Maybe that’s why it’s so easy to put things off until the next day.

I wonder if I’ll remember this lesson or if I’ll just forget it and just keep on living like before?

I wonder if I really did learn something here or if I’m still — even as I type this — taking my loved ones and my friends for granted?

The Yogi approach to impermanence is detachment. With the awareness that everything you love will someday be lost, you can loosen your attachments on those things ahead of time.

I prefer the Stoic approach. With the awareness that every interaction, conversation, touch, game… Every occurrence of every routine… Each of these times could be the last time. With even a subtle awareness of this truth, we can live these moments more deeply.

Processing

I’ve been having bad dreams. I wake up many times in the night and my first thought is always of him. I wake up in the morning and cry because he’s not here anymore.

The feeling of wanting him back is so strong — I’ve never wanted anything more. It makes me feel sick. When I cry sometimes I make strange noises I’ve never heard before.

People say that I need time to process. I’m not sure what that means. I think it’s a form of adaptation that we’ve evolved for dealing with trauma. It’s like a mix of forgetting, re-framing the past and re-contextualizing the future.

I’ve gone through all the “what ifs?” but I don’t let them poison my mind. There will always be a list of events or conditions that could have led to a different outcome. Always.

Life may not be “fated” or “written”. I don’t believe there’s any meaning to it, aside from the meaning we create for ourselves. But I do believe that we have very little control over anything at all.

We can only do our best, and sometimes our best doesn’t get us the results we wanted. And when this happens, all that we can do is pick ourselves up and try again and know that next time we’ll be do it a bit better and we’ll be a bit stronger.

Meaning

Mr. Littles, as he was sometimes known, was not a teacher in any conventional sense of the word. His main priorities were eating tasty food and having a good time. Nevertheless, I’ve learned so much him over the years.

He taught me to be patient. I’m so grateful for all the time I gave him to sniff around and pee in all the best spots every day.

He taught me about the purpose that comes from caring for another life, and the depth of that experience.

He taught me to go all in on the moment and to stop multi-tasking. I’m grateful for all the times I turned away from my computer to watch him run down hall after coming home from a walk.

He taught me to get out of my own head so that I can see and appreciate the joys of the world around me. So that I can feel all the love coming at me from so many places.

He taught me not to wait until tomorrow, because sometimes tomorrow never comes.

Saying goodbye

I keep waiting for the feeling to change, for the weight to lift. People keep saying that it will happen, and I know they are right.

One friend told me “you will remember but without the pain.” I wonder if that’s true.

Another friend told me that “it will never really go away.” I’ll admit that I had a laugh at the surprise of hearing such an harsh take.

I think what he means is that I’ll always want my boy back. That I’ll always miss him from time to time.

My friend shared a story about his father. He made a game out of searching around the house for his dog. It was like hide and seek, going from room to room. After the dog passed, as my friend recounted, his father did the most unusual thing. He kept playing the game.

I asked my mom what to do about this feeling. She said to keep busy and get out of the house. Go to the gym and hang out with people, and maybe someone will say something that makes you smile or laugh. And gradually, bit by bit, you will get back to normal. And then one day, you’ll have all this love to give, and you’ll find somewhere new to put it.

Our condo is overflowing with reminders of him. His little hairs cling to the bedding. There’s a stack of sardine tins in the cupboard that were meant for him.

The streets in our neighbourhood are laced with his memory. All my old paths feel broken. It’s only pain right now now. But I’m hopeful that walking these streets will someday be a ritual of remembrance.

I stopped drinking alcohol a couple of years ago, but I’ll still enjoy a glass of wine or beer from time to time. I think that this year, on November 1st, I’ll celebrate his birthday by having a Guinness.

Afterword

I wrote the post above with teary eyes. I woke up and had so much grief and needed to channel it somewhere. In the following days, I found it cathartic to come back here again and again to make refinements and add nuances.

As Kristin read through, she would turn to me and say “yes, I felt that too.” The processing is happening though. Already we are loosening our grip on the pain and the grief and getting caught up again in the flow of life.

I started looking through old photos — gradually at first, but with increasing voracity. It’s such a joy to see the incredible life that we shared with our boy.

I look back on this chapter that we are leaving behind — the adventures we had, the routines we fell into and all the words we would speak. The sounds of our old home. I’ve got a strange feeling that it will all just float away.

Or maybe — just maybe — it will always be with us.

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.