"I examine the faces of the sleeping dogs beside / me, the improbable mystery of their existence, the short lives they / live with an intensity unbearable to us. I have turned to them for / their ancient language not my own, being quite willing to give up / my language that so easily forgets the world outside itself."
-Jim Harrison, "Late," In Search of Small Gods
I started typing out these lines from a poem two evenings ago, on the eve of Chalo undergoing a risky procedure -- our last shot at figuring out what was wrong with his lungs. I stopped mid-sentence to help our daughter go to sleep, then went to sleep myself. At 3:30am we got the call: Chalo's breathing was getting worse. We had two options.
All this time we'd been hoping for clarity in the fog: clear information, clear answers, clear signs.
And in the dark, in our hearts, in the middle of an ice storm, clarity came: it was time for option two.
I went to him. He came in the room with the smell of me already on his face, that soft look of knowledge I'd be there. He smiled a body-smile at the scent of his bed I'd brought from home, and we curled up as spoons like always. I kissed him, cried to him, thanked him, honored him, loved him, apologized to him, rested with him, lingered with him, felt him.
Language meets its limits with dogs and life and death. For weeks now, I've been letting the words crack open and fail me. For weeks, the words "WHO WILL I BE?" have flashed in my mind like a terrible marquee, as the prospect of life without him looms. Chalo: one of the most important people in my life.
And for weeks, I've been pulled to draw my little brown dog in every color. As though my palimpsests of silhouettes, all slippery with time, might bottle my Chalo in a capsule.
I rushed to Chalo and -- despite knowing the limits -- brought my words with me too, in that human way humans tend to do. I reached for their help on my way out the door -- pocketful of treats, his bed, clay mold for a pawprint, a poetry book.
I read Chalo the lines from that poem above. I read him this poem, too, from the same book:
Dogs, departed companions, I told you that the sky would fall in and it did. How will we see each other again when we're without eyes? We'll figure it out as we used to when you led me back to the cabin in the forest in the dark. - Jim Harrison, "Friends"
I can still feel how he felt in my arms, carrying him home, five weeks old. Just as fresh as how he felt in my arms, ten years old, carrying him into the hospital.
I'm at the bottom of the well, the place where words aren't. But the last words he ever heard--whispered over and over in his ear as he softened and folded in my embrace--are the ones I'll leave here, too.
We love you so much, Chalo. You're such a good boy. Thank you for taking care of me. You are such a good boy, such a good boy, such a good boy, such a good boy
