Just When I Thought The Worst Was Over

Somehow, I thought I had managed to get through what could only be characterized as a brutal week. I work Monday through Saturday. I don't have a lot of time to deal with surprises.

Early in the week, I noticed my Yorkie, Spike, wasn't well. His abdoman was swollen and had a hard feel to it. I waited a day to see if the condition would go away and it did not. So I took Spike to the vet. We knew that Spike had some heart problems and he was 14 years old. The veternarian ran tests and an x-ray and said it appeared to be water around the heart and that the x-ray was inconclusive. The may also be a tumor we could not see. So he put Spike on some medication and told me to observe for a few days. Our daughter's Yorkie was staying with us and kept Spike company during the day.

My wife has been out of town all week. I am always a little off, when Marilyn is out of town.

Compounding all this was that we had to move my Mother into assisted living on very short notice. My niece came into town to assist with the move, which was an enormous help, given so much of my time was already spoken for.

It is Sunday morning in the early AM. Moving my Mother has been partially completed and all or us will have a busy day tomorrow getting as much done to finish up.

I thought I was out of the woods... I had survived the week. One should never make such rash assumptions.

Marilyn got back into town Saturday afternoon. With all that we had to do, we did not get home till after midnight.

We opened the door and looked for Spike. He lay on his side on the floor in front of the television. He wasn't moving. He wasn't breathing. He was dead.We looked for Annabelle, my daughter's dog. We found her laying on her side on the couch. She was dead as well.

Both of were stunned and in disbelief. I still am an hour or so after we got home. I don't know what my wife is thinking about the death of these two beautiful animals. I only know I am still in shock and I do not know what I should be doing now... what I should be feeling... So many questions. What happened here? What killed both dogs the same day? Is there anything I could have done to prevent this from happening? I will never know the answers to these questions. It will haunt me for some time that I do not have the answers.

I know that at it's best, life is messy and chaotic and utterly unpredictable. Every time we think we finally have things under control, some higher power sends us a message that in actuality we don't have anything in our lives under our control. There will always be problems and shocks to our lives. There will always be unexpected events that impact us.

That being the reality about life, the very idea... the illusion that we can manage time or control our lives to any substatial extent becomes utter nonsense. Things and people and pets who are precious to us can be snatched away from us in a heartbeat. There is going to be a level of uncertainty in everything we set out to do and in every relationship we hold dear in our lives.

So how are we to survive the "...slings and arrows of outrageous fortune"? Truthfully, we will find no easy ways to do that. Tonight, the best I can do is to try to figure out how to deal with this terrible loss. Spike has been a part of our family for over a decade. How do we explain to our granddaughter that her beloved Annabelle is gone? When I finally experience the wrenching loss of Spike's death, what am I supposed to do? How do I grieve for my poor little fellow?

All I can do is to find the courage and the strength to do what I need to do and to then move on as best I can. Conventional wisdom says that I am supposed to rise to the occasion, whatever that is supposed to mean. What does that mean anyway? And how do I fill the void that Spike's death will leave behind? He was a part of our family. Now he is gone forever. What in hell am I supposed to do now?

We still have to tell our daughter that Annabelle died while staying with us. And in spite of this very saddening turn of events, we still have to keep living each day. So when will my life begin to seem tolerable and manageable again? I don't know when that is supposed to happen for me. Apparently, a dreadful week... or an awful day is not over until it is over... whenever that is.