The door to heaven

Chester slept through the night, though we both had one eye and one ear open for another seizure. He went outside every couple of hours (medication makes him urinate more) and Ann agreed to stay home with him today. No one got a lot of sleep last night, and at 7:30 this morning he had another seizure. I'd already left for work, a chilly ride up the hills with the sun just peeking over the Cascades. Ann called my classroom and left a message. I wanted to pedal home again, but there's really nothing I can do, that any of us can do except give him time to recover.

Ann will stay home with him again tomorrow.

There was a moment last night, as Ann and I were falling asleep, talking quietly so as not to disturb the finally sleeping dog between us, when we both realized that the seizures are not going to kill Chester. We are the ones who will have to make that choice. Soon the seizures will increase and the medication will no longer work and at that point we have to decide how much is too much -- for Chester, for us, even for the vets who have been absolutely wonderful about all of this...truly.

In between the seizures, Chester is almost a normal dog. Well, he is a normal dog only an old normal dog. He's covered in lumps and has a bit of a limp to his gait. He's incontinent and he's taken to loud snoring once he does settle down. The seizures aren't normal though and are, in fact, frightening to watch, but when he pops up, and that's exactly what he does when the seizure is over with...when he pops up, he's like an anxious puppy wondering who's going to feed him, who's going to walk him, and who's going to let him out to smell the corners of his current life.

I've had to make the decision to put down a dog once before. Somehow, the decision seemed clearer. Abbie, a lab/husky mix, was in pain. It was in her eyes, in the painful way she walked, and when I came home one day after work to find her flat on her back and unable to get up, I knew I had to put her down.

I cried uncontrollably. I scheduled the day for the vet to come over to the house, called into work to take the day off, and then cried some more.

My partner at the time had a deaf grandson, Austin, who was then about 7 years old. His mother and his grandmother didn't learn sign language, but I took classes so I could communicate with this incredibly active boy. Because we could communicate, we had a special bond.

When Austin saw me in tears he signed, "What's wrong?" I told him, with my hands, why I was sad, that Abbie, my sweet dog, was in pain and that I needed to help her die. Austin hugged me and cried, too. I didn't know for sure if he really understood what it meant to help someone die or even if he knew what death meant in its whole scope and certainty. I'm not sure I grasp it even now.

Then, on the day when I put Abbie down, I was sitting on the kitchen floor hours later signing again with Austin. "Where's Abbie?" he signed. "She died today," I told him and started crying again. "But where is she?" he asked again.

My sign is limited. I know enough to communicate basic ideas and concepts, but death and the beyond are outside my abilities even with spoken word, so I simply signed, "She's gone to heaven." I love the sign for heaven...the right hand swirls up under the left just by the forehead and then ascends upward. It's very much like the sign for birth, though the birth sign is located closer to the belly.

Austin looked at me for a moment, repeated the sign for heaven, and then got up and started searching through the house for something, I didn't know what.

"Austin," I stopped him at the front hallway, "What are you looking for?"

With the most serious look on his face, he signed, "I'm looking for the door to heaven so Abbie can come visit us."


I hope, with Chester, we are able to find the door to heaven, somewhere above our heads, swirling like a dance. For his sake and our own.