I Don't Do Well...

I don't do well with death. Odd as it is, at 48 years old, I've only really experienced the death of family pets. Yes, I've known people who've died and while it's saddened me, nothing has surpassed the death of my dogs, in particular, and even the death of a baby lamb just 3 days old who we tried desperately to nurse back to life in, of all places, our kitchen.

Fossilguy is not dead, but as we wait to hear the prognosis -- lung cancer or not, operable or not -- death is on my mind. My life feels like a disconnected montage. There are the routines -- getting up, making coffee, walking to work on these surprisingly cold, crisp mornings, teaching, coming home, making dinner, and then reading or writing before bed. But then there are moments like this:

A friend of a friend is trying to get her daughter accepted to our school. I see her in the hallway with her daughter, the applicant. A, the daughter, is bright, friendly, and very sweet. J, her mother, is loud, brash, and slightly irritating. 6 years ago she fought off breast cancer. "How are you doing?" I ask, yet instantly I know that something's not right. J is not brash or irritating and she says, in almost a whisper, "Not so good. They've found spots on my lungs." And all of the sudden I can feel tears in my eyes. I'm not thinking about Fossilguy (well, I am sort of), I'm thinking about A -- the bright, cheerful kid who is being raised by a single mother and then I think of Aleister, Fossilgut's grandson and what pops up is a 5th grade whiny voice (one I hear almost daily from my students) yelling inside my head, "It's not fair!"

Or this moment --

Our friend, L is in Mexico on vacation. She has owned a house in a small village on the water for 30 years and she journeys south 5 or 6 times a year. We've offered to watch her dog, an 11-year old shepard/chow mix who is slightly crippled and a bit crotchity. Her name, of all things is Salal like the bush that grows prolific in these parts and is an impossible mouthful when you're calling her at the dog park. She's been with us for almost a week and goes home on Saturday night. She sleeps mostly, but gets excited and barky when she hears the house keys or the car keys or watches one of us put on our shoes. When we walk, she grabs the leash in her mouth and pulls herself down the street. At night, she sleeps by the front door and then eventually hauls her stiff back legs upstairs and sleeps on her bed at the foot of ours.

Last night, while she was in her downstairs by the front door position, I was reading in bed while Ann was getting ready to join me.

Me: Can you feel it?

Ann: What?

Me: There's a dog in the house. She's not making a single sound, but you can feel her presence here just the same. I miss that.

Ann: Yeah, me too.

And then my eyes welled up with tears again remembering Chester, remembering my old dog Abbie, remembering all the pets in my past whose presence grounded me to my life.

Fossilguy grounds me to my life. I've known him since I was about 8 or maybe 10. I played with his daughters. I laughed at his jokes. He's like an uncle only closer. He's like this wise philosopher who dabbles in bones and photography and who turned me onto Louise Erdrich and even to blogging. Even if I can't hear him...even if I don't see him very much...his presence is there and I can feel it. He's like the dog at the front door of my life.

And then there's this moment:

A student from last year who is in 6th grade now comes by my classroom almost every day to say hello and give me a hug. She drove me crazy last year. She and her family live in chaos and every drama known to humankind falls in their laps almost daily. During Thanksgiving she was rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with Leukemia. For awhile they didn't think she'd make it, the treatment was not working. Now, she comes to school for half a day, wears magnificently crazy hats to cover her extremely large bald head, and smiles at me every morning with puffy, drug-induced cheeks. Some days she comes in and throws herself at me demanding a hug. Other days she can barely drag herself through the door to wave at me. She loves my library and I'm certain half the books I'm missing are under her bed at home.

Yesterday she came in to peruse my bookshelves.

E: What's new in your library?

Me: Ummm, I'm not certain. It's been awhile since I've updated the collection.

E: What's this book about?

She holds up a book about a boy who is wheelchair bound, can't talk, but is able to think quite clearly, which he does in his first-person telling of the worries he has about his father trying to kill him and he's not sure how to explain to his father that, even though he can't walk or talk, he still wants to live.

Why do I have that book on my shelf, I'm thinking after E. holds up the cover to show me.

Me: Well, to be honest, it's about death and not being able to control your own destiny.

E: (Looking more closely at the cover) I don't think I need to read it. (Long pause because I can't really think about what to say in response and she's still looking at the cover.) Besides, I'm already kind of living that story.


Death, I think, isn't so bad if you're the one dying. Yes, it can be long and painful or it can be short and quick, but then it's over and you don't experience the aftermath. It's everyone else who does, everyone who's left behind, everyone who didn't die with you. What are we supposed to do with all the absence? What are we supposed to do with the hole that's left? I think that's why sometimes I fear death...I don't want to leave a hole in somebody's life.

I knew what it was like when Chester died. For weeks, months even, I kept thinking I heard him -- his dog tags, his licking lips, his deep and heavy sighs at night. I'd wake up from sweaty dreams because I could feel the weight of his body on the bed with me only to realize it was a dream and he really wasn't there. For a long time the hole he left behind in my life had a very painful weight. Now it's just there, a simple hole reminding me of what I had and what I lost. Somedays the hole makes me laugh with funny memories. Other days it makes me cry because I'd rather have the dog than the hole.

I imagine the same things happen when someone close to you dies, but so far I haven't had to experience that. I'm still holding out hope that Fossilguy will get better. I've even started to pray, which is something I've never done because I thought, like an unused library card, my account with whatever god there may be was closed.

I want Fossilguy to be well, but more than anything I just want to know that his weight, his presence will be in my life. That even if I can't see him every day, even if I can't hear his witty under the breath comments, he's still there, resting at the front door of my life.