Thu, October 13, 2005 - 12:31 AM
... so I had a dream that when you died, the state you were in when you died was the state you were in the afterlife and you never really left this realm, you just hungout with the other dead animals.
The person who told me all this in my dream was my last dog Satchmo and he told me I should die as young as possible so that when I passed over at least I'd still have my muscles, attitude and wouldn't be shitting myself. He said now is the time to die. 40 is a good time to do it because you aren't an idiot kid and you also aren't geriatric yet.
Hmm, there is a certain stigma surrounding listening to dogs who tell you things about life and death, but I grow old and perhaps that reference is lost on many people.....
That whole dying when you're supposed to, evidently is the nature of things and this whole keeping us alive beyond our years thing is an abomination. That's what he was telling me when the alarm woke me up yesterday.
He was a little pissed that I waited to put him down until he was unable to walk and I had to carry him down the stairs then hold him so he could do his business. He said he didn't have anyone over there to help him do that and it was just embarrassing. Satchmo always had pride. Maybe he really just wants me to come over and help him. I don't know.. I tend to make a habit of distrusting the dead when they come to me, regardless of how well they know me...
I let him live because I loved him and couldn't bring myself to kill him even though I knew that animals in our stead rely on us for that last act of compassion. And that's selfish, keeping a being alive when you should let it go. I finally took him to a vet who said, "yes he can't walk and his spine is fused together and he'll wake up one morning paralyzed and he'll freak out because he won't be able to even stand up and all he wants to do is please you because he's a Lab and he loves you."
.... so Bird and me sat on the floor of that vet's office and the vet gave him the pink juice with a big needle and Satch just stopped breathing within 10 seconds. He had a weird dog smile on his lips when he left his body. We cried in there for an hour. And I kept taking his arm and rubbing it on my face. He'd gone from this living being to a dead thing. As much as we wailed, there was no turning back and he was really dead. We left eventually, tearstained, mourning and horrible, leaving his dead carcass there to be shuttled off to Pet's Rest and to be burned. I didn't want him laying in the ground in the summer, boiling. I wanted him to just evaporate and be free.
And after he was dead I saw him every day I was walking. He was running next to me. Free doggie. goddamn I loved that little guy. I like to think he became a crow because I see crows all the time and they seem to have pretty good lives.
I've got his ashes now. I showed them to Sailor and he tried to eat the bones in there. I miss that boy. You will never get over losing a pet who was your friend, never..
... and in my dream he was so cold. The dead are really cold evidently. They just kind of exist. There is no higher place. Just here. And they watch us. The great joy they get is watching us fuck or jack off or stress about what'll happen when we die. Yeah, they get a big chuckle out of that.
I looked at him and tried to warm him up by the propane heater out back where we used to hang and I told him I'd think about dying soon, but I've got a lot of stuff to finish before I can go there.
We'll see what happens.
Satch was such a great dog. He and I were friends for 16 years. I trust that little Black Labrador dog friend of mine. He was loyal and he loved me through all my early life. Damn I loved that dog.
If you've ever had to put a pet down to ease their pain, it is the last responsible thing you have to do for them.
Satch has a website I never finished after I put that boy down at www.violetshivers.com/John/Sa...dex.html
Ha, but it was just a dream. Those don't mean anything, right...
Thu, October 13, 2005 - 12:31 AM - permalink - 8 Comments
8 Comments
RedTux
Thu, October 13, 2005 - 1:30 AM
sniff....
Damm you... you made me cry... Not a day goes by where I don't think of my old friend Cara. She was a Black Lab and I feel the coolest dog ever. She was smart and caring and always happy to see you. I never got to say good bye to her, I was living in England at the time and she was with my Aunt and Uncle in California. I'd like to think she led a good life. My aunt told me that every day she'd wake up around 3pm from her afternoon nap, that was the time I'd usually come home from school.
allison lange
Thu, October 13, 2005 - 4:05 AM
heart breaking
delete this comment
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offline 152
Thu, October 13, 2005 - 5:48 AM
one of the best blogs I have ever read
♥╚@ü®α Queen Bee♥
Thu, October 13, 2005 - 8:47 AM
Oh man...
I just lived through the time of "missing", and then "found, dead" with my best friend, whose best friend from her whole life took herself off a cliff. Days, nine days she was missing before they found her, and I was there for the whole thing. I have yet to shed a single tear, my job right now is to be a comfort to her.
I have a beautiful guy, Jack Bennett. he turned 11 this summer. His eyes are getting a little milky, his muzzle is going gray, and the little dog gets two treats to every one of his because he can't see so well to catch them any more. This dog has been with me through many a drunk, was there for me when I was getting sober...I love him more than any being that didn't father me; that I didn't give birth to.
I finally cried, reading your story. One of my biggest fears is to come home and find him in his final sleep; have to get him out of his crate and deal with the furry remains. I now know that I would much rather that than to have to do what you did for your buddy.
I think our ability to feel this deeply is both a blessing and a burden. I'm going to go out and throw the ball for Jack Bennett, and give him an extra pet, since he's still here, and I can.
Jennybird Alcantara
Thu, October 13, 2005 - 9:25 AM
man baby, you are kicking asses and taking names with this one, I've already cried twice, once reading it and once reading the other posts.....you have a way.......
shekky
Thu, October 13, 2005 - 5:52 PM
one day, my old cat clem will no longer be with me...
i'm not looking forward to that day.
clem (aka "growler the cat") has been with me through a lot of ups and downs, and all he's ever asked for is some crunchies, fresh water and a can of processed whale meat every once and a while.
anybody who tells me, or one of my friends that they're "just animals" has never experienced the pleasure of the old cat resting his head in my hand every night. clem has slept with me (and whoever i happened to be sharing my bed with) for sixteen or seventeen years now, it's been so long i've lost track.
again, i'm not looking forward to the day when my furry little buddy curls up in the crook of my arm and puts his head on my hand, just like a pillow.
my heart goes out to all of our feathered, furry and slithering companions, for making a worlds a better place.
Nicole aka ~technopatra~
Thu, October 13, 2005 - 6:29 PM
Oh John, I had no idea. I remember Satchmo at one webteam meeting you brought him to. So sweet. I remember hearing the thump of his tail against those weird table legs. I am so sorry for your loss.
My one and only dog was a smallish black Lab mutt with a white patch on his chest named Hershey. When we moved to Laguna Beach when I was 6, he just walked in our open front door, looked around, and decided we were good enough for him. For me, it was love at first sight. It is sad but I can say that I loved that dog more deeply than I've probably loved anything, or anyone, in my life - with the pure love of a child.
He was so smart he'd look both ways before he'd let me cross the street. Hand to God.
He slept with me every night. My mom wanted him on the ground, but I always let him under the covers after we'd sung our sleepytime song, "The Rainbow Connection", and she'd kissed me goodnight and left. My brother and I shared the room and he never ratted me out.
We moved to Hawaii a year later, and my mom gave him away. She told me that he was in quarantine, thinking that within 6 months I'd forget about him. I kept bugging her and bugging her and she finally told me that the people who were taking care of him in quarantine loved him so much that they moved without telling us. My heart was broken.
I had a dream once that I was at a fancy club, and everyoen was ignoring me. Waiters, people dancing...I just moved thorugh them frustrated and sad at getting no attention. They had all the trappings of things I wanted - hip clothes, great hair, fancy little food and cocktails - but Icouldn't connect with any of them.
I was wandering around a found a hallway that was being used as a oat check, and both sides of it were lined with red furry coats. In the middle of the hallway was a decidely unhip looking older woman. She had a moon face and a plain sack dress, but she smiled at me. She didn't speak in words but somehow I heard her tell me that she knew i was hurt and frustrated and angry and sad, but it didn't matter because those people didn't matter, They were a distraction. They were immaterial in their materialism. She told me she'd show me something make me feel better. Then with a wave of her hand she released me from my body.
I didn't even have time to be scared, I just felt myself discorporate. My vision blurred into colors and then into nothing, because i had no eyse, and my body dissolved into everything, and I felt the rapture of going back to into the cosmic soup, a physical and spiritual sense of rapture beyond anything I ever felt in real life.
I was beginning to lose my identity, the specific mixture of parts that make me...well, me. But then she pulled me back into my body, and I was back in the hallway with her. She looked at me, still smiling, as if to say "See?".
Then I woke up.
Maybe it was only a dream, maybe it was my mind going about its nightly defrag, but I sincerely believe that's what death is. No form, no judgement, no heaven or hell, no heat or cold, no rules no philosophy, no identity and therefore no separation, no thoughts...no sensation except the immeasurable energy of the cosmic soup.
I bet Satch liked going back into the soup, too.
.
*Ali Baba* Alexandra Davies
Sun, October 7, 2007 - 3:43 AM
This totally made me cry. But then Nicole's comment made me smile at the end.
And also remember a dream...very similar to the end of hers: I had knowledge of the feeling of death and it feeling wonderful, being light and radiating and just fabulous.
I tend to believe, though, that we have an afterlife where we get to hang with our peeps and animals, spend some good time loving them and hanging out and learning until we decide we want to come here and live another lifetime. ;D
Of course, as I learned in anthro of religion, people believe in something because it works FOR THEM.
Could I have met Satch at the Carousel Numinous party? His adventures sure brought me many smiles today. A fantastic fellow indeed.
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