Thing of Beauty Thursday, Oct. 27

I didn't post anything last Thursday because I couldn't think of anything beautiful. Instead, I cleaned the house, and tried not to cry. Two days earlier, we had to say goodbye to our dog, Sweetpea, who had been a member of our family for nine wonderful years. The younger kids don't know life without her. The week before last, she got sick. She started choking on her food, and couldn't keep anything down. Then, the drooling started. When the vet did an x-ray, she noticed a sinister shadow curving up and over Sweetpea's heart. It was her esophagus.

"I shouldn't be able to see that," she told me. Diagnosis: mega esophagus. Prognosis: fatal. Despite this, we expected that a cornucopia of medications and feeding her with a spoon while sitting up would help. Some dogs with mega e can live for quite a while with attentive care. But 24 hours after starting her modified, medicated regimen, Sweetpea began to decline. She hated to eat sitting up, and we hated forcing her. She choked several times despite the help of gravity, and looked panicked. Then, she just stopped eating altogether. She couldn't swallow her saliva, and couldn't find any comfort in lying down. She paced all day, all night, and by the end of the weekend she looked gaunt. We asked pointed questions of the vet, did research, talked to friends who had mega e experience, and listened to our hearts.

It wasn't long before we realized that Sweetpea was suffering, tremendously, and aside from drastic measures (a feeding tube, for instance, which would have allowed her nourishment but not helped a bit with her inability to swallow her saliva) there was little we could do to ease her pain. Typically,   pneumonia caused by aspiration is what takes the life of dogs with mega e, and as I watched her struggle to swallow, struggle to breathe, I realized we couldn't put her through anymore pain.

On Tuesday, October 18, we spent the day with her. We loved her and snuggled her and said our goodbyes. Later that afternoon, we buried her in a special place in the garden, and planted a beautiful Apache Plume on her grave. The white tufts on the tips of the plant remind us all of her tail.
Saying goodbye to our old friend was devastating, awful and heartwrenching. But it was also, somehow, beautiful. That we could choose to let her go gently, rather than prolong her suffering, was a thing of beauty we could offer our faithful and devoted friend. She will always be missed, but now she is at peace and for that I am grateful.

And as it does, life marches on. Today it snowed, and the flakes falling through shafts of sunlight brought a smile to my face. I loved the design of frost on my mom's mullein plant, and so today is beautiful for the life that continues, despite frost...despite time....despite death and sadness. It is all, in the end (as the beginning!) a thing of beauty.

Happy Thursday.