no heart safe

Someone once asked me if my dog is cuddly.

I mimed a slash, pubis to neck.

“She would cut me open and climb inside me,” such was her devotion, her grand mal demonstrative affection.

She loved smells and sunbeams, hound dog wooing at every living thing. Those floppy ears. Those enormous paws. The way she’d sink her weight into you, a cuddle monster supreme, butting her head with that sharp sagittal crest, like that was how she’d cut you, that was her way in.

We almost named her Praline ‘cause she was so sweet, but settled on Lafitte which was infinitely apt. A pirate, thieving bread off the counter, abandoned meals from the dinner table, a short dog, but long, when she hind-legged went tall, stretching that strong neck, flattening taut her glorious withers you couldn’t help winnowing your fingers through.

No sandwich was safe. No heart.

She was so good with our baby then toddler then kid. Tolerant and patient and no young pup by any stretch, not really a dog to play with, but she tried. She knew. L is our puppy, he’s gonna be pesky, a little rascal rough and tumble, draping her with mardi gras beads, adoringly adorning her with stickers.

She guarded him.

She guarded us all.

Death came fast.

Death was a puddle of vomit a little odd, it’s usually Mudcat who barfs you okay, girl? but no real biggie. A day later she couldn’t jump onto the couch. Late that night she scrabbled beside our bed, clicky nails on the vinyl, unable to stand. In the morning I hoisted her midsection, trying to help her find her legs, and the weight of her pitched us forward, bang bloodying my shin on the corner of the bed and smashing her head into the floor.

A day later she was dead.

The vet did all the tests — well, the ones he said were worth even trying, he was kind enough to be clear the depth of cruelty dealt. Pleural effusion with suspected cancer cells in the fluid, pneumonia on the side. We were able to bring her home one last night before our little pack brought her back to the clinic the next morning to say goodbye.    

A week ago I wrote in my journal stream of conscious angst and anger, how everything has gotten so bad so fast, every refresh fresh new horror. I feel so mad sad paralyzed pathetic, lost in conspiracy, cautious against hyperbole, it’s hard to see the red lines living in a red state. It’s fear uncertainty doubt, all the way down. The gall. The malice. The outrageous complicity and then they came for me I’ll say fucking finally, my emotional baggage has been packed for months.

And now this.

A dead dog. A lost friend. A gaping hole in our family, the domestic tranquility? hyper-reality of burned-out post-pandemic and probably also actually pre-pandemic parenting.

I have been grieving so much for so long I don’t know who I am or what is real.

All that backed up, packed in grief, I’ve cried more in the past three days than I’ve allowed the past half decade.

And still, I think — warped by a childhood on the economic margin and a lifetime of psychosocial capitalism — I oughta be frugal and I oughta be productive, I should save these tears to water a garden I better get to planting, sow the seeds of anti-annihilation, for the fruits of labor, of living, of light, to nourish the ones I love.  

That final evening we had with Lafitte, I carried her in from the car, all sixty pounds of limp warm brown, and laid her on the closest dog bed. We loved on her. We reminisced, we cried. We debated whether to drag her by the dog bed into our room or leave her in the living room. We decided the latter, I don’t remember why, but I awoke in the middle of the night and checked in. She’d managed to crawl under the coffee table with L’s library books and Legos.

In the dim I made a pallet of couch cushions and curled beside her, stroked her short long body, and nuzzled my cheek against the crest of her skull. Her heart beat erratic explosions in her chest, her whole body fizzing, her syrupy brown eyes gone sunken and dark.

I told her I loved her.

I told her I’m sorry.

I cut myself open and pulled her inside me.