OMGJeremy

Frisky, a Good Dog

One of the things I actually admire about the elderly is their ability to tell heart-crushing and inappropriate gloom-and-doom stories without even flinching.  I’m not sure if they are just completely unaware, socially inept, or maybe just don’t give a fucking shit what everyone else thinks.  The point is, they have lived so many decades of deaths and heartaches that tearful tales are just as commonplace and frequent as breakfast is for the rest of us.

My grandmother is not excluded.  She is a nice woman, but I’ll tell you she is one of the most stoic and emotionless women I have ever encountered in my entire life.  I have seen her shed a tear on two occasions.  The first was when Conway Twitty passed away.  The second… well, the second was when her long-time canine companion Frisky passed on.  She cried at the time, but lord almighty she got over that shit quick, and now can tell the story of Frisky’s life (and death) without even blinking… all the while the rest of the room deeply weeps into their hands.

Frisky

My grandmother had just lost her dog named Princess a few weeks before Frisky came along.  Princess grew to be a ripe old age (15 I believe), and it apparently really took a toll on my grandmother to lose her.  So, my family doing what they assumed was the best thing to do, presented her with another dog not too long after.  Frisky was originally not named Frisky, though his first name escapes me.  He earned his name because as a puppy (and well into his later years) he would take random spells in which he would jump up and run as fast as he could around the house, and then all of a sudden come to a stop and lay back down.  These “frisky” spells earned him his name and a spot in my grandmother’s heart.

I’m not going to make this long, mainly because it is not something I like to talk about.  As Frisky got older, he started having troubles.  A good portion of the time he wasn’t making it outside in time to do his business.  This was soon followed by random scary as shit spells in which he would fall to the ground, stiffen up like a board, and go into convulsions that made you hurt just witnessing them.  This went on for some time, and got progressively worse each go-round.  My grandmother took him to the vet early on, and was told matter-of-factly that there was little that could be done.  After all, he was nearly 17 years old.

Like I said, the spells just got worse and worse.  Frisky didn’t really walk around that much anymore.  His trips to the bathroom outside were due to my grandmother picking him up and sitting him down in the grass a few minutes, then picking him up and taking him back in.  He had become a permanent fixture on the couch, where he often would lay with a blanket over him.  It was hard to see him like that.  You could see so much life still in his eyes, and a desire to get up and play, but his body was simply no longer able.  I often wonder how a dog or any animal processes what is happening to them.  They don’t know about aging.  They don’t know that they are getting old.  There has to be so much confusion wondering why you are no longer able to do the things you used to do.  So much confusion and so much sadness.

I had heard my grandmother say many times that she just didn’t know what she would do without him.  This was a dog that had been in the family almost as long as I had by that point in time, and much of my grandmother’s retired life centered around him.  Now she didn’t dress him up in cutesy little outfits and talk to him like he was a baby, but she just genuinely loved his company and having him around.  He was a true companion, and not a toy… a difference most dog owners should learn.  My grandmother had expressed to my grandfather and I had even heard her speak over the phone about how she knows he is sick, but she feels he is sticking around just for her.  Worse than that, she feels so incredibly selfish that she doesn’t want him to go.

The Last Spell

What started off as a near miraculous sweet moment turned into the final and deciding event for my grandmother.  After a near month of laying on the couch, Frisky one day sat straight up.  Tail wagging, crazy look in his eyes, he stood up and started running.  He was right smack dab in the beginning of one of those fits of his that we hadn’t seen in so long.

But it was short lived.

Rest well.

He had made it no more than 5 or 6 steps before he fell hard to the ground, as if he was shot down.  As he lay there convulsing, messing himself in the process, my grandmother had one of those horrible moments of clarity that a lot of pet-owners have had to endure.

She would go on to give Frisky a bath that night, fixed him a large meal (fried chicken, a much loved and usually forbidden treat), and laid him down on the couch atop freshly washed blankets.  But then all of a sudden, that moment of clarity my grandmother experience once again turned to doubt.  She decided she would sleep on things.

Mercy

She wouldn’t end up sleeping very long.  She said that she was thrown wide awake in the late night hours, nearly in tears but knowing full well what she needed to do.  She headed into the living room, the normal 20 second walk seeming like a lifetime.  She stopped at the doorway and looked in, Frisky was awake.  He let out a small sound and feebly wagged his tail.

My grandmother sat down next to him.  She sat there in her gown and slippers, the only light coming from a streetlamp outside.  She gently picked Frisky’s head up off of the couch and placed it on her lap.  She ran her fingers down that soft white fur she had grown so accustomed to over the years.  With a heavy heart, she looked him in the eyes.  She began to speak.

She told him that over the years he had been more than a good dog, but he had been the best friend she could ever ask for.  That she wasn’t so sure if she was going to keep that scrawny little puppy that was brought to her so long ago, but over the years she can’t imagine her life without him.  She told him that she knew that was why he was still here.  That he has chosen to live this life of pain and sadness, unable to do what he loved to do, because he knows she would be so hurt if he were gone.  That he isn’t sure if she’d be able to make it without him.  It was with a lump in her throat that she told him that she would be okay, and not to worry about her.  That he has taken such good care of her over the years, that it is time she takes care of him.  That she knows he is hurting, she knows every waking moment is misery for him, and that she wants him to stop hurting.  She said that a selfish part of her wants him to stay, but that she knows that the right thing is for him to slip away.  My grandmother, the front of her gown now doubling as a catch-all for her tears, told Frisky that it was okay for him to go.  That she would never forget him, but she would get along without him the best she could.

She thanked him once more, for everything.  She told him that she loved him, and she went to bed.

She woke up just a few hours later.  She headed into the living room first thing.  She knew what was she going to find before she even made it there.  Frisky had slipped off, his body still covered in blankets and his head resting on the pillow my grandmother had placed under him before she left the living room that night.  My Grandmother, the strongest woman I know, would cry good and hard for quite some time.  Tears of sadness, but mixed in there were tears of joy.  Tears shed over the loss of a life, yet tears of joy shed in remembrance of that same life.

A dog bed never thrown away.

My grandmother tells this story like most of us would share tidbits about our vacation or randomly bring up something we saw on television last night.  There is no trigger, there is no reason, there is no dry eye.

Frisky was a good dog, and I have to say that it was sad to see him go.  My grandmother never got another dog, as she proclaimed that no one was to ever bring another animal into her house upon Frisky’s passing.  We knew she was serious this time.  There are still a lot of little reminders of Frisky around her home.  His old dog bed, a random toy tucked away in some dark corner of the house, the remainder of some snacks.  There are plenty of little reminders everywhere.

But I dare not speak of him, cause I just can’t stand hearing that story.