When it Ends

Don’t laugh, but I once wrote a small book of poetry.

It was about the observation of a death- my mother’s, as it happens- and I prefaced it with something from Shakespeare: ‘Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o’er-wrought heart and bids it break.’ Meaning: ‘don’t bottle it up’.

So here goes.

We had Boris put to sleep last week, a gift that we were able to give him that, scandalously, we still cannot give each other. No details needed, but the timing was near-perfect, and the last we saw of him was in a state of delicious sedation in the vets’s surgery. He had lasted fourteen and a half years, and had been able to enjoy both a decent walk and a half decent meal only that morning. Don’t misunderstand me, the health clouds were gathering, but we felt that the least we could do for him was avoid the crap bit at the end.

His last conscious action was a half-hearted growl at the man who was putting a needle into his backside, which was probably not unreasonable.

For a reason we can’t quite work out, we have recently moved from burial to cremation. I guess it’s just easier. The dog is collected from the vet (£35.00), cremated (£100 or so) and then returned to you for scattering. There is a bewildering array of forms in which you can have your pet returned (bracelets, necklaces, earrings etc); you can have them in a casket, with a memorial stone or the like, or just, like we do, in a recyclable cardboard box. It’s cheaper and better for the planet that way. Besides, Boris wasn’t a big one for fuss.

We will scatter the ashes in part at the point in the south-west corner of the garden from where he used to exchange morning pleasantries with various other dogs of the village, particularly the one from two down, who he cordially loathed. Another portion will go under the beech hedge, where he used to lie when the sun became too hot, or Kiwi too annoying. A last bit will go to the rabbit warren down by River Common where he used to stand guard for hours at a time whilst his smaller, feistier mother was bothering rodents far below.

Then it’s just the daily reminders; the lead, the basket, the bowl, the cushion, the tab of anti-seizure pills that didn’t quite do the trick. Unlike the spaniel, Boris wasn’t one for possessions. A scratch behind the ears and the occasional brush was all his low maintenance life needed. I suppose that the thing I miss most of all, beyond the sound of his nails on the wooden floor of my office, and the rasping pants of breath as he galloped gamely after the spaniel in the vineyard, is just the fact of him being around. Decrepitude is not pretty, but Boris handled it all with an air of supreme indifference. He just took things as they came, and was there, sleeping, as I opened the kitchen door every morning of my last fourteen years. Constancy is what a dog gives you. And not answering back.

He wasn’t, by nature, a high achiever: all he had to show for over 10,000 walks in his 5,292 days on the planet was one dead pheasant. It was a large cock bird who managed to run into some stock fencing and stun itself whilst he was chasing it. It gave Boris just enough time before it came round to pick it up, drag it towards us for a second or two and then look at us in a manner that denoted the sentiment: ‘what the hell am I supposed to do with this thing now?’. It bored him, and he trotted on.

Like so many of us, he had a past that belied the perfection with which we all generally accord our dead pets. As a young dog, he nipped at three people, all from the village and one passing hiker who duly told the police. When they came to visit that evening, Boris laid his head gently in the WPC’s lap and that was really that. We got a trainer in to train us, and he never did it again.

Now he’s gone. The spaniel has been remarkably sanguine about it and we are still in that phase of sad delight that we didn’t have to put him through the rubbish and indignity of a life extended beyond where it meant to end.

The cushion by the desk where I am writing this is starkly empty, but it’s fine.

Love can let go.