Day: January 8, 2015

I am heartbroken to tell you that Lenore died earlier this evening from complications caused by a spinal tumor that had become too painful for her – and us – to bear. She died at the Cambridge Valley Veterinary Service, she is, I suspect, eagerly looking for the crumbs the angels drop in the sky. Her tail was thumping to the end, even as the vets inserted their needle.

I took this last photo of her earlier today, my last photo of her,  it showed the resignation in her eyes, I think, she was ready to leave our world behind and return to hers. Maria said she saw her happy spirit leave her body and rise to the sky.

Words are my life, my work, but I do not have words to capture what Lenore meant to me, and what she did for me – and for Maria and I. She brought love to me when I had given up on it, she made it possible for me to love Maria and kept my heart from turning to stone. I remember telling a therapist about Lenore, and she looked at me curiously and said, “this is what you want. In a person.” So it was.

Lenore became Maria’s dog as well as mine, they both came to cherish their walks in the woods together. Lenore slept at the food of our bed every night, she was the Love Dog, a witness to our love and connection.  Like Izzy and Red, Lenore was a hospice therapy dog, her career cut short by the disappearance of several sandwiches belonging to the terminally ill and at their bedsides.

Watching Lenore in such awful pain this week was the most difficult experience of my life with animals, and I am grateful that she is in peace, her pain is over. She never lost her joy of life.  Maria and I are grateful to Dr. Suzanne Fariello an Cassandra and the staff of the  Cambridge veterinary service, they were wonderful – perfect, empathetic, responsive, available, merciful. They worried about Lenore, they worried about us. They supported us in every way.

In a sense, this is what unites us, loss is the common human experience, a challenge to faith, a test of the heart. We all know what it feels like to lose something we love, the awful beauty and connection of grief.

Lenore was heavily sedated, she died with her head in my arms and Maria holding the both of us, I have not ever cried so much in my life, how cleansing are tears. These are all the words I have tonight, I did want you to know, you have shared Lenore’s life with me from the first day. I am profoundly grateful to Gretchen Pinkel, the wonderful breeder who knew Lenore was the right dog for me. Thank you for all the love you gave Lenore, like Simon, she was not just my animal, not just my dog, she belonged to many others and my loss is theirs as well.

The Quakers have a saying, if you love, you will suffer, and it is worth it. So it is, this week, much suffering in my life with animals, and it flows from so much joy and meaning. It was worth every minute of it.

Red would have made a great Pony Express dog, he pays the weather no mind. One of the most dangerous things we do on the farm is grain the animals, grain excites them in a particular way, they will fight with one another and bowl over a human for some. Red is invaluable when it comes to graining, I just tell him to keep the sheep “there,” and he does. He keeps order and makes it safe for Maria and I, especially in -15 temperatures.

I’ve learned – and written – that having a good and open relationship with a vet is perhaps the most important thing I can do when an animal of mine gets sick. It is money in the bank, the foundation for perspective, compassion and resolution.  Dr. Suzanne Fariello had “the talk” this morning, about her diagnosis, my wishes, Lenore’s best interests, all of the options. It makes all the difference to me when it comes to evaluating our options and making decisions. We talk about everything – love, money, medicine, prospects.

Lenore is in very extreme pain, there is an issue in her neck, either a severe disc dislocation or, possible, a tumor causing the debilitating pain in her neck and shoulder and down through her legs. Watching the level of pain in the past few days has been perhaps the most difficult thing I have encountered in my life with animals, and much worse, I am sure, for her.

Dr. Fariello and I have a good and open relationship, we can talk honestly. She went over the X-rays, medical notes and examined Lenore carefully. She is concerned about her. So am I, I tend to have my emotional upheavals early, and then get on with what I have to do. As many of you know, I have strong and clear feelings about how much animals ought to be subjected to for the benefit of human beings. Dr. Fariello knows this as well, she is always honest but does not push me farther than I want to go. Maria and I are in complete agreement about this, although we often approach it in different ways.

There are a number of things to try, and we are trying all of them, if they do not work in the next couple of days, we will have some further discussions about the options – they range from seeing specialists, considering neck surgery, or euthanasia. We are not there yet, Lenore is now medicated and sedated and, for the first time in days, resting more comfortably. The best outcome would be for these medications to work over the next 48 hours.  We are aware of all of our options, she is in good hands, and so are we.

I have to consider whether Florida is an option for me right now, it isn’t if Lenore is in crisis. That’s a decision for another day. Maria and I have talked, about our feelings, our fears, our money, and most of all, about what we wish for Lenore. I believe so strongly that these issues must be talked out in advance – the families, the vet – it is the only way I know to keep our love for sick animals in perspective. That is important for me, the dog comes first, not me and what would make me feel better.

I am cautiously optimistic. There is a very good chance these medications will work to reduce Lenore’s distress. If it is really a tumor, that is another matter. The first goal is to reduce her pain, keeping suffering animals alive for people is one of the worst forms of abuse to me – everyone has to make their own choices, that is always mine, she won’t suffer one day because we do not want to lose her.

But we’ll know soon enough. We’ve all said everything we need to say to one another, we are prepared for whatever happens, and I am fervently hoping this remarkably sweet and loving creatures lives in less pain today.

The Vortex, of course, is part of our creative life, so it reflected itself this morning on the windowsill gallery, frost in sub-zero weather greeting the sun. I’m discovering that extreme weather is good for photographers, a silver lining in every cloud.

The Vortex is a good work for this week, we are in an impressive cold wave, it was – 15 this morning at the farm, we did the morning chores in a record breaking five minutes. The manure can wait awhile for shoveling. I dumped a bucket of water in the heated water tank and Maria dumped an armful of hay in the big feeder.

We put a tub of warm water in with the chickens – it will free in a half an hour, they are not coming out of the roost today. The dots rush out and in in minutes and have no interest in sniffing or running around. “They  used to call this winter,” a farmer told me, “now it is some kind of Vortex.” I explained to him that extreme weather has now become a big business as well as an environmental catastrophe. Life in our times.

We’ve started up the cars, given thanks for our frost-free water line (a very good move, it looks like) and are counting the hours to our trip to Disney World next Tuesday, assuming we can make it. Lots of stuff happening around here this week. It would be nice to be warm.