If a person is of sound mind and body, and has a dog, it is impossible for that dog not to become a part of the family. When a woman moves beyond her child bearing years, without results, and has a dog, it becomes the child she never had. A dog, especially a really good dog, fills the role easily of being a family member in the strongest, deepest, sense of the word. Though I can’t compare mothering a dog directly with that of a human, I have loved a child or two with a powerful and pure ferocity, which I imagine is akin to the maternal connection. When my nephews, J.B. and Chayson, were on the verge of death at various points in their lives, I was prepared to do anything humanly possible to save them. I have never before, or since, felt so easily that I could surrender my own life to save another. Chayse, now an incredible young man, survived his illness. J.B., freshly 17, died a day after his car accident. There was nothing I could do to stop it. I am familiar with that sort of emotion and devotion and the death of such a love, and it hurts very much the same as I sit perched on the edge of the final good-bye with Chami.

 

I have had other good dogs throughout my life, and one, Chance, who was a great dog. I’m blessed to have Chami, for she too is a great dog. She is a full on family member and she fills my heart and wins my devotion and deepest love. It is the kind of love I would give my life for. Whatever maternal instincts I have, whatever motherly love I could give, whatever parental guidance and discipline that was needed, I have given to Chami. Whatever memories have been born of this relationship will last me a lifetime, whereas those of other pets from the past have faded already. Chami is just that kind of dog. So smart it made her nearly human, so able to communicate–with her eyes and the entirety of her body–that it made it possible to fuse with her in invisible ways. You truly know that connection is there when it starts to leave you, when the spiritual attachment between two lives must accept that they won’t be together in body and of this earth, anymore.

 

I suppose the main difference between loving and losing a beloved pet, compared to a child of your own blood, is that you know going into it that it is a brief relationship. Chami is 12 now. I should be content with that, though I’d hoped for just a year, or two more. You can still love them fiercely, take them into your heart and family like a child, but you do expect to outlive them. And so it is easier to accept and move on. But in the moment of death, just before it and just behind it, the pain and sorrow is unfathomable.

 

However, I need not face Chami’s death today. She is still going strong and we met with the vet again today. Susan too was impressed with the effect of the Cortisone on Chami. She reminded us that the impact the drug makes is unpredictable from animal to animal. With Chami, it seems to be masking all the negative symptoms, affording her the space to be comfortable and even playful. We reexamined one of the options we glossed over earlier in the week. And, we’ve decided to start Chami on oral steroids that won’t be as potent as the huge IV dose she got the other day, but should keep her pain-free and eating and continuing to enjoy life. We’ll have to mess around with the dosage, and eventually increase it to keep up with maintaining a good quality of life, but we all think it is best for Chami.

 

For Bob and I, newly settled in to letting her go, and beyond the harshest elements of grieving, it would probably have been easier to put her down today. We are ready to let her go. But Chami is happy and getting enjoyment from being alive so we must, through a mild chemical additive, give her the chance to continue on. We have no delusions that this will make her well or let her live another year to two. We know that the treatment might work for a few days, a few weeks, or possibly even a couple of months, but even just 6 weeks in dog-years is equivalent to a human year and if I were dying of cancer and could take a steroid each day and get another year of living well from it, I’d jump on it. And so, one day at a time, Chami, our child, lives on with us in spirit and body.