The Washington Canard

WALKING THE DOG

I'm not familiar with the work, but the phrase above is apparently the name of one of George Gershwin's many notable pieces.

I bring it up because, on Friday, my parents had my dog, Gershwin, put to sleep. Back in the day, a decade and a half ago, she was known as my brother's dog, but she really did belong to the whole family. She was a puppy well into her late ages, a Labrador-German Shepherd mix, and who never settled down until age eventually calmed her. She got her name because we got her not long after the movie "Beethoven" came out, and the idea of naming a dog after a well-known composer sounded like a pretty good idea. My parents have always been big fans of the Gershwin brothers, and so the name made sense. And this dog surely did them justice. Gershwin was a great dog. Long live Gershwin!

This is going to be a rather morbid post — and confessional — which is certainly not typical of the Washington Canard, but bear with me. This may come across ase all the more morbid as Zuma has begun blogging, but so be it.

We first got Gershwin not long after my previous dog had to be put down, that being a Scottish terrier by the name of McNess, who was a constant of my childhood, before we left for Hong Kong, when we handed him over to my (now-divorced) grandparents, and then after. McNess was not the first pet of mine to die — that distinction belongs to Emily, a cat that I really didn't like, because she bit me on several occasions, but was still devastated when she died. And I was more devastated when McNess' time was up. It's been almost two decades since that unsavory moment, and although I've been lucky to have nobody very close to me die, I've since become a bit more familiar with death, or at least the end of natural life. There is my aunt Margot, my father's sister, who drowned in the Columbia River just a few years ago now. And of course there is my friend and former roommate Dave, known to his relatives as Joe, fully Joseph David Baufman, one of my best friends from college, who today is a shell of his former self, after crashing my ex-girlfriend's car into a tree on a December night nearly five years ago now.

By contrast, Gershwin's end doesn't affect me so much now. When my younger brother sent me an e-mail earlier this week to alert myself and my sister that her health was failing, and would soon need to be taken in, it was a punch to the gut, all right. Because of my memories of Gershwin when I myself was young, at first. But also because of my younger sisters, Maggie and Ellie, who have only known life with Gershwin, and who are surely learning about the finality and unforgiveness of death this weekend.

I do have more to say about this theme of death and the things I said and did that I was not so proud of in the aftermath of these circumstances, but I will close this out with the e-mail sent from Matt to myself and my eldest sister on Friday afternoon. It's an admirable telling of the unfortunate story:

Well, I woke up today, Friday 10.21.05, to a phone call from mom. She had gotten up early to do some work before going into the office or something of that sort, and noticed that the dog was in such a state that she most likely could not wait another day. We had planned to take her into the vet tomorrow aftermoon, but we simply had to do it today for her own good.

I walked to mom's office from Emily's apartment at about 11:00 and we drove home, meeting dad there. Gershwin was placed, for she simply could not walk on her own, into one of her crates from which the top had been removed making it easier to get her in and more comfortable for her. The appointment was scheduled for around 11:45. We drove around to the back of the clinic and pulled her out of the truck and handed her over to the vets.

The girls said their farewells to Gershwin this morning. Mom had struggled for the words to tell the girls that today was going to be the day, but Maggie asked mom before leaving for school, point blank, if we were taking her in today. Gershwin will be cremated and the ashes will be returned to us. Mom thinks it's important, especially for the girls, to have some sort of ceremony for her. The options are either burying the urn on the property or scattering the ashes somewhere, again, prefferably on the property.

Gershwin was a good bowler, and a good dog. She was one of us. She was a dog who loved the outdoors... and bowling, and as a surfer she explored the beaches of Southern California, from La Jolla to Leo Carrillo and ... up to ... Pismo. She died, like so many young men of her generation, she died before her time. In your wisdom, Lord, you took her, as you took so many bright flowering young men at Khe Sanh, at Langdok, at Hill 364. These young men gave their lives. And so would Gerswhin. Gershwin, who loved bowling. And so, Gershwin, in accordance with what we think your dying wishes might well have been, we commit your final mortal remains to the bosom of the Pacific Ocean, which you loved so well. Good night, sweet prince.

Or princess. Same difference. Give the man a hand for appropriating a memorable bit from an especially memorable film to service a sentiment that really only matters to a handful of us. In the midst of a message where I had been frowning, and might have been crying, instead I found myself laughing out loud.

Death and loss, in its human and non-human forms, never seems to get any easier. But I'm still waiting for it to do so. I'll be waiting quite awhile; longer than my own life, to be sure.

posted by WWB at 12:58 AM |