Cathedrals

*Before you read… This story is deeply personal, and based on true events. I found this the other day when I was going through my writing, and needless to say bawled my eyes out. Please enjoy, and relate.*

I wiggled under my blankets, a pillow serving as a barrier between my back and the wall. My computer sat on my lap, iTunes running and a blank word document staring at me, waiting for something to happen. It wasn’t the only one. The assignment wasn’t difficult, and I generally enjoyed writing essays, but this one was giving me trouble. The song was a classical one we listened to in class. It was about a cathedral rising and being swallowed by the sea, and the paper was about our reaction to the music.

My eyes had been fixed on the ceiling as the music swirled around me. I noticed how the tiles varied in size and shape, lacking uniformity. It annoyed me. The music crept over my musings, swaying them elsewhere; it was so dark, so sad. Suddenly I was fighting back tears. I pictured my sweet black lab we had put down this past summer, which is the closest I have ever been to death. We sat in the room with her as the doctor administered the drug, her head wrapped in my arms as I sobbed. I don’t remember if the doctor was a man or woman, what color the wallpaper was, what I was wearing… but what I do remember, I remember with a startling clarity. The ceiling had standard blocky tiles, like those in my classroom. There was a couch, a coffee table with a box of tissues, and a dog bed all aligned between two walls. There were two doors, one leading to the vet and the other the receptionist. I tried to show how much I loved her as we waited, soothing her and kissing her and burying my face in her neck. My brother was quieter, his furrowed brow the only indication of how he might be feeling. He stroked her back. I couldn’t get the tears to stop. “I love you so so much” I kept repeating, as though she could hear me. As though it would make a difference.

I remember so clearly the moment her soul left her body. Her eyes, which were always so bright and happy, faded until they looked like glistening marbles; empty of feeling, empty of life.  That was the moment I stepped back from her. That was the moment my brother burst into tears, violently crying and stroking the body. I tried to comfort him, but I didn’t know what to say. It was like her body had deflated, and I just wanted to leave. He wanted more time with her. Mom and I gave him some privacy with the body. I didn’t want any.  It would have been wasted; she wasn’t there anymore.

The light in her eyes fading away, the way her body seemed to visibly sag and empty of life is the image that still comes to my mind at the most random times. Once in the grocery store, once while driving, once when unpacking and confronted with her old fleece blanket, and again when I was sitting in that classroom listening to that song. Her life had gone back to the place where it had come from, and I found myself hoping beyond hope that there was a heaven.

Death crept around the corners of my mind as I thought of her big brown eyes. The truth is, she was so much more than just my dog. Clichéd, I know. Over dramatic? Perhaps. But that doesn’t make the thought sting any less.

When I was five years old my parents took me to pick out a puppy. My mom was pregnant with my second little brother. We had another black lab at home, one both of my parents insisted was the best dog they had ever had. I was of course overjoyed at the idea. Of all the puppies, I picked her. She was the runt of the litter, and I fixated on her immediately to my dad’s displeasure. He didn’t think runts made good pets, but I knew she was perfect.

She was my companion. I couldn’t have known how much my life would change over the upcoming years, how my home would crumble and be rebuilt, but she was there from the beginning.  We would joke about how she was a lover, not a thinker. How she never reacted negatively to anyone. As soon as she laid eyes on you, she loved you. She ran away once, and was picked up by another family. When we tracked her down the family they had grown so attached to her they offered to buy her from us.  We used to joke that if someone came to rob our house she would greet him or her with enthusiasm; she was not cut out to be a watchdog.

She was a constant. When I got in trouble, when I was crying she would come put her head in my lap, her big brown eyes so empathetic and adoring it was impossible not to feel the slightest bit better as I scratched the bridge of her nose. She was a miracle dog, and as I would point out rather smugly to my father, a survivor. She outlived all our other pets, even the puppy we adopted after the death of our first dog, which my father picked because it was the biggest of the puppies available. He declared that we would not adopt another runt; we needed a strong dog for the boys. My little runt ended up being the strongest of them all.  She was terrified of firecrackers, and I would find her quivering under the bed those Fourth of July nights. I would pull her out and cuddle her, trying to sooth her to the best of my adolescent ability. She was my baby. When we had to leave and lock her in her kennel in my room, I would wind up my music box so she wouldn’t feel lonely. If we were going to be out at night I would leave my light on in case she grew afraid. I never realized how much I depended on her until I was away.

She was there when my parents’ marriage began to fall apart. She saw a smaller version of me stand between my shouting parents and try to get their attention, screaming trying to stop their fighting. She was there with me, lying by my feet when my mom locked my furious dad in our backyard. She stayed with me as he pounded on the door, demanding and then beseeching that I let him in. I was in middle school. She put her head in my lap when he chased me up the stairs to my room, screaming at me as I tried to shut the door in his face. He grabbed my arm and I scratched him so hard I drew blood. I felt terrible, scared and guilty. Even though she couldn’t have, I felt like she understood. She was there for the aftermath when he told my brother that he was going to “squish him like a fucking bug” because my brother had decided not to get confirmed. She nudged her head into his lap when he got home and broke down the painful way a boy trying to become a man does, his tears not only tainted with pain but also with a sense of shame for crying them. I’ve only seen him cry that way three times. She was the only one who’s comfort he could openly accept. She was there as I struggled with my mom’s unbridled hatred for my dad, as I struggled with my own feelings about him, about the divorce. As his temper would rip at my self-esteem, tearing me down with the slightest provocation, she would be waiting for me at home to offer me her unconditional love.

My freshman year in high school the divorce process began, and I was diagnosed with mono, which turned into depression, and I was so lonely and disconnected. She was calm and steady, her indiscriminate love for each member of my family centering me when I was swayed by the way my parents talked about each other.

The next year she was steady even when our home was not. My mom moved three times over a year and a half, was trying to finish her college degree and work a demanding job. Mom would fall asleep with a textbook or laptop on her lap, propped up on the couch by cushions. I would clean up the kitchen, cover her with a blanket, and find my baby girl waiting for me in my room, curled up on the fleece blanket she used as a bed. She was always waiting for me to come home. Even when I left for college she could always be found in my room, sleeping on her fleece blanket, waiting for me. Her panting grew heavier as she grew older, her hips weaker. Occasionally she slipped on tile floors and had difficultly standing up. Stairs became a challenge for her, but that never seemed to be an issue when she stumbled down them to greet me when I came to visit. I came home during the day to visit her when I stopped talking to my mom after she got married to a man she knew for six months, but my visits became less and less frequent. She never seemed to be upset with me for my absence, always greeting me with such pure joy every time each time she saw me.

Even when I felt like everyone had forgotten about me, like no one missed me or cared enough to give me more than two weeks warning about my moms remarriage or when I was told that my mother was selling the house she had worked so hard to provide for us a week before it was on the market, my baby could be found asleep in my room, curled up on that fleece blanket.

Some animals are just pets. You love them, you care for them, and you mourn them when they die. But my girl was so much more. She represented my childhood, memories of my home. Memories of the happy times our family shared. She was the physical representation of all that I had gone through, and she remained unblemished and so pure. She gave me hope for myself, she was a source of strength. She sat with me as I stayed up late at night sobbing, coming to realizations about my dad, working out my feelings about his adultery and my mom’s attitude. If nothing else, I could be sure she would always love me. And she did. I’m just afraid I didn’t treat her well enough after all that she’s given me.

My makeup’s forgotten as I rub the tears out of my eyes, dripping down and darkening the purple jersey sheets I sit wrapped in. I have only managed to write one sentence.

“This song is about more than a cathedral budding forth and then being swallowed by the waves; this song is about the brief but beautiful emergence of the cathedral, and the sorrow that was experienced when it was lost.”