To Sleep, Perchance to Dream...
Nov. 21st, 2007 01:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fivecats
So, Gwumpy, what you been so sad about lately?
You aren't with us, HaderBear. I can't pick you up, I can't hold you or pet you or hug you...
But youse talking to me.
Bear, I've been talking to you for almost ten years now. How am I supposed to stop now?
Dyeah, but if I'se not dere, how is you talking to me now?
The day after we returned from the Richmond show Bonn knew something was definitely wrong with Hader. He had, on occasion, punished us for going away to a show by not paying us any attention for a few hours. By Monday, however, he was clearly not eating breakfast and that was most unlike our HaderBear.
Bonn immediately assumed he was dying right in front of us. I, ever the optimist, thought she was exaggerating. After all, how could anything possibly be wrong with our Bear?
You know, Bear, I just never envisioned a time without you.
Well, dat's pwetty unenwightened.
You know what I mean. Well. Okay. Yes, it was pretty unenlightened. But still.
Still what?
I still miss you.
Our regular vet ran blood work, saw signs of inflammation and made a diagnosis. She gave us some pills for the Bear and told us to use a large syringe and force him to eat several times a day. That should jump-start his digestive system again.
Only it didn't.
A week or so later we took him to an emergency vet's office in the evening. They were better staffed, better at communicating with us and better equipped. Hader was taken in the back for an x-ray.
A while later they brought him back to us. A while after that the doctor returned with the x-ray.
There was a large, white mass obscuring his liver and forcing his intestines to the back of his body. The doctor also pointed out fluid in his chest cavity, compressing the lungs.
Being kind, the doctor held out some hope for us that it was just a massive infection.
You were the Alpha, Bear.
Dyeah.
The thing is, you weren't just the Alpha for your brothers and sisters. That's just what we had thought for all these years. You were also the Alpha for our entire family. You were our Alpha, too, keeping things calm and balanced for us with your incredibly calming energy.
Well, dyeah, Gwumpy. Dat's kind of a Duh Moment, innit?
I suppose so, Bear.
They kept Hader overnight, wanting to get some additional fluids in him and tap his chest to drain away some of the fluid around his lungs.
We went home hoping against hope that it simply was an infection.
You know, Gwumpy, you pwomise me you was gonna take over as Alpha.
I know, Bear. The problem is that I'm a lousy Alpha. What made you so good at it was all of your calm-assertive energy. You're a born pack leader. Me, I'm too filled with ego to be the kind of Alpha you were. If people don't do as I want them to I tend to get angry, especially when I'm trying to be Alpha-like.
Well, a pwomise is a pwomise, Gwumpy. I suppose you better start making some seweious changes in your life.
Gee, thanks. So, along with all of the grieving I'm going through I'm supposed to become more enlightened?
Dat about what it look like to me, Gwumpy.
The call came in about 12:30pm.
The sonogram showed liver cancer. It appeared to have spread throughout the nearby organs. The vet could run the sonogram on the lungs (for extra money) but the initial prognosis was not good. As quickly as he had gone downhill he was likely to only have weeks left, at best, and they we going to be difficult ones for him.
Dazed, I went out to Bonn's studio. Bonn was talking to our daughter, Seren, on her cellphone, chatting happily about something.
Moments later Bonn had collapsed in tears and Seren was telling me she was leaving to make the four hour drive to be with us as soon as she hung up.
You know, you make a awful big fuss about dis.
Yeah. Well, what can I say? I'm lousy at this
I say.
Was I really that bad, Bear?
Gwumpy... whatchu think?
Okay, so I was bad. Sorry, Bear.
Dat's okay. I understands.
I stayed with Bonn until she was... well, not "better" and not "together"... let's just say we both cried a lot, held on to each other and, eventually, managed to come up for air.
It was clear to both of us that we couldn't let the Bear suffer any longer. His not eating, his insistence on sleeping in a sphinx-like pose, his fighting us to be force-fed were all signs of just how bad he had been feeling for weeks now. As much as we couldn't imagine not living with him in our lives, we couldn't imagine forcing him to continue to live in such pain.
If these were going to be the Bears last hours on earth, I was going to be there with him. Bonn said she needed to stay at home and wait for Seren, and that was fine. I was going to be at the vet's office with the Bear until they arrived.
Gwumpy, may I makes an observation?
Of course, Bear. What is it?
It's the way you pet and pet and pet and pet in the same spot in the same way over and over again.
It's annoying?
I know you means well, Gwumpy, but yes. Very Annoying.
Sorry, Bear.
And Gwumpy? Stop apowogizing.
When I asked to see the Bear a vet tech took me into the back rooms where they had all of the animal patients in cages. She opened the Bear's cage and he immediately tried to come out to see me. He was a bit unsteady on his feet, but that Bear-like determination to get out of any cage was still as strong as ever.
I sat on a tall stool next to his cage and held him in my lap, petting him over and over.
Eventually we moved to an empty exam room. Then, when they needed the room, I took the Bear out to my car. I laid down on the back seat and stretched the Bear across my stomach and chest.
I talked to him, told him how much I loved him. I recited all of the names we'd called him over the years. I told him about some of my favorite times with him. I talked and talked and none of it seemed to matter. I wasn't able to change anything.
And I cried. A lot.
Hader remained calm and quiet, trying to teach me something very important.
Yeah, youse was a mess.
Thanks, Bear. I was pretty much a mess for the entire weekend.
You tellin me? Sheesh...
Outside my car's rear window the leaves were doing their incredibly slow-motion burst into Autumn flames.
Inside, the Bear had snuggled into the crook of my arm, his body against my chest and shoulder, the side of his face leaning up against my face.
And there, exhausted, we took one last nap together.
Okay, okay. If youse gonna get all weapy-teawy-eyed again, Gwumpy, you is gonna have to finish this all on your own.
Alright, Bear. But, you know, it was the sweetest moment, for me anyway, of the entire weekend. That was such an incredible gift you gave me there.
To quote Ani, "Dyeah, dyeah. Don't push it."
Sometime after the street lights went on and the traffic died down, my phone rang. Seren told me that she'd arrived at the house but that Bonn wasn't in any shape to go out to the vet's that night.
She suggested I speak to the vets and tell them I was going to take Hader home. We'd return the next day and make a decision then.
I quickly agreed, managed to put myself together enough to take Hader back inside, tell them we'd be back later and then leave as quickly as I could.
It might only be a brief reprieve, but I was going to take anything I could get.
Even the massive migraine headache I had cried myself into over the course of the day didn't matter to me. We were going home.
See, part of my lasting problem, Bear, is that I keep feeling like I took you for granted. I don't think I appreciated you enough when you were with us. And not just because I couldn't imagine a time without you, but because I didn't see how important you were to us. I didn't fully appreciate how you provided us all with such balance.
Look, Gwumpy, if youse gonna pull out your old Joni Mitchell mp3s, youse on your own again.
Don't worry, I'm not going to pave paradise, Bear. I just feel bad about it. I know I loved you and I know you know you were dearly loved. I just can't believe I didn't realize just how important you were to me and to all of us.
Dat's okay. De same goes for me, too.
Really?
Dyeah, sure. Whatchu think I is? Some sort of guwu or somefin?
Seren has a lot of the qualities that make her a great pack leader. Instead of being HaderBear-like calm, however, Seren has a serious streak of Take No Sh*t that she's able to project with an impressive fierceness. (She worked for a while as a bouncer at a friend's bar and was really good at it)
Bonn instantly calms considerably whenever Seren is around. That worked out well for me because with someone Being Strong for Bonn it allowed me to completely break down, just as I needed to do.
Hader was quiet, hanging around by the kerosene heater, well in sight of us. That night he slept, as usual, in the bed with us. His breathing was becoming labored again, indicating that the fluids the vet had tapped from his chest were returning.
The next morning, after some tearful discussion, we realized the Bear loved us enough to try and stay alive for us for as long as he could. However, that would mean he would be living in continual pain for all that time and we loved him too much to allow him to do that for us.
When I picked him up, thinking we would go early and give us all some much needed rest from our pain, Hader got down from my arms and walked out the door to the patio and then down the stairs to the backyard. He sat down on one of the stepping stones, as he so often did, closing his eyes against the sun, enjoying the warmth of the day.
Hader wanted one more day with us.
Later you walked a few steps and stretched, wanting to be picked up and taken for a walk around the garden, Bear. When you did that I could almost feel my heart breaking in two.
Dyeah, you was a mess, Gwumpy.
Hader spent as much time in the sunshine as possible, then moved into Bonn's studio and sat in a chair facing a warm kerosene heater. Most of the other 5 came in at various times. I like to think they were all saying goodbye to Hader, but they also could have been checking on us, sensing what a complete emotional wreck we both were.
Seren had offered to take Hader to the vet's offices herself if it was too difficult for us to do. Earlier this year she had let go of one of her cats, the one she had had for over ten years, and she knew how difficult it was. When she had gone to the vet with her cat she had twenty of her friends go with her. She had come out to be with us in the same way.
Bonn couldn't bring herself to go. She had done so with so many cats she had loved before that doing so with one she loved as much as Hader was just too much to bear.
I, on the other hand, HAD to go. There was no option to not be there. That was my Bear and I was going to be there for him, no matter what.
You surprised me by loving the first part of that car ride, Bear.
Well, you didn't have me in that stupid cage ting. I could actually see what was going on awound me.
Then you climbed into my lap.
I was getting tired.
Seren, noticing that Hader was looking all around him as we started off, said that we could just drive around for a while.
I told her no. If we did that I knew I would never want to stop driving around.
A cross-town drive later we arrived at the vet's office. Seren said she wanted to talk to the vet and went inside.
The Bear obviously wanted out, so I got out of the car and kept the door open for him. He climbed out on his own. I picked him up and carried him over to a tree at the edge of the parking lot.
I sat there with him, apologizing again and crying. The Bear let me pet him for a minute, then he got up an walked around his side of the tree just out of reach.
I got up and turned around the tree to see him. He looked up at me, as if surprised to see me, and then started walking.
Now, at this point, if the Bear had started walking back into the neighborhood the vet's office was located in, that would have been fine with me. You want to escape, Bear? Count me in. You lead the way and I'll follow.
Instead he walked straight to the side entrance of the vet's office, sat down in front of the door and cried his last meow.
You knew I couldn't take you in that office.
Dyeah.
I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough for you.
Dat's okay, Gwumpy. It was just time. I takesd care of it.
Hader really was ready. He was ready sitting outside the door to their offices, he was ready in the examination room, he was ready through every step of the process.
He even allowed me to lay my face right next to his and pet his head. I said, "It's okay," over and over again, believing it for him, but not for me.
I managed to keep from crying until the vet placed his stethoscope at Hader's side and left the room.
And now I'se much better. I not hurt no more and I has lots of good stuff to eat.
Shrimp and salmon and grilled chicky bird?
And cwab. Don't forget the cwab.
You've been eating crab a lot this past week when I've come to talk with you.
Yep. It's good stuff.
Bear, do you mind if I keep coming to talk with you?
Of course not, Gwumpy. I likes it. Youse my Gwumpy.
And you're my Bear.
Dyeah.
Because, Bear, I can't manage to say goodbye to you. Ever.
Dat's okay. We all bes together again weal soon anyways.
I'd like that. We'd all like that. We all feel so lost without you.
You just gots to find a new bawance, Gwumpy. It come to you in time.
Just so long as I never have to say goodbye, Bear.
Okay, Gwumpy. Tell youse what, how about we say goodnight den?
I think I can manage goodnight. Goodnight, sweet Bear.
Dyeah. Goodnight my Gwumpy.
...
