Saying Goodbye

I put Lola down a few weeks ago.

I thought that after I did I would have this craving to write a blog entry about her, or about the experience of putting her down, but I haven't had any such craving.

It's strange because the lead-up was so intense, so troubling, as close to a moral crisis as I've ever experienced, and maybe my hesitance is because I don't think I can do justice to all the different feelings and thoughts I had in the months leading up to the decision.

She was one of the most wonderful creatures I have ever had the pleasure of knowing, but she was also bound up with painful memories about my family, and uncomfortable memories about my behavior when I was a young adult and a teenager.

Lola was both a beacon in my life and a stain on my reputation, and in the end I felt like I would be betraying her by putting her down. Betraying her unswerving faith that one day I'd be a good and caring owner, proving once and for all that I was a lazy owner, one that wanted convenience over care or responsibility.

Replace Lola with Mom and you've pretty much got the size of my reluctance to put my dog down.

See, I left Lola with my mother, first when I was 17 and moved out. And then later when I moved to university in Montreal. That left my mom and brother sharing the burden of care, and for 10 years I never really questioned that decision. Didn't occur to me to question it.

I left my mom too, I guess is the bigger deal, and she and Lola had each other for company, and I still feel an indivisible guilt about both of them, when I think of that decade of infrequent visits punctuated by uncomfortable revelations of my mother's increased fragility and not enough walks for the dog. Visits that left me with an instinctive flight response. Running away from people and creatures who needed me, not feeling better until I'd been in Montreal a few days and could put Toronto in the background.

I can't even talk about my brother, both because he's a private person so he'd kill me, also because I know all this time he was there, wanting some help, working on his own. Becoming a wonderful person who is so exceptionally responsible, so willing to put himself on the line for other people.

It's hard knowing I was the negative imprint to that, that I will spend a lot of my life, hoping to convince my little brother who I love a lot that I am sorry for what I did but that I really couldn't have stopped myself if I tried.

After mom died, Evan took Lola, and I went mental in Montreal. After a year, when I was sleeping 8 hours a night again, and had stopped obsessing quite so much about what a fuck up I was, he told me he didn't want Lola anymore and I finally, (finally) stepped up to the plate.

In a way I guess Lola cured me of myself. She was a gentle treatment, a little furry face staring up at me, that required that I get out of my head so she could get three walks a day, heartworm pills food that wouldn't make her sick etc..

I am going to say goodbye to Lola and I am going to acknowledge that in her last 5 years of life I didn't fail her, that she was loved and happy and cared-for. Putting her down after so many of her basic processes were failing was not lazy it was the only reasonable thing I could do because she was suffering.

But if I let myself believe I ended up doing right by my dog, I have to close the door on the story that I failed the rest of my family.

On top of all that, there is just the day to day reality that I miss her more than I thought I would. Everyone who has put a dog down probably says that, but it's astounding. There is this ghost Lola I talk to every day, there is a hole in the air where she used to sleep in my room every night. There are entire hours of my day, like this exact moment, when I should be out walking her and instead I am here, being a productive, quiet, focused individual, completely lonely for my dog.

Lola Verburg you meant more then you knew, and I love you and miss you.