I Ask Percy How I Should Live My Life
“Love, love, love says Percy.
And run as fast as you can
along the shining beach, or the rubble, or the dust.
Then, go to sleep.
Give up your body heat, your beating heart.
Then, trust.”
— Mary Oliver
Saturday April 6, 2024
I didn’t make it to my usual 6:30am Iyengar yoga class on zoom with a favourite teacher because I was up much of the night with my doggie. Later in the morning I logged on to another challenging intermediate class – but spent part of it just stretched out on the floor without much energy.
Over the recent days when my Simone de Bébé was gravely ill, I experienced an ever present underlying nausea, an existential exhaustion. Not so much grief as despair. As though all the terrible deaths occurring everywhere in the world were happening right at my feet.
My 14-year-old Simone de Bébé was in her last stage of life. She hadn’t been eating much at all the past few weeks. I made the first appointment I could with the vet to have her euthanized in a few days, on Monday. But in the end, she declined precipitously and I couldn’t wait.
On Saturday afternoon we took her to the excellent Pulse Emergency Clinic in Sherwood Park nearby. This clinic treated Simone so wonderfully after her vicious dog attack years ago. The veterinary dental surgeon Dr. Sauve saved her life then. He was one of two veterinary dental surgeons in the province, so we were fortunate to live so close to the clinic.
I feel very sad that Simone is no longer here. She was devoted and shadowed me in the house following me everywhere. But unsurprisingly I am also relieved as my Simone de Bébé had a very good life. And she didn’t deserve to suffer.
Our animal kin’s deaths affect us with such fierce pain but in Simone’s case, I marveled at her resilience and the fact that she had lived several lives.
I came upon Simone serendipitously.
I “rescued” Simone in 2015 after the death of my daughter’s beautiful chocolate poodle Coco-Ming. That weekend our Coco-Ming died suddenly having run into the road nearby. She escaped the backyard through a hole in the gate that I thought had been mended. I felt guilt and loss and horror.
Coco-Ming died on a Friday. A few days later more disaster struck. On Sunday, Chloe, a neighbour and colleague, rode her bicycle through the neighbourhood and was hit by a car door. She fell and broke her leg.
In my grief, I arranged to take Chloe to lunch on Monday as though sociality might begin to mend my heart. And strangely enough it did. For in the middle of lunch Chloe began waving her phone around saying that her PhD student who had just begun to foster dogs for WHARF, a local rescue organization, had a little white poodle delivered to her door. She had just been rescued from somewhere and had four puppies. The vet had spade her and removed five bad teeth.
“Would you like to go over and look at the dog?” she asked.
“Oh no!” I protested, “…too soon.” I couldn’t possibly replace Coco-Ming, a well-loved mid-sized poodle, with this strange toy poodle.
But sure enough, Chloe was right and my protests were futile. Right after lunch we stopped in at her student’s apartment on our way home. This unnamed homeless pup was very shy according to the foster mother. Nonetheless, Simone immediately leapt onto my lap. She was adorable of course.
“Oh alright,” I thought, “I will take you home to test how we felt about each other.”
Almost immediately everyone fell in love with Simone de Bébé. I was also offered one of her pups but didn’t feel I could manage two dogs at once at that time. Later I would regret my decision.
Simone was weak but fine and then took a turn for the worse after a walk in the ravine a few days later. I nursed her back to very expensive health via a local emergency vet. I remain grateful to my friend Nathalie who was a wonderful help and accompanied us to the clinic.
Simone lived happily with me for four and a half years until Boxing Day in 2019 when a young vicious dog attacked her while she was on a leash at my feet in Dawson Park.
As it turned out, the dog was owned by a very kindly former Hindu monk who had been a hippie in Fort McMurray. He ended up opening an ashram in Vienna for many years and then came back to Alberta where he married and had kids and acquired a young pup who for no apparent reason had a vicious episode one day.
Happily this man was not only kind but he had excellent home insurance and $11,000 later, Simone de Bébé had her painfully askew jaw reattached with glue and screws.
Afterwards she recovered some of her vitality and lived on for four more years. The damage to her snout meant she snorted from time to time. And a single snaggle tooth stuck out of her mouth because her jaw was permanently a bit askew. Simone was no beauty. But she was very well loved and had a good third life.
As she lay dying
As I wander around the kitchen in the middle of the night after Simone’s death, I am grateful to hear my boyfriend’s gentle snores in the bedroom above. He has such a kind heart and has been staying with me longer than usual these last days as he knows I am suffering. And he too loves Simone. He drove me to the clinic yesterday and sat with me while the vet injected the series of drugs that put Simone into a deep sleep and then stopped her heart. He held out his hands to hold mine and to touch Simone who lay in my arms. And he wept as I cried as Simone’s body slackened and her head went limp and her mouth fell open, her snaggle tooth, a comma.
The clinic staff and the vet were so very caring and concerned. I was so grateful for their solicitude.
Afterwards, we drove to the Commonwealth Recreation Centre and sat for a while in the very hot steam room. Then we floated together in the big hot pool watching the children play in their shallow waters and the swimmers do their laps.
I like spending time at the Commonwealth with other Edmontonians and their children who like me arrived in the city from elsewhere. I know from my many conversations in the women’s locker room over the years that they came from around the world. Some fled war zones and all have remade their lives far from their home communities.
I am grateful for this public space. Here in this floating world, the only sounds are muffled conversations between friends and family. I feel buoyed up by the possibility of community renewal and hope.
Enter Ruby
I found Ruby on Kijiji a year and a half ago. She lived at her mother’s house in Red Deer with an elderly couple who loved their dogs. Ruby is a West Highland Schnauzer Poodle cross — in other words, a delightful mutt. We arrived to meet Ruby just after New Year’s Day. She is now about one and a half years old. When we brought Ruby home, Simone was already partially blind, partially deaf, partially lame but I hoped Ruby might liven her up.
And for the next year Ruby did enliven Simone who showed far more energy than she had in the last three, arguing and tormenting the elder who taught her the rules of the home. I worried that Simone would be put out at the competition from Ruby’s lively charm but Simone acted more like a tolerant big sister who became a vocal critic of Ruby’s trickery and excesses.
The house will be very quiet without their tusselling and friendly duels. Over the last weeks, Ruby became more subdued around Simone and it was clear that she was concerned about her well-being. She now looks mildly forlorn without her. She will be lonely. Stuff So will I without sweet Simone de Bébé.
I have to confess that the night before I put Simone to sleep her final sleep, I began searching for another dog in an insomniac moment. I lay sleepless thinking about Simone. I put in an application for a seven-year old poodle from the same rescue organization that had given me Simone. Of course a new dog wouldn’t replace Simone’s singular being, but it would be another dog to keep Ruby company and to divert my attention. I know myself well enough after a life time of canine companionship that I thrive in their presence. In the end, this adoption didn’t work out. But thinking about a companion for Ruby was consoling.
However in the clear light of day, I imagine letting Ruby learn to thrive on her own is a good idea. She needs some serious obedience training as she is a bit of a wonderful wild thing at an adolescent 18 months. And we will learn to live without Simone at my feet. Though she remains in our hearts.
Simone’s Friends
Postscript
Thank you to everyone who loved and cared for Simone in my presence or absence. She was as a friend said “a good dog” — one of the best along with Mr. Mars whose ashes still live under my bathroom sink. For a more timely response to Simone de Bebe’s attack in 2019, read my earlier blog post.
16:00 Tue Apr 23, 2024:
After publishing this blog post, my friend reminded me about the first time we enjoyed a sexual interlude. Unaccustomed to anyone else in the bed, least of all a paramour, Simone became very anxious. She usually slept on my bed.
That fateful night, events turned positively clownish when as I passionately made love with my friend he began to laugh. Irritated, I glanced up behind him to witness the spectacle of our discarded socks flying through the air.
These were launched from the floor below where Simone enthusiastically tossed her head thrusting her nose to the ceiling.
Simone performed this burlesque act long enough. To distract us. To interrupt our lovemaking. And to inspire roars and fits of laughter.
No Gate No Lock 