Desi dog of Hamilton Heights

Desi dog of Hamilton Heights

I am so relieved that I was able to download this shot of Desi dog.  It's been my profile pic for Hamilton House on Foursquare since I took it.  I don't know what happened to the original.

There are so many things I want to say about Desi and our time together over the past 14 years.  I don't know where to start.

I was inspired to start keeping this blog after reading Jon Katz's 10,000th blog post on Bedlamfarm.com today:

Day Of Rest: Boundaries Of Grief. When The Soul Is Seared

Desi died the day before Thanksgiving, Wednesday, November 23, 2011.  It was the worst day of my adult life.  Everything since then has been life after Desi.

Grieving is not something I'm comfortable with because of the depth of my own personal sensitivity.  I am far more sensitive than anyone I've ever met with the exception of my sisters.

I have never felt the kind of grief I am feeling right now over Desi's death.  The loss is completely overwhelming.  It comes in waves and it often feels as if all the wind has been sucked out of me and I've been knocked off my feet. 

All the expressions I've ever heard about grief are absolutely applicable. The feeling of "puking my guts out" is probably the one I identify with most.

In the weeks leading up to his death I was experiencing the strangest feeling of physical nausea and dizziness.  This visceral feeling continues to this day.  I have never experienced this type of complete and total disorientation before in my life and frightens me beyond words.  It's a feeling of vertigo combined with a sense that I am going to puke my guts out.  Sometimes my vision becomes so blurred that I start to think it's just a part of the aging process.  But I honestly think it's much more profound than that.  I think it's a reaction to extreme stress and anxiety.  I have been in this state of distress for many, many months now.  SO has Desi.  It was as if his emotional and mental distress combined with the loss of his physical abilities felt as if they were my own emotional, mental and physical distress.

In part, this loss taps into all the feelings of abandonment I have from childhood.  But truthfully, my relationship with Desi has been the longest and most intensely close relationship I have experienced in my life.

There are feelings of shame and embarrassment in that admission because Desi was just a dog.  Just a little Boston Terrier.  Not a person.  But that's why I was able to let myself get so close.  My relationships with many people have been such a huge disappointment to me in general.  For the most part I have closed myself off from human relationships and shut myself off by retreating within.

It's not that I believe I will never have a human relationship that is close.  It's just that there are so many limitations that we as human beings have in relationships.  It's the deception.  It's the agenda.  It's the betrayal.  Perhaps I have just been unfortunate in my relationships with human beings.  Perhaps I am the one that is limited.  Or, perhaps I just have to accept that the human/human bond is not and can never be the same or as strong as the human/animal bond.

Again, I feel a bit embarrassed and ashamed to admit that to myself - let alone write it in a blog online.  But the truth is that Desi has always been here for me.  He knew everything about me.  I could be my complete and true self with him which is something I am never able to be with most people.  There are a few people I can be myself with but again, I feel like there is a price to pay for being exactly who you are around people.  They hold it against you.  They will throw things back in your face when they are angry.  Or they will become trite and jokingly say something publicly which you have shared with them in confidence because THEY don't think it's such a big deal.

Desi NEVER betrayed my confidences, he was always there, he was always my friend on my worst days and on my best days.  He taught me how to be responsible, how to grow up, how to be brave, how to be regimented and stay on schedule, how to enjoy taking a walk, how to be social with other people and animals, how to see beyond my own small-world and self-obsessed thinking, how to give without conditions, how to receive without the expectation that I have to give something back, I could go on and and and on about the lessons Desi taught me.  But for now I will stop here.

I can only handle so much of the grief and then have to shut it off, lock it down, hide it from myself so that it won't kill me.  Because the truth is - if I really allowed myself to fully go there I wouldn't want to be here anymore.  I would want to be wherever Desi is just not on this planet without him.

A Quick Note About My Boston Terrier Desi Dog

I want to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for all your prayers, sweet comments and warm wishes. It meant EVERYTHING to me - it honestly DID!!!

Desi is doing incredibly well today!!! Much better than I would be doing if I had an eyeball removed. He is eating well, drinking well, doing his "business" well AND he actually has jumped off the couch and been walking around the apartment with his missing eye, blind other eye and Click Collar (lampshade thingy). He even walked up his doggie steps to the couch and curled up next to me to chill! WOW! When he starts humping Mona again I will know for sure he's back to his old self:)

I really struggled with the decision to allow the Vet to remove his eye and keep him alive like that. I wasn't sure if I was doing the right thing for him or if I was doing something selfish for myself. When I left him in the hospital I felt like I abandoned the poor little guy. He has ALWAYS been there for me at my ABSOLUTE worst. And now I had to leave him when he needed me most and was confused, terrified and shaking with an eye that looked like it was straight out of a horror movie. They would not allow me to stay with him. When I said goodbye, I did not believe I would ever see Desi again because I had made up my mind right then and there that if they had to remove his eye I would tell them "absolutely not" and ask that he be put to sleep.

The pain I was feeling in my heart was so overwhelmingly excruciatingly, I honestly did not know how I could bear it. I could not speak to anyone because it was too painful and I was also extremely angry that the entire week prior I could not get an eye specialist to look at him and prevent the eye loss because there was nobody on call.

I also thought it would be extremely cruel to have a dog live with only one eye and another eye that is completely blind. When they asked me what my wishes were if his heart or breathing stopped during surgery, I specifically gave them a DNR.

It's now only two days since he had the surgery and he is doing EVERYTHING he did before EXCEPT he actually seems a lot more comfortable and looks less hideous!!! It's hard to believe that having the eye removed actually was a good thing but now I know why God or the Creator or whoever made us gave us two eyes. If one goes bad we have the other. Even though he can't really see out of that other eye it does help him somewhat to get around. It's truly amazing.

The spirit and will to live is even more amazing. I have seen my father fight to stay alive all these past (nearly 14) years with his spinal cord injury and every time he wins another battle I am more and more grateful that he is still here with me on this planet!!!

This little dog has taught me so much more than I could ever attempt to relay in words. I am grateful that he is still with me and continues to prove not only that "dogs are man's best friends" but that they are so much more content with the basics then humans are.

Several years ago, at a really bad point in my life, a Boston Terrier named "Bobby" was the only one who could make me laugh in spite of all my personal troubles. His crazy, comical antics of getting out of the yard and making people chase after him for blocks, spaghetti eating, snorting and farting really kept me entertained. One day someone had an overdose in the bathroom in the middle of the night and Bobby the Boston Terrier saved his life by scratching at the door until he woke us up so we could call 911 in time.

When I first saw Desi in a pet store at the Jefferson Valley Mall he was 3 months old and had a horrible cold and runny nose because he had been in the kennel for so long. Nobody wanted to adopt him and the salesman told me that it was because he looked like an "alien." I told the guy that if you say things like that to people the little Boston Terrier will never get adopted. I felt obligated to adopt him and take care of him in spite of my skittishness toward canines in general. I remembered Bobby and what he did for me personally and so many human beings. So I adopted Desi in early 1998 and have had him ever since.

Clearly, it wasn't Desi's time and he's still here with me now to continue to teach me the lessons my stubborn human brain needs to learn.

Thanks again for such great support to everyone! And thanks especially to my little Desi dog!!!

Desi & Mona 7.19.09