Dodie

From a larger diary of quarantine logs

Published in Post Grad Magazine pg 15

April 23– Day 39 of Quarantine

Yesterday was the day I have been thinking about for so many years. The day that I was going to use if I ever wanted myself to fake cry by imagining it in my head being true. It was never even an option and the thought of it happening was always years away. Yesterday, my best friend of fifteen-years died. 

I was knitting something multicolored and tacky in my room, watching Grey’s Anatomy when my brother came in with a look in his eye that was sure and severe. “There’s something wrong with Dodie, we’re not sure what, exactly, but it’s not looking good. We’re going to go to the vet.” I remember feeling very robotic and tactical. I knew what he was going to say just from the look on his face. I got up and pushed past him. She had been running and playing with our other puppies earlier that day. She had snapped at my mom the other day when she tried to help her up by the hips. Even then, we decided it was going to be years away.

Dodie was the one I told everything to. Every time I left for school and asked her to wait for me. “Please, Dodie. If you think you’re going to die, you have to hang on until I get back so I can be there with you when you go, okay?” Through all of my growing and all of my living, it was always Dodie. When I was upset, she would press the bridge of her nose against mine and we just sat, her eyes peeling up white to reach mine, for as long as it took until I felt better. We called it Dodie Therapy. 

“It might just be vertigo,” Mom said when I got downstairs, too shakily to convince herself of what she wanted to be true. I pushed past her too. She was already crying. Everyone stood around Dodie lying down in front of the couch. I got down on the floor with her and looked into her eyes. They looked right past me. She couldn’t even see me. 

“No. It’s not vertigo.” I started to cry. 

We all got our coats and our shoes and a bed sheet for Dodie to lie on and then we remembered, we needed masks. My love was dying in the middle of a pandemic when so many other hearts were falling out of their loved one’s hands. Leaving the house in a group was strange enough on its own so even through the shock and the numbness, I could still feel the fact that this was an event. My brother’s girlfriend was quarantining with us. I told her that I was sorry if this was weird. She said not to worry about her. The rest of us silently got into the car. I crawled into the trunk with Dodie without thinking. This was an event. 

I laid down in the back, hugging Dodie to calm her down. She has always had trouble with cars. She’d shake and drool and breathe heavily anytime we went anywhere. “How’s she doing?” Mom asked.

“She’s doing fine.” I called back. “That’s what’s worrying me.” She was running this morning. At fifteen, she was running this morning. It was supposed to be years away. 

When I was seven, Dodie’s bones were rubber and her body would fly over itself when she was running and her nose anchored her head into the dirt. When I was nine, I rode on her back like a horse and her legs were strong. At ten, she was my pillow when I slept and her ribs held me up. Now she at fifteen, couldn’t get up on her own because of her weak hips and even then, we decided it was going to be years away.

We had called in advance at the vet, so they knew that we were coming. We wouldn’t be able to go inside because of the virus. We opened the trunk and gathered around her, all of us gently crying and trying to soothe her by stroking her back. I can’t imagine this scene from Dodie’s perspective. All of us wearing blue paper masks soaking up our tears, sitting in the trunk of the car at a place she had never seen. I wonder if she could tell we were talking to her with our mouths covered. Steril and alien, so unlike the comfort of her life, these were her last images of us.

The vets came out and felt her tummy, looked at her eyes, lifted up her lips to see her pale gums and told us they believe she had ruptured her spleen and is internally bleeding; that they could perform emergency surgery but at her age, she’ll have a tough recovery and would probably be dead in a month anyway. Each of us took turns walking to the front end of the car to get a moment alone to cry. Everyone who drove past would hold their heads on us trying to figure out our situation. 

All of my moments alone with my Dodie and I couldn’t remember which one was our last and how it ended. Was I called to dinner before I could wrap up what I needed to say to her? How did it go? How do I spend my last moment with her now? How do I make it important enough to her? I felt numb. I felt like I was faking my grief for the show of it; that I was just walking through the motions of what people were supposed to do in this moment. I didn’t need a moment alone at the front of the car. I didn’t even need to cry anymore.

I bent down and put my masked nose to hers and looked into her eyes and thanked her for being the best friend I ever had; that I loved more than anything I had ever known because she deserved to hear that. That at twenty-two, I knew what it felt like to love a child and how it is deeper than any other feeling in the world. When I was done talking to her, she was still there; still alive. In movies and stories, the dying always die when the one that means the most to them says their goodbyes. But she was still sitting there, looking around a little; breathing regularly. She was still alive and the air was dead. 

The vets came back with a stretcher and asked us if we were ready. Mom was frantic and out of breath from her sobbing so to try to hold our group image, I turned to stone, stroking Mom’s back and watched as they loaded her onto the stretcher. Dodie, in all her spunk and energy, perked up her head, sat tall, and smiled blankly with an open, panting mouth. They walked her to the door. She was still alive. I watched until I could only see her little paw and then the door shut behind her. I should have fucking gone in with her. I was supposed to be there with her.

I carried her collar on the drive back and had to hold onto the tags so they wouldn’t jingle. So I wouldn’t hear the bend of her knees and her weight against the hardwood as she rested her head down to sleep. When we got home, I sat in a chair. I watched through the window, my mom talked to the neighbors who were walking their dog. She always announces news as soon as it happens. I remember thinking that to myself about my mom when my heart hit my chest. It was like one knock, I had never felt that before. My heart slammed into my chest. That was the moment they put her down.

I cried myself into my second-ever migraine last night and ended up vomiting into the toilet when I was trying to brush my teeth before bed. I was cleaning my tongue with my brush and then I was throwing up hard and painfully. What’s interesting is the night before, I had a thought, when I was brushing my teeth, that went like this: I wonder when the next really horrible thing will happen in my life. I wonder how I will handle it. I’m weirdly excited for that sort of intensity.