In the end, one shared glance was enough.
Enough for that promise that just about any conscientious dog owner has silently articulated to themselves, to know when enough is enough, and to end a life.
Enough to understand that this is where all those diminishing negotiations with hope, all the re-drawing of expectations that accompany terminal illness, have led to. It is the priceless gift that we can give to a dog that we have denied to ourselves and, with a good family vet who knows the animal, it can be a peaceful and even beautiful time. Millie had a good death.
I remember in every detail watching my mother die. Much of the preceding month had been a strangely joyful time, as if the knowledge of what was coming to her had removed the day-to-day complications from her various relationships, including with me. It was a time of laughing at old photographs, of learning where the keys to various cupboards were hidden and of ensuring that she understood, in that wonderful phrase from Revelations that ‘all shall be well’ with us after she had died.
But there was also a moment about three or four days before she died that was the right time for her to go. She knew it, we knew it, the nurses knew it and the GP knew it, but we all remained trapped in a culture in which 650 legislators can continually defy what 90% (Guardian report, May 9 2019) of their people want. Dogs are manifestly not people, of course, but you probably get my point.
We move on. Each day is punctuated by sharp reminders- an old collar, her bed and even her medication, but we try not to make too much of a meal of it, as her life is a distinct story with a beginning, middle and end, that is overwhelmingly there to celebrate.
We have decided to have Millie cremated. There are a couple of specific spots where she would probably choose to be scattered if the thought ever occurred to her: the part of the beech hedge in the garden where she would scratch her back and sunbathe, and the rabbit warren down at River Common where she would escape to illegally for seven or eight hours at a time. I’m not entirely sure what she would make of the conversation I had with the crematorium yesterday, when we were asked to choose from a menu list that included ‘rabbit specific products’ and ‘forever collection earrings’ (£195), which sound more than a bit disturbing to me.
‘Could you please just cremate her and send her back to us in a biodegradable box’ was an instruction that they simply didn’t seem ready for.
‘Are you sure?’ they said, and I hardly dared to mention that one of the options we had seriously discussed over the Easter weekend was firing her ashes up into the sky within a powerful 1.5 inch flare.
There was simply a subtle insistence that whilst Millie was ‘resting’ with them, she would be treated with respect and that there was a long drop-down menu on their website of exciting options for where she went or, more worryingly, what she became, next.
I don’t want you to have the impression of a man who is inconsolable with grief- I’m not at all- but these happen to be the first creative words I have written since she died. So much of the life of a writer is trying to make sure that you have actually said what you want to, ‘your truth’, as Oprah Winfrey might gratingly put it, rather than just plonked something down on the page to get it out of the system, and, until today, nothing has broken that innocent little log-jam. This is a useful moment.
Because actually, all I really want to say that that I am grateful for every minute of those fourteen years she was with us.
And that filling the dishwasher doesn’t seem half as much fun when she isn’t climbing bodily into it to do the pre-wash.
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And finally, a shameless plug. Shearwater: A Bird, an Ocean and a Long Way Home is officially published today. Horatio Clare, whose writing I have loved for years, was kind enough to give it a front page tribute (‘Charming and impassioned….a rich tribute to an extraordinary bird’), which was generous and delightful. If by any chance you would like to get a signed copy from a delightful independent bookshop, mailed to you with no postage cost, please follow the link below (ignoring the fact that the link mentions another book!)
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