Death
Cheerful thoughts in January
Thinking of death is unavoidable when you live alongside someone very very old. Ever since Dad’s doctor told me in 2014 that he wouldn’t last more than a month I’ve leapt to morbid conclusions whenever he sleeps in. I don’t know how much he thinks of his own death; a lifetime habit of never discussing his feelings combined with the total lack of empathy caused by dementia means we never discuss it; but he turns out to have given some thought to Bertie’s death.
Bertie looks ancient but he is only eleven. Although border terriers live longer than bigger dogs I suspect his habit of sharing sweet snacks with Dad may be contributing to his aged and portly appearance. We’ve worried about how Dad will cope with losing him, particularly after a nasty encounter with a wild boar a few years ago left him with 45 stitches and Dad with acute anxiety. So I was surprised by the equanimity with which he announced last week that Bertie was on his last legs. Three of them, as one had gone funny.
We have a lot of animals. My sons love them and spent their childhood ensuring that the house was filled with kittens and puppies. Round about the time these delightful creatures began to age the boys went off to university. I’ve nurtured fantasies of turning up in Bologna or Cesena with a cat in a box. “You’ll have to mop the living room twice a day, he likes to pee in the corners,” I’d call over my shoulder, dashing for freedom. I’ve had to make quite a few final trips to the vet in recent years; so calm that I startled our vet by my reaction when our beloved Twilight had to be put down. He hussled me out of the clinic, my face sheeted in silent tears, relieved to find that I wasn’t heartless after all.
So Dad wrote Bertie’s eulogy (a chapter in his book entitled “My Dog Bertie”) and went to bed, sure that he would be gone by the morning. Aldo drove Bertie to the vet where it turned out that he’d dislocated his leg (one chocolate biscuit too many?) and in the morning he hobbled into Dad’s room to greet him at breakfast.
Dad was not overjoyed. It turns out that he thinks about Bertie’s old age and death in much the same way that Roz Chast describes her idea of how death comes (before her parents’ last years changed all of that) in her wonderful Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? — a quick process, a rapid final illness and then it’s all over. The reality, that he has to take Bertie for a walk twice a day on the lead, is muddling and sad. He’s asked for a baby sling, hoping he could just carry Bertie, confirming that neither master nor dog could see the point in him exercising his dicky leg. And from the small squeaks (Bertie’s way of asking for just one more biscuit) that drift up from Dad’s room it’s obvious that the dietary restrictions are being ignored too.
I embark on a long moan to Aldo. I cover January, the long nights, the gloomy weather, and finish off by saying how sad I feel at “what’s happened to my father” (ha successo a mio padre). He looks worried. I ask him what he thinks. “Well,” his expression of anxiety deepens and he says, cautiously, “I’m not sure. What exactly happened at Christmas?” (ha successo a Natale). We laugh; I’m comforted by the absurdity of hearing loss and rhyming confusion, and Aldo is relieved to discover that he didn’t do anything wrong at Christmas, after all.
