Dear Mom,
It has been a long time since I have written to you. Sometimes I feel like these letters help me, but sometimes they are deeply painful. Right now, in this moment, I feel like I need to write to you.
I never got to say goodbye to you. Not in the strictest sense. Your death was not a movie death. There were no last words, no assurances that you could go, no last I love you’s. Your last night is still my most painful. I have still never written about it. There are areas in my grief and loss and your death that are still too hot to touch. I have attempted to go there a few times in the last almost two years, but as I begin to do so, it feels like when I touch my tea kettle to see if it is hot enough. Sometimes I don’t even need to touch it to know:
Too hot to touch.
Your last night is still just that.
Too hot to touch.
The anguish and grief I have felt over not getting to properly say goodbye to you still lingers.
This anguish feels deeper now. Why? Because I didn’t get to say goodbye to Spunky either.
----
The last goodbye.
Why is it so powerful? Why do we need it so much?
Humans crave closure, and saying goodbye is a really impactful and healing way to do it. But how do I say goodbye to you, and to Spunky, when I didn’t get to?
In a million ways, a thousand times a day, every day.
----
The details surrounding Spunky’s death make my stomach churn. It was a violent and scary last day of his life for our poor pup.
A coyote attacked him in of all places, our front yard. Michael came to his rescue, just like he did for you, so many times.
Cris was at work and I was in Canada for a work conference when I got the call.
I was also in Canada for a work conference when I got the call that you were going downhill rapidly. The irony is not lost on me.
I didn’t leave this time, when I got the call, like I did when I got the call from Dad about you two years ago. Spunky seemed fine considering what he had been through. He was at the vet hospital and he was stable.
I had this feeling in my gut to leave Vancouver – but I didn’t. My brain told me he would be fine. I have learned through a lot of work on my grief around your death that this is called denial.
Why did I go to Canada when you were so close to death? I have asked myself, my therapist, and many others this question so many times over the last 24 months. It is one of my great regrets.
But – what I do know now, is that my brain and my heart were in denial. Denial is an overpowering and super convincing feeling and emotion. Even though you were actively dying – I mean you were on hospice – I still went. I think my brain couldn’t conceive of a world without you actually in it. Plus, you had been sick for so long, it just actually didn’t feel like you would ever die.
But you did die.
Denial is powerful.
While I did make it home to spend your last few days with you, you died in your sleep.
While I still haven’t written about that last painful night, what I will say is this:
I was the last person to see you alive. I tucked you in and said goodnight and that I loved you and turned off the light. There was this unmistakable clear as day voice that said, “turn around and turn the lights back on and say goodbye like you mean it.”
I listened. I spun my bare foot on the purple carpet of my former childhood bedroom and flipped on the light.
I knelt beside you and looked at you and said, “I love you. I love you so much. I know you are tired; you can go to sleep. It’s ok.”
I gave you another kiss and hug and said I loved you again, and finally turned the light off and closed the door.
The next time I saw you, the next morning, you would already be cold.
I spent hours sitting at your bedside, trying to figure out how to say my Last Goodbye.
Everyone passed in and out of the room spending time with you, but for most of the time, it was just you and me. Everyone knew we needed it.
Sometimes the only other one in there with us many times was dear Spunky. He helped me keep vigil with you.
He laid across your left hand as my hands held your right hand. He laid his little head on your chest, and at other times across your abdomen or parallel to your legs. He was such a good boy.
He was there for you, and for me, and for us.
I had to be convinced to let the funeral home take you away. Part of me wanted to keep you like that forever.
I am not good at goodbyes, but yet I crave and need them on a deep level.
The next day, as soon as I got to the house, I crawled into your bed. It was a rented hospital bed and they were coming to take it. I needed to spend time with you and being in your bed felt like the most natural thing to do.
Some may consider this morbid, laying in your literal death bed. But for me, I felt enveloped in your love and presence.
Spunky joined me then, too.
My little Poodis (one of his many names), laid across my abdomen and parallel to me, resting his head on my hip and on my chest throughout the afternoon. He helped me hold vigil; he knew I needed him.
I stroked him while I talked to you. I thought about all of the times that he kept you company in those final months.
Death and dying is a brutal, often scary and overwhelming process for the individual dying, but also for the loved ones around them.
Having now experienced firsthand what it is like to be a part of a protracted dying process, I know that most people get uncomfortable and stop coming around. All of the tubes and wires and dying sounds. I mean I get it; I do. I don’t fault anyone, especially if they’ve never seen it before.
But two individuals were never uncomfortable. They were never daunted by the tubes, and regularly kept vigil in your final days:
Hudson and Spunky.
Hudson at nearly 2 and Spunky being a dog, they were both unphased by societal discomfort. You were just Grandma, and they just loved you.
I was constantly in awe and moved at the ease in which they interacted with you.
Whenever Spunky arrived, after his pit stop at the cat food dish, he would take up guard. Either on your lap in the wheelchair when you were in the living room, and then later, in your bed when you were unable to get out of bed.
When we put you to bed at night, he helped in his own way, by jumping up with you. Sometimes in the way, but his heart was always in the right place.
----
Last summer, when I had my knee surgery, the recovery was rough. Much worse than I had anticipated. For a week, Spunky would NOT leave my side.
He didn’t go outside and chase and bark at the neighborhood dogs, which was one of his favorite activities. He slept with me in the guest room because I couldn’t make it down to our bedroom. I have never been his preferred person, but nonetheless, he stayed with me to keep me safe. I have dozens of photos over that first week+ with him literally on top of me, on my head, on my shoulder, making sure I would be ok.
----
When I finally got home from Vancouver, Spunky and Cris were already back home. Spunky was perfectly curled up in a Spunky-sized box. I carefully lifted the lid of the box. I could have died at the scene. Cris was beyond broken and there Spunky lay, perfectly still, as if he were sleeping.
He was getting cold. I stroked his face, gave him kisses, and told him just how much I loved him and how much joy he brought to me. I scratched his back and belly a final time and touched his precious paws. I held his paws just like he had held your hand while I said goodbye to you. I was happy to return the gesture. I took some hair clippings. Cris and I held vigil for him this time. We held the space for him, just as he had done for us so many times.
Just like with you, I had trouble letting him go. I knew we needed to bring him back for cremation. But I just wasn’t ready. It was such a hard goodbye. Cris was so patient, even in the depths of his despair. After about an hour of nuzzling my favorite boy, I said I was ready. I said my last goodbye. Cris tucked his favorite toys, and a final Greenie in with him. We wrapped his blankie around him and rubbed his ears.
The house suddenly felt cavernous.
----
Cris outranked me with Spunky by many ranks. Spunky and Cris first found each other 12 years ago. It was at a time when Cris had no one, and Spunky needed rescuing. And once they had each other, they had everything.
Spunky saw Cris through war. He helped him with the resulting trauma. Cris helped Spunky through the rescue process and also helped him with the resulting trauma. They relied on each other and were connected in a way that I have never seen a human and a dog.
They were family.
I didn’t come into the picture until over 5 years later, 7 and a half years ago. It makes perfect sense that I was never fully equal to Spunky as Cris was, and that was ok.
I was still his Mom, and I feel utterly broken by this unexpected loss.
----
For years now, long before you died, but almost as soon as you were diagnosed, I had wondered: Would it be easier for someone to die suddenly and avoid the sometimes years of anticipatory grieving? But then you wouldn’t get to say goodbye. Maybe it would be easier if suddenly someone was just gone. I could see the benefits and negatives of both situations.
Well, I have finally made up my mind.
Although the loss of Spunky from my life isn’t at the level of losing you, it gives me an idea of how a sudden and traumatic loss feels.
One day he was a happy, healthy, playful puppy, and the next day he was…just gone.
In addition to the deep grieving I am experiencing along with Cris, we are also feeling this sense of extreme whiplash and disbelief. How did this happen? How could a coyote have gotten into our YARD? Why did this happen?
WHY DID THIS HAPPEN?
I used to often think a lot about and dread our last goodbye. But we didn’t get one, not really. I always thought one of the only redeeming parts of ALS was that I would get a proper goodbye.
But I didn’t get a Last Goodbye. The length of your sickness didn’t make any difference.
I often think back to our long goodbye, and the inevitable grieving that I knew was coming. I hadn’t ever really done grieving on the same kind of level as losing my beloved Mom. But I knew it was coming.
----
I sometimes think back to attending Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios. I knew it would be scary. I mean, it is known for being one of the most terrifying Halloween events you can attend in the country. But what I didn’t know? Was that I would be crippled with terror, quite literally crouched in a corner unable to move. I didn’t know the paralysis that would come with the fear. I didn’t know how deep and dark it would go. I didn’t know that I would need Colin and Cris to quite literally pull me out of it and march me out of there, keeping me shielded with my eyes closed as we walked. I didn’t know it would be an almost impossible task to get me out of there.
That is what the aftermath of your death was like for me. I knew it would be bad, but I didn’t know how deep and dark it would go. I couldn’t even imagine or anticipate the levels of sorrow I would experience. That I almost wouldn’t be able to get through it.
The difference with Spunky’s death is that it was so unexpected and sudden. There was no preparing. We always thought he would become a very old grandpa doggy, that he would get to the point where he couldn’t stand or eat, and we would know, that, “it was time.” But that is not how it went. Would it be easier the other way?
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
Knowing your death was coming didn’t make my grieving any easier in the end. I thought it would have, but it didn’t.
Here is what I do know: When someone you love so much dies, and you never get to see them again, it is fucking horrifically excruciating.
It is so painful.
The world should stop. But it doesn’t, which brings its own wave of pain.
Cris called me while I was in Vancouver and said that Spunky was going downhill fast.
I knew.
I knew in that moment that I wouldn’t get there in time. His crush injuries were just too severe. His spleen had dislodged and was up by his heart. His dislocated ribs were free-floating and causing damage to his intestines and other vital organs.
Our Poor Poodis (another name for him) was acutely suffering.
Cris was on his way. I told Spunky to hang on. I willed my mind to connect to him. I knew Cris needed to be with him at the end just as much as Spunky needed him to be.
Cris made it, as did Dad and Michael, Spunky’s 2nd and 3rd favorite people. I was lucky to rank 4th, on a good day, ha! But I never minded. Boy’s Club all the way with Spunky.
I desperately tried to find a way out of Vancouver. The last flight was leaving in 15 minutes and I was at the convention center. I didn’t have a car with me. I knew I wasn’t going to get back in time.
I wasn’t going to get to say goodbye.
I cried in the middle of hundreds of people and pulled at my hair while I talked to Dad, Michael, and Cris.
I felt like I was on an island.
Eventually, I was able to rent a car to drive home. But by that point, he was gone.
I didn’t get to say goodbye.
I screamed when I got in that shitty rental car, with the steering wheel resting on the top of my thighs. Unable, and unwilling, to try and figure it out.
Why didn’t I get to say goodbye? I bellowed.
Why didn’t I get to say goodbye to you?
I bellowed back almost in response to my own question.
I am terrible at goodbyes, but I crave them.
When talking to Dad while Cris was at Spunky’s side, I begged him and made him promise to tell Spunky that I loved him and missed him and was so sorry I wasn’t there to say goodbye. Through choked words he assured me that he would, and that Spunky already knew.
I leaned against a floor to ceiling window in the convention center, with a beautiful sweeping view of the water surrounding Vancouver.
How could someplace so beautiful be so painful?
I talked to Spunky in the car and told him I was sorry. Sorry I wasn’t there. Sorry I couldn’t say goodbye. Sorry I didn’t get to tell him that I loved him. Sorry that I couldn’t save him. Sorry that he was such a scared boy at the end.
I thought back to my last goodbye to him. My colleagues swung by the house to pick me up to drive to Vancouver. They came inside to use the bathroom and Spunky, with astounding regularity, barked at them. I started scolding him, like I have done a thousand times.
But this time there was a voice: Don’t scold him.
It quite literally stopped me in my tracks. Instead, I uncharacteristically held him and petted him and talked quietly to him and told him he was a good boy and that he knew them, so he didn’t need to bark.
As we were leaving, that same voice stopped me in my tracks on the stairs again and it said: Turn around, say goodbye like you mean it.
I was immediately taken back to your last night. I listened to the voice. Was that you? I think it was.
I think it was. Thank you.
I climbed back up the stairs and nuzzled my face into the top of his head. I told him he was a good boy and that I loved him and would miss him, and to guard the house. A typical parting spiel I have with him. I gave him a final kiss and nuzzle, and shut the door.
He bounded to the window to watch me go. He barked again and I said be a good boy, I love you.
I felt really uneasy for the next 24 hours. I can’t explain it. I asked Cris if Spunky was ok. I felt so uneasy just because the last time I had ever experienced anything like it – you died.
After a day or so, I was able to shake the anxiety off. I have dipped in and out of severe anxiety around other loved ones dying since your death, but it has mostly resolved itself, through lots of therapy and work.
On the longest, most lonely drive of my life, from Vancouver to Edmonds, I couldn’t stop thinking about my last goodbye with him, and with you. I couldn’t shake the thought that I had somehow caused both of your deaths.
I know, I know. It is totally irrational and makes no sense. I also had been in Canada at a conference both times. I relayed these stories to Jennifer and to Dad over the phone. They of course assured me it had nothing to do with either. Just coincidence.
The rational part of my brain agrees. Of course, I have no super magical death causing powers. I know I don’t.
I know I didn’t cause either of your deaths. But what I am confident of, is that it was your voice that final afternoon last weekend that told me to not scold and march back up those stairs. I fully believe it with every part of my being.
Want to know what happened next in my thought process? I am confident you already know. I became angry.
Ragingly pissed.
Why didn’t you protect him? If you knew it was coming, you should have stopped it.
I eventually let this go too.
Stages of Grieving and all that bullshit.
I don’t pretend to know exactly what happens when we die. Where do we go? What kind of powers or abilities do we have? I don’t know. I just know what I have experienced.
Sometimes I can feel you. I know you are near. Other times, you feel far away. I swear I can beckon you when I am desperate, and you respond.
On the that first full day without you, while I was laying in your bed with Spunky sprawled across me, I looked out of the window. The same bedroom window I spent my entire childhood staring out of, that same window that you as well spent your entire childhood staring out of and asked:
Are you here?
And in that exact moment, a massive gust of wind blew, forceful enough to close the door.
That was the first time I realized:
Yes.
Yes, you are here.
Yesterday, I stared out of my living room window. The same window Spunky loved to stare out of. I asked the same question again:
Are you here?
And as if almost on cue, a massive gust of wind ripped through our yard. Strong enough that the massive magnolia tree temporarily changed shaped.
Yes.
Yes, he is here.
This won’t resonate with everyone. Some people will chalk this up to coincidences.
But I know.
I am part of a club. An unwanted club, but a club, nonetheless.
I have experienced a loss so profound, that it has shaped my being.
I have done this terrible, traumatic, and painful grief slog before. I know how hard these early days are, when your will to continue on dwindles.
Food? Eating? Showering? Why do we do these things?
Forget higher level processes like working and paying bills.
As part of membership in this club, we are part of a secret. Our loved ones are here. I know it in my bones, and in my heart.
As much as I still get ragingly angry that you aren’t actually physically present, I know you are here. Not all the time, but you do drop in. Just like Spunky.
----
The first morning I woke up in the world where I knew you were no longer in it, before I even fully opened my eyes I thought:
Fuck.
Is it real?
Is she gone?
Is she actually not coming back?
Before I even stretched my body or fully opened my eyes:
Yes.
It is real.
She is gone.
She is actually not coming back.
And I curled up into a ball and cried and let out a wail.
On the first morning waking up without Spunky, before I even fully opened my eyes I thought:
Is it real?
Is he gone?
Is he actually not coming back?
Before I even stretched my body or fully opened my eyes:
Yes.
It is real.
He is gone.
He is actually not coming back.
And I curled up into a ball and cried and let out a wail.
Spunky was more than a dog. A huge part of my devastation right now is for Cris. He is in agony. He reminds me of myself after I lost you.
And I can’t fix it.
I can’t help him.
And it is fucking excruciating to watch.
But I am seasoned in this. I know how it goes. The sun sets and the sun rises, regardless of your sorrow.
You start drinking water again, and then eating. Sleep eventually returns, as does showering. You even go back to work. You go back out into the world, carrying your loss everywhere you go.
It is painful, and it is hard.
But you do go on.
I spent hours the day after Spunky died going through literally every single photo on my phone. It went back 7 years, to be exact. Some of the very first few photos on my phone were from when Cris and I had just started dating. Things were fresh. But the relationship between Cris and Spunky was already 5 years deep.
I looked at these photos. So much life and loss has happened since that joyful, naïve, carefree moment.
Cris and I have both lost our Moms – within 10 days of each other. And now we have lost our beloved puppy.
Do you want to know what brings me some peace? Knowing that you met him up there. I am so confident of the scene: He wagged his tail and you enveloped him in a hug. He gave you kisses, and you gave him some back.
Of this, I am sure.
You two will watch over us. I have a favor to ask. Please tell Spunky his Dad needs him. He needs him now more than ever. Keep close to him.
----
On the last day I was at the conference before I had to leave, I attended a session about Stillbirth. A South African poet, Malika Ndlovu, barred her soul, sharing an expert from her book, “Invisible Earthquake: A Mother’s Journal Through Stillbirth”
I wept in the conference hall. While I have not experienced stillbirth, it resonated deeply with me, about you.
Here is the excerpt that we heard:
“I write to keep you alive
I write to resist killing myself in little do-able ways.
Lose days, dreaming of reunion with you.
I write to cleanse myself, to release the river of sorrow that circles and sometimes swallows me.
I write to remember the instants of acceptance, a stream of light to my imprisoned heart.
I write to liberate us both, to continue our communication despite your eyes that never opened, your eyes that never met mine.
I write so that these words of love and yearning live longer than those that have fallen from my mouth, praying that you hear me now.
Or maybe on some tomorrow out of my hands, out of my time.
I write for women who know this
Unbearable
Unspeakable
Irreversible separation.
The desperation of clinging to sand on that lonely shore where the ocean simply continues its rise and fall, persistently pushing and pulling us into a new day.
Even when we thought we’d run out of ways to live with this absence.
I write to relive the moments that were only yours and mine, to touch again your fragile skin,
Your delicate head,
To carefully lift your fingers one by one, gently wrap them around my thumb.
I write to engrave you in memory to mark your place in our family.
I wake at down or wait for night to have that sacred quiet where I can be alone with you, allowing the silence to open me up and expose line by line.
The feelings and thoughts caught in the safety net of daytime composure.
At least I can drop the task of choosing when and when not to mention your name.
Of suppressing the impulse to blurt it out to strangers.
Not lying or denying.
Simply not saying.
I write to run from forgetting, to purge myself from the paralysis of knowing you are gone.
Yet refusing to let go.
I write to calm my fear of losing all trace of you.
I write to draw myself out of the dark well of doubt.
I write to come to peace with you being there and my not yet knowing where.
I write to keep myself and you, my baby,
Alive.
----
So that Last Goodbye?
In its place with you, and now I am sure Spunky, I have and will replace it with a million goodbyes.
I am still saying goodbye to you.
Just last weekend, I went to our favorite place and finally spread some of your ashes there.
Your favorites: Big Thunder, Space, Cars, and the one you thought was stupid, just because I thought it was funny: “The Stupid Scary House” as you dubbed it. I got your ashes EVERYWHERE on “Thundy.” They were all over my coat and all over the inside of the train car. When I stood up, I realized your ashes were all over the seat and I said, “Bye Mom!” and walked away with tears from both joy and pain in my eyes. The person getting into the train heard this and was probably horrified. It made me laugh all the more.
Spreading ashes illegally is always a messy task. I let your ashes go on Cars, and it may or may not have hit someone in the face. Colin and I shook with silent, internal laughter. And then I cried because I know you would have thought it was fucking hilarious. 
This is what I have learned from living with grief for almost 2 years:
It changes. It changes with remarkable speed. As I looked at all my photos yesterday, I was left almost stunned at how quickly photos of smiles and joyful times returned to my phone after your death. Life continued on.
And so life will without our little Spunky.
----
Just a few days ago, right before Spunky’s accident happened, I stayed up way too late with my colleagues at our house in Vancouver. I was regaling them with your eulogy story, how many times I said fuck in it, and frankly just didn’t give a fuck what people thought of me up there. I also told of all the weird ass things people have said to me after your death. People get very uncomfortable with death and just say odd shit. I laughed with almost disbelief as I explained that someone at the funeral said to me, “I totally understand your loss, my dog just died.” I remember being so taken aback, just baffled at the insensitivity that someone would say that to me, someone who just lost her mother at 31 years old. A mother who was only 62 years old.
I kept my composure but replied, “That is sad, but is isn’t the same.”
I realize today, in the depths of mourning for Spunky with a level of intensity that I could not have predicted in a million years, that while it isn’t the same, it fucking comes really close.
And for Cris? Maybe it is the same.
Spunky was his whole life wrapped up in a 12-pound package of fur.
Cris has stated and asked how he will be able to go on without him.
I have simply said: “You will do it painfully. One day at a time. And it will be excruciating. So hard. He will always be a part of you, and you will carry him with you, always.”
And that? Carrying our most beloved around with us, always?
That is our Last Goodbye.
