With a nod to Curly Putman, Jr.'s melancholy 1964 ballad, we have grass around our home and, unfortunately, a recent burial – although the death sentence executed on our beloved Rebus, was hardly for crimes committed.
It's not like our lives have been nothing but hard work and losses; they haven't. For the last two weeks of October, Ruth and I got to do something we much enjoy, and which always re-establishes our spiritual and emotional connection: we took a road trip to Arizona. Ever since our United Airlines flight bound for Palm Springs in January 2009 was aborted after over three hours of sitting on the tarmac in Winnipeg, we have opted to do all our North American travel by car or motorcycle if at all possible. Air travel has become, by turns, nothing more than a cattle drive when planes actually get off the ground, and a supreme hassle when they "have trouble getting the engines to sync up."
I wonder if there hasn't been a big societal screw-up with the concept of "time-saving." Virtually all things "good" require time: the fullness of time, if you will. Think of good wine, a delicate soup broth, a piece of jewelery, a landscape perfectly seen and photographed. While driving may still seem "time-saving" when compared to travel by foot or horse, it affords time for transition from one reality to another. It allows fellow travellers to truly reflect on their circumstances, their shared and individual aspirations, the country through which they pass, the things they wish to experience when they get "there." At any rate, it works for us.
As a lovely sidebar to this tale, Cole & Sara came up for the night on Oct. 10th and, the following morning, Cole, Rebus & I took a walk in the mists.
So, on October 14th, we were on the road shortly after 5 a.m. Other than for clothes and personal essentials, we had packed: audio books, knitting, cameras, my road bicycle, hiking shoes and a few apples. The apples, being a consumable of questionable origin, were confiscated by the U.S. border authorities, of course.
I'll spare you a grueling travelogue, except to say that we thoroughly enjoyed several volumes of Alexander McCall Smith's "44 Scotland Street" serialized novels (printed daily in The Scotsman in four one-hundred episode installments), had four travel days of over 800 miles each, and enjoyed a week of changeable weather around Sedona, AZ. Then, after our first week away, came the news that Rebus was very unwell.
Oh, and "I lost my beard in olde Sedona."
We still managed to appreciate our time in Phoenix (where Ruth was attending a conference), but we cut our return trip short by a day. Even the prospect of 36 hours in Santa Fe, NM couldn't deter us from our need to get home in the hopes of saying good-bye to the Beaner.
I need to dwell on the Rebus situation for a moment, for a number of important (to me) reasons. Firstly, virtually every person who ever met Mr. Bean was struck by his dignity, good spirit and grace. He was never a playful dog, though he always thoroughly enjoyed an impromptu belly-rub. But there was an eager openness to his bearing, a blissful calm, a sense that he was always fully immersed in the moment.
Prior to Rebus joining our family, I had finally come to understand that impatience and will were not the best tools by which to get things done. Indeed, with regard to motorcycle maintenance, I had learned that those particular traits were most likely create further setbacks, not hasten repairs. Then, having accepted that the nut would inform me when it was ready to be tightened another quarter turn (patience, Gord, patience), along came Mr. Bean. After a short while getting used to me (read, "sensitizing a new biped to canine needs"), Rebus made it clear he wished to be involved in all aspects of my activities, including my time in the motorcycle workshop. I fairly quickly came to understand that, not only would I allow the bike to make determinations as to progress of various maintenance issues, I would pay careful attention to maintaining an attitude of equanimity at all times. If not, I had Rebus either jumping up on me with cautionary concern, or hiding in a corner behind the other motorcycle. Even exasperated sighs or whispered expletives were no longer an option.
Then, all last summer, Beaner Boy was with me every day as I felled the build site of trees, then with us as a construction crew from July 20th until Ruth & I took up camping on Ruth's Ridge in late December. His watchful eye and his spirit (as well as pounds of his ever-shedding coat) are as much a part of this project as anything I have done here over the past 17 months. (I've found bird nests built with his off-cast hair.) The hole he's left in my days and in my life is monumentally greater than the relatively diminutive one into which Ruth & I loving placed him on the afternoon of All Hallows' Eve – a fitting day for the passing of such a noble creature, we feel.
Anyway, Ruth & I made it back to Winnipeg by the evening of October 29th. Our dear daughters, Jill and Claire, had undertaken Rebus' care in our absence, and the one goal had been to give us a chance to get back to say our farewells to the boy. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect when we got to Jill's, but Claire (with Thomas) was there to bring us up to date. We knew he'd been having problems with eating, drinking, heaving, toileting, and walking. When we came in, the other two dogs began barking, and so Rebus felt compelled to add a couple of his own. But then, as I knelt beside him, hugged him, greeted him... he just stood there, for perhaps 20 minutes or more, finding strength we didn't know where, and 'bathed' in my affection and concern for him. In the words of today's Remembrance Day services, "I will never forget" that time of reunion. It's hard to know how present he was because it was impossible for him to express his usual exuberance, but we have every reason to believe that he was fully aware of everything going on around him right to the end.
We had a tough first night with him. He was very restless and uncomfortable, struggling with dry heaves and his body's refusal to respond to muscle commands. We got him home on Saturday morning, and we believe that he was relieved to be back in the place he'd come to know as home. He had demonstrated an increasing love of being outdoors over the past couple of months, but he just seemed to settle and relax when I carried him into the house. We set up his kennel in the mudroom and added his old pillow and some blankets to make him as comfortable as possible.
Already, I don't remember many of the details of Saturday, but Jim & Johanna Rodger came over to say farewell to their "world's best Corgi ever." Jill and Lee had been out of town at an appointment when we arrived at their home on Friday. Jill called shortly after we got home and, having achieved the goal of facilitating our reunion, shared an emotional release with me. We made plans for them to stop by for dinner later. The look of adoration on Rebus' face when he saw Jill was one of things you can and should never forget. Despite his malaise, he insisted on coming up into the the diningroom with us, so we made him a bed beside Jill's chair and carried him up so he could be with his caregiver.
After J&L left, Ruth & I made a bed for me beside Rebus in the mudroom and we settled in for the night, head to head. He actually had a fairly quiet night but, around 4 a.m. – the typical dying hour – he seemed to have slipped into a last-hours state.
At daybreak, Ruth & I lay with him, trying to suss out what was the right course of action or inaction. The night before, as I prepared for bed, Ruth said he had been very restless until he saw me return. In the morning, he finally raised himself and I took him out and set him down in the grass on the ridge. It was absolutely heart-rending to see how dysfunctional his hind quarters had become, the legs simply refusing to operate as designed.
When we got him back in, cleaned up and settled, he kept looking at Ruth & I with those soulful eyes. By turns, I saw gratitude (I hoped) and a beseeching request to be released from – not the indignities of his situation, but from a path of increasing discomfort that afforded no return to health and happiness.
Around 11 a.m., Ruth & I came to resolution together and individually: he was comfortable right now, but that would change (as the thrice daily anti-nausea meds were not working adequately after a mere three hours); Hallowe'en visitors were going to cause significant upset for him; and, knowing that his days were sorely numbered, we didn't want to have one of us not be there if we let him die as and when. The rationalizations done, we called the vet. Neil Versavel arrived around 11:40 and, just before noon, he died in our arms. Damn it.
Nothing about life is fair. This was another example. Rebus had just passed his 11th birthday. Corgis typically live 12-15 years. I have lost dear friends and family members through natural and unnatural ends. This is my first loss of a pet that got under my skin, around my defences, through my anthropocentric hardwiring. Animals, given anything between a benign and loving environment, live without guile, malice, greed, avarice, spite, jealousy. Well, let's be honest: cats and dogs can be profoundly jealous and possessive, but the rest of the attributes pretty much apply. The thing is, Rebus actually found some way of breaking through my 20th century conditioning, my male disposition. His short legs and big heart led me down a path to humility, self-awareness and gratitude for what was in my own backyard. He amplified my joy, my life. He demonstrated that dignity is found in how we conduct ourselves, not what circumstances inflict upon us.
Ever since Claire's call to let us know about the vet's diagnosis, I've repeatedly gone down the "if only/what if" road. Ironically, for months I'd been saying I didn't feel Rebus would be with us for Christmas 2010. In the past six months, we'd taken him to the vet on three occasions: because of some evening snarly-ness; to have a dental plaque problem addressed; to assess what appeared to be a rear muscle injury or arthritis. The crazy thing is that his blood work showed chronic kidney failure, with both his red and white blood cell counts being extremely low. It's almost certain that he was beyond help before we first saw the vet for the various complaints mentioned above. Yet, in retrospect, his sudden fussiness about food, his seeking out dark solitary corners, his sometime apparent confusion or disorientation... they were all indicators of the kidney shut-down that was claiming his life.
Enough. I have to let him go. We all go. I like to think we gave him a good life, that we showed him the love and gratitude he so richly deserved. It's just that this solitary, housebuilding bushman misses him, wants him back – knows it's a foolish, romantic notion. I am still in awe that a rescued Corgi could have returned to me some of the best of what I am today. Now... that's a lesson in humility... and gratitude.
As for work on Ruth's Ridge, it's continued at a somewhat more attenuated pace since Rebus' passing. That said, I'd been referred to Kenton Byle shortly before our holiday as someone who was great at landscaping work. We spoke on the phone a couple of times before we left and agreed to move ahead with landscaping upon our return if the weather continued to cooperate. I think we reconnected by phone on Monday, November 1st and, on Thursday, a Reimer Soils truck pulled onto the yard and deposited 30 yards of amazingly ripe topsoil.
Kenton showed up on Friday morning with a truckload of crushed limestone and his Bobcat in tow. By 6 p.m. he had backfilled and sloped the perimeter of the house with some of the sand still piled from our basement excavation, distributed the topsoil (I got to rake it out), created a front-door parking pad, and expanded our swing-around in front of the garage.
Saturday morning about sunrise, 320 yards of McEwen's best sod was dropped near the house. By that evening, I'd laid that sod and come to the realization that we had distributed the topsoil more widely than the area I'd anticipated. A call to Kenton got an order for another 230 yards of sod placed. We weren't sure if they'd be able to deliver (given the lateness of the season), but it showed up Monday morning. Again, by sunset that evening, I had the last of the sod laid and partially watered.
Tuesday was my Mother's 85th birthday, so I took the day off and headed to Winkler to celebrate her. I watered the new sod all day Wednesday, finishing at 5:30 p.m., which is when the gentle rains started. That moisture was augmented today by very light snow showers.
With a whole lot of luck, the sod should survive to yield a verdant buffer between house and trees next year.
When I was out in Winkler to see Mom, I also stopped in to see Bruce Boehr and Corey Klassen, the fellows who put together our house plans. I wanted to say how much we were enjoying the house, how much we appreciated their efforts and skill, and that we are going to have that open house/appreciation day... soon. Sadly, Bruce was away having day-surgery on some torn bicep muscles, but Corey said it was rare to get feedback from their design customers.
We say thanks too rarely. If I haven't said thank-you to you recently, please stop by. I still have some pieces of 2x4 kicking around. You're welcome to give me a smack upside the head with one (not too aggressively, I hope). Life's too short. Make it more durable with an attitude of gratitude.
