The title for this blog takes its impetus from the realization that like all men before me, I can only act during the remains of my life on Earth. While many people acknowledge that death is a part of life, I believe that it only strikes fear in our hearts at certain, unexpected moments: the death of a parent, the loss of a friend or the end of a pet animal’s life. Otherwise, we carry on about our days consuming and planning and whiling away the hours until our hourglass empties sooner than we expected. Last night I struggled with an old nemesis, Insomnia, and it left me weary, weak and sickened as I dreaded the imminent death of my dear dog, Mingus.
Mingus is about thirteen years old. He has been with me through the hardest days of my life and he has caused more than his share of those days, too. He is the annoying clown; the sneaky trickster. He began to show signs of cancer in his shoulder in January; he began to show signs of anal cancer in May. There was nothing course of acceptable curative action, as he was clearly going to succumb from one end or the other. All that I could do, as with most difficult deaths, is to watch and wait for the moment to happen or to have to make a judgement myself as to when to take his life before the pain made his living too much for him to bear. It is not a choice I want to make, but I will make such choices because it is the right thing to do for those whom you love and cannot make such choices known to you. Some suffering is expected in life, but often pet owners choose to extend their loved companion’s life too long for selfish reasons. I cannot do that even if the choice makes me feel rotten.
Last night, before the endless loops of insomnia began, Mingus awoke with a startle and for a time afterward I was cleaning excrement and urine from the floors. He was sheepish and weak. The realization that the moment might be here created havoc and panic in my psyche. I slept not a single moment, and I was too exhausted to even go to work in the morning. I felt sick. Empathy for Mingus has settled in and I do fear that my nights will be sleepless until my watch is over.
I think of my daughter.. my time with her is the greatest gift I have known, not for its pleasure, ease, or financial worth, but rather because I see the joy I can offer her just by being there to play, sing, clean and feed her. Like Mingus, she is a distinct soul who will forever be entwined in my life narrative. Like Mingus, I dread for her to have to deal with my death or I with hers. Such a time might be decades away, but we never know what the remains in the hourglass will decide to slip away.
The salmon run also began this weekend, and for the first time in a long, long time I decided to haul my camera with me to practice the art of photography versus catching snapshots with my phone. Photography has always brought me great peace and inner joy. I feel connected to the universe and perhaps it allows me to feel like I am saving moments, memories and souls in the seconds I shoot.
The salmon run felt long me a heavy metaphor and a philosophical burden was inconveniently being throust onto my shoulders; the universe taunting me with a “notice how these creatures, too, must swim upstream despite all odds, only to meet their final doom on the shores scattered with corpses of their brethren before them.” The universe has a way of whispering the unbearable in a beautiful autumnal day. So what to make of a diminished thing?
Why follow the river when all it leads to is hardship and loss? Perhaps the only answer is that we have no other choice. Salmon, dogs, babies and men all follow their insatiable, pre-programmed destiny to seek what is up the river. Scattered with bones and the dead, I am wary of this corridor, but I, too, must follow with the hopes that like the carp in ancient Chinese and Japanese myth, the fortunate few who forge to the end shall become dragons; ones worthy of ascension into the skies above. The tattoos on my body reflect that hope, and even if nights darken like it did last night, I choose to believe that the light will warm the road of bones until me and my companions arrive at its end.
