Stephen M. Smith
Stephen M. Smith is a twenty-eight year old graduate of English literature from UGA. Steve Lives in Savannah, Georgia with his wife Alissa. He has written two one act plays, each of which won the Savannah Playwrights Festival (1998 and 1999). Steve directed both pieces and acted in the most recent as well. Steve Smith says "I would love nothing more than to be able to support myself writing, and to give back to a literary world that has given so much to me." Stephen M. (Steve) smith presents the 'true story';
The Day She Left
....by Stephen Smith
We buried Greta today. I have to admit that I didn’t want to come. It is much easier to go about the day, forcing the inevitable into the back of your mind, and receive the news in the quiet comfort of your own home after the day is done, distant and unfeeling. It’s only a phone call after all. No red, tear-filled eyes to look into. No one extending a warm hand to ease the pain that you don’t really want to admit you have anyway. Just bury it away… that’s what I told myself, but I knew I had to be there. I loved her too much.
Greta was, in fact, loved by many. Everyone she met became an instant friend. Her eyes were bright. Her lips almost always curled into that smile that let even the most remote of strangers know that she was glad to see them. Hell, she was down right ecstatic to get to know you. The first site of her could be intimidating: the strength, the confidence. I’ve seen more than a handful of people take a step back, their faces dropping cold, as she made her quick approach. Even in their fear you could see admiration and respect. But soon she was on them, and anyone who knew her, especially those of us who loved her, had to grin at the event about to unfold. Relief washing over the faces, involuntary smiles followed by the physical affection of long lost companions. Another stranger would be taken in and a new friend would be made.
On this day, however, there would be only family. I drove to my parent’s house in the morning not really sure of what to expect or how I would react to what was to take place. The outcome was certain, but the process was gray. I felt nothing at the time, no real sadness or heightened emotion of any sort. The morning was like many others, nothing special, just the usual oppressive Savannah summer heat. My brothers, Jason, Andy and Peter were there as was my mother and, of course, Greta. She was lying in the kitchen, on the floor next to the breakfast table. Andy and Peter knelt beside her, stroking her ears and neck. She turned her eyes to meet me as I walked into the room and I felt a tinge of anger pass over me. I wanted her to look sick or desperate. Instead she flashed that familiar white smile, her ears cocked forward and her huge pink tongue bounced in time to her lively panting. She was happy to see me. I could see the welcome in her face. Damn dog! Don’t you know what is happening here?
But she didn’t know. How could she? I sometimes wonder exactly how much an animal can understand of emotion. Happiness and excitement are easily recognizable. There’s no question. Cocked ears, a closed mouth, furrowed brow and that amusing tilt of the head convey curiosity plainly enough. But when it comes to more complex emotions like guilt or regret or perhaps even love or sadness, these are sentiments which require a certain level of cognizance which we don’t usually attribute to animals, most of them at least. Even beyond this comes the understanding of time. Now I know that animals experience some fashion of the past simply because they have the ability to remember people, places and things. But is this understanding of the past (if it can be called that) coupled with any perception or concept of future events? And if so, one inevitably wonders if an animal, like a dog, a Rottweiler, like Greta, can this animal have a sense of its own mortality? I’d like to think not. I’d like to think that today was another day for her, a good day.
The four brothers she had known over the last six years were all together and that was not a common occurrence. In fact, it only happened twice a year in a good year. Her family would gather for two large meals long after the summer sun abated and she would fill her belly with leftover turkey scraps and an occasional biscuit that she would devour in one quick, greedy gulp. (The ability to savor is one trait she definitely lacked). The second meal was preceded or sometimes followed up with an exchange of gifts. Greta always got a new bone or something very large to chew on, which would take her absolutely no time to work through. One year she got a new red nylon collar on which was embroidered her name, Greta Smith. It was commonly referred to as her necklace, and she knew it was hers. If you removed it and held it out at arm’s length she would push her nose through the open loop and work it back around her neck. It wasn’t as if she knew she was supposed to wear it. She got into that thing with the vigor of someone throwing on a favorite T-shirt or some personal item of clothing that makes them feel comfortable and more like themselves. But today was not Thanksgiving or Christmas, and the only new item meant for Greta was 15 cc’s of pink sleep brought in a plastic bag by the last stranger she would ever meet.
Several months before, we began to notice that Greta would occasionally wince from some phantom pain. I passed by her once thinking I had stepped on her foot. She whipped her head back towards her rear legs as she cried out, her eyes searching for the source of the stick. From her reaction, it must have been sudden and sharp. This began to occur with increased frequency and she started having trouble getting up. Mom would give her aspirin hidden in a lump of peanut butter on a spoon. That seemed to take care of the pain for a while. We joked that she was making the connection and learning to put us on… whimper and you get peanut butter. She whimpered a lot, and she went through a lot of peanut butter. When she could no longer stand and aspirin wasn’t enough to curb the pangs, we knew it was more than arthritis or displacia. Mom took her to the vet and I got a call the next evening. Greta had cancer. The phantom pain in her legs was no apparition or learned trick to get peanut butter. She had a large tumor on her spine that was putting pressure on the nerves to her hindquarters. It could probably be removed, but she also had a spot on her lung, ‘a metastasis,’ my mother told me plainly as physicians do. Surgery was to be performed right away. Dad wanted to know the cost and Mom already had the surgeon’s name and personal information. My father would have given the thumbs up, there is no question, but he just wanted to weigh the options before making a choice and perhaps to balk at the exorbitant price of the procedure. I found this kind of amusing coming from a plastic surgeon.
I didn’t see Greta for several weeks after the phone call. Mom had her put into a physical therapy program in Charleston after the surgery on her spine. It sounded kind of like a spa for dogs. Greta was getting hydrotherapy daily as well as grooming and lots of other attention. The funny thing was that Greta was taken to Charleston by the vet in his private plane. I have this vision of the two of them in an old World War I biplane, flying along the coast from Savannah to Charleston with Greta in goggles and a long flowing scarf around her neck, smiling with her tongue hanging out. That’s the way she did it out the car window or on the bow of the boat in the afternoon zooming down the Vernon River. Man that dog loved the wind in her face. Nothing like going for a ride!
For the grim procedure at hand we laid out the doggie bed and a blanket, but Greta was unable to get up from beside the kitchen table. We decided not to move her. The vet, a woman in her mid thirties wearing cut-off sweatpants and a jersey, came to the house just after 11am. Her name was Beth. Greta greeted her warmly from her position on the floor. It broke us up a little to see her get so excited at meeting this new stranger. She wanted to stand but couldn’t manage. After brief introductions, we all knelt around Greta and showered her with as much love and attention as we could muster and she soaked it up in that simple way she had about her. My wife Alissa had stopped by from work to see the family and give Greta her last goodbye, but she felt uneasy, as did we all, when Beth walked us through the process and told us what to expect. Just after the vet delivered a warning of preparation for a final gasp of breath marking the completion of the procedure, Alissa hugged me and slid out quietly.
At this point in time, there were no real tears from anyone yet. Peter, my youngest brother who was home for the summer after his first year in college, left his crouched position and went to the far window. I couldn’t see his face but I heard him sniffle a bit and raise his hand to his brow while his gaze remained fixed out the window. My mother caught this too and she stood and approached him. I thought she was going to give him a hug but she turned her eyes back to mine and I saw her face twisted with grief and she changed her course and stood off to the side, alone and facing away. That’s when it hit me. I felt my throat knot and my eyes begin to well with tears. I knew why my Dad had chosen to stay at work. It is much easier to keep it together when you don’t have to look at someone you love losing it. And this was a big family. It was all around you.
My hands never left Greta. I pressed her velvety black ears through my hands and brought my focus back to her sweet face. A tear rolled down my nose and dropped onto the rug beside her head, but I don’t think she noticed. Andy was at her back running his hands down her neck to the thick fur on her shoulders and speaking softly to her. Of all the brothers, I think Andy had the deepest connection with Greta. My oldest brother, Jason, sat on his knees and looked over the scene not seeming to know what to make of it.
Beth removed the contents of her plastic bag. She had two syringes full of a pink liquid and a large folded plastic bag much like the ones you put your leaves in only thicker gauge. She asked us to hold Greta. The smaller needle was uncovered and she told us that it was a mild sedative to let Greta relax. I felt my nose begin to close up. Andy and I held Greta tightly but affectionately about her head as Beth pulled the loose skin on her shoulders together and administered the first shot. It passed almost unnoticed except for a short reflexive jerk and a low growl as she removed the needle. Beth moved away quietly and the family came back in.
Almost twenty minutes passed, or at least it seemed that way. There was some question as to whether or not the sedative would have any effect on our big girl, but the muscles that once pushed Greta to around one hundred pounds had withered significantly and you could see the twisted spine and bony pelvis of our proud dog. She must now have been only about 75 pounds or less and the sedative began to show signs of taking hold. Her head lay on the rug and her eyes began to roll a little. The distinctive panting slowed to smaller, quick breaths, and at one point, her breathing became so faint that I wondered if she had expired from the first shot. It was time, and you could see the reality of the situation weighing on the expressions of everyone in the room.
Beth removed the cap from the large syringe, revealing a two inch silver spike. I couldn’t believe we were doing this. She lifted the front left leg and applied a tourniquet, but Greta’s blood pressure was too low from the sedative and her weakened condition to find a plump vein. We all held our breath as the needle entered her leg. Greta didn’t flinch or growl this time. The half-open slits of her eyes revealed only whites. Apart from the gentle sounds of suppressed mourning, the room was completely silent yet I felt the tension build like we were surrounded by an orchestra at the top of an earsplitting crescendo about to reach its climax. All eyes were fixed on the plunger when Beth withdrew the needle. Everyone breathed again and the room was still once more. She probed several more times, each push bringing back the roar of the music and the lack of breath and each time the small circle of observers labored with the grief struggling to break free. It was exhausting. She moved onto the right leg and finally to the withered left rear before the needle found its mark. At the head of the syringe, a small cloud of crimson backed into the pink fluid and Beth returned it to the vein with her thumb easing down on the plunger. Our stifled emotions poured forth as the barbiturate eased into Greta’s limp body. Andy came down on her, his chest against her back as he sobbed. The tears streamed down my face and snot ran from my nose in a long clear line swaying off my upper lip. I wanted to wipe it away but I couldn’t let go of my dog. No one could. All I could see were hands all over Greta, clinging to her as her life slipped quietly away. I put my hand on her nose and felt the breathing stop. It took no longer than twenty seconds. Beth leaned in with a stethoscope, pressing it to Greta’s chest. “She’s gone.” A second wave came in.
Like many people, I have experienced losing pets. When our family lived in Durham, my first little buddy was Munchkin, a mangy Lhasa Oppsa. The maid ran over his head in the driveway. That memory is more like a still shot, because I can remember the event, even the rug we buried him in, yet I cannot recall any of the emotion involved.
About that same time, I acquired Duke & Duchess, a pair of guinea pigs from the preschool I was attending. I don’t remember how they went. Along the way there have been hamsters, a pair of gerbils (whose babies were squeezed until their eyes popped out by Andy as a child), a rabbit, cats and a huge Rottweiler named Heidi, similar in appearance to Greta except for an additional twenty pounds of solid muscle and attitude to match. I was away at college when she died and I suppose that it was the distance that cushioned the blow that time. But this experience of losing Greta was unlike any of the others. It wasn’t just because she was the sweetest, most human dog I have ever known, my relationship with her had come full circle. I was there when she was just a few weeks old, and I had just held her head as she died, six short years into her life.
I sat by her side for a few moments before I began to feel silly for continuing to caress her head. I leaned to Peter and quietly suggested that we go outside and find a place to bury her. Soon after we were out the back door Jason followed, and the three of us strolled around the backyard, wiping away the last of our tears. The first levity that was brought to our situation was from Peter. Jason and I had surveyed a place near to where I knew they had buried Heidi, and Peter speedily objected with a look of horror. We couldn’t do that! I was a bit confused as Peter led us further along the bluff to the south and indicated a stretch of earth and straw under the oaks that lined the marsh. When he finally got around to offering an explanation for his insistence that we avoid the previous burial area, his mouth cracked into an uncomfortable smile and his face lightened a bit. He didn’t remember exactly where Heidi was laid in the ground. He did know the general vicinity, but there were other bodies there as well, the cats, Kita and Oreo, and he didn’t want to happen upon their bodies or whatever was… He couldn’t finish the sentence and we all laughed a subdued sort of laugh at his revulsion to the thought of uncovering what lay in the ground… somewhere. It was ok to laugh wasn’t it? Soon we chuckled wholeheartedly and all felt a little bit better. The smiles and sounds of happiness were very welcome and Andy warmed quickly as he joined us.
We borrowed a couple of shovels from the neighbors and decided on a spot in the shade for the grave. It is very strange the way we handle death, not the dying, but the duties following, the careful attention to every detail in consideration of the deceased. The four of us agreed that the hole should be four feet deep (we had forgotten that the heat index was well over 100 degrees) and with enough room to lay Greta out with her head facing the river. It’s a beautiful view that faces due east into the morning sun. With the specs all completed, I began the digging. Jason joined in for a dozen or so scoops of dirt before he relinquished his shovel to Andy. He had worked the eleven to seven shift at the hospital the night before and I could see that it was beginning to take its toll, but he never complained. Andy resumed the digging and we sent Peter away to get a hatchet for all of the roots we were encountering. Don’t ask me how this happened, but when Peter returned, wielding the mini-ax that my Dad kept so sharp you could almost shave with it, Andy broke into his own impression of Joe Pesce digging Spider’s grave in Goodfella’s. We were cracking up at his mafioso performance, and that’s pretty much how it went as we dug. We kept things light. It was cathartic in a way. The energy of each brother’s comedic attempts directly corresponded to the amount of anguish he had released in the kitchen.
I am glad I didn’t notice this at the time, because it would have screwed up experiencing it, but something was happening there in the afternoon sun that had not occurred in years. We were all working together. We didn’t talk about anything of any importance like what was going on in our lives or some crazy difference of opinion we carried. We traded off the shovels and sweat like swine as the pile of dirt went from black to reddish-brown to a lighter more sandy textured earth and we just worked. In fact, I think I can say that we enjoyed ourselves. And we enjoyed each other, equally. I felt a sense of connection that I hadn’t felt in years. Put four boys in a family and space them with thirteen years between the first and the last and you are going to have issues. Every family has them. The older you get and the more you settle into your life, develop a family of your own and spend more and more time away, the more issues and differences you get. But for one brief hour as we dug a grave for a dog that we all loved in our own way, it was like we were kids again. That time in your life when you are naively unspoiled by experience. We were happy to be together and it felt right: effortless.
We reached the proper dimensions and depth of the hole in just under an hour. Unlike Andy, I had kept my shirt on and I was completely soaked in sweat. The seventy degree air of the house chilled the skin under my drenched clothes as we entered through the back door. Peter had gone back into the house sometime while we were digging and had arranged Greta’s body on the floor, making her appear as if she were snoozing comfortably at the foot of the table. We almost tiptoed in, careful not to wake her. I knelt down and felt her head. She had stiffened up a little and had lost the warmth that we take for granted when touching a living creature. You forget how much heat we put out when blood courses through our veins, but it is so damned obvious, the lack of heat, when the life force is gone. She really appeared to be sleeping… except for one thing. Her tongue hung out of her mouth like that of every prize animal I have ever seen that has fallen victim to a hunter’s careful and deadly aim. I tilted her head and tried to tuck the cold pale tongue back into her mouth, but it wouldn’t stay. There were tears this time, but the sting of the loss had dulled a bit as we went about our work. Andy unfolded the heavy plastic back and slid it under Greta’s rear end as I lifted her back. Her body had relaxed completely and we could smell the urine, one last dignity stolen from our girl. We got the bag around her to the neck and Andy pulled her up into his arms almost jealously as I tried to assist. I grimaced and felt a surge of new tears to my eyes as her head swung limply over his arm, the tongue dangling. I moved to support it, but Andy was headed for the door before I could help her.
At the graveside, Greta was placed on the edge of the hole. We stood for a moment looking at her head protruding from the black bag and Andy asked if anyone wanted to say anything. I said that she was a good dog and I heard a mumbled ‘goodbye Greta’ from one of my brothers. Andy covered her head carefully and we gently lowered her to the bottom of the hole. We straightened her legs through the bag and made sure that she was in her familiar sleeping position on her side, legs outstretched and her head flat. I remembered the feeling that I got at my grandmother’s funeral when they closed the casket, the realization that I would never see her again. “Wait. I want to look at her one last time,” I said. I leaned into the hole and pushed the plastic away. In that one moment, I tried to soak her up, to pull in every last detail of her face. When I moved to cover her for the last time, Andy stopped my hand and sprinkled her face with a handful of moist, sandy earth. It stood out on her clean black and tan fur, unnatural in a weird way. Some of the dirt fell into her open eye. I almost expected her to blink or recoil, but she didn’t seem to mind. As Andy tucked the plastic around the edge of her head, it became a hard reality that she was gone. Andy let go a muffled sob as I dropped the first shovel full of earth onto the bag with a deep thud. What took almost an hour to remove, we replaced in less than five minutes. And we cried our last quiet tears.
As we packed the last of the dirt into a slightly raised mound, our spirits returned. We had all stopped crying and the process seemed complete. A family had come together to say goodbye and endure the entire circle together. It was as it should have been. We stood again, the four of us, Jason and Andy on one side, and Peter and myself on the other. I heard a slight rustle behind me, and then a very distinctive noise getting closer. It had been months since I had seen the little demon get out. Our neighbors, from whom we had borrowed the shovels, had this little Australian sheepdog that stood about knee high with gray and white tufts of fur and jewel like eyes, two distinctly different colored hemispheres, blue and white I think, surrounding the tiny black pupils. Everyone loved it when it was a pup, but it had grown into a complete terror as it moved into adulthood. It wasn’t mean. It was just spastic. He would run from all the way across the yard and crash into your legs at mach six and then jump all over you (if you weren’t already on the ground). I could hear him breathing right behind me and I was angry as hell and ready to put a foot in his ass for breaking up the moment. I didn’t want him running over and trying to dig at the grave. When I turned around, I expected to see him at my feet. Peter turned also. I knew he heard the little bastard too. But there was nothing there… except for the panting! I could hear it like he was at my feet, but the only dog at my feet, or four feet below, was Greta. She couldn’t be the source. Peter looked at me. “Do you hear that?” I asked, not sure of what I would say if he said no. “Panting?” he exclaimed with a look of bewilderment on his face. And then it stopped. We searched for the sound, looking in all directions. Jason and Andy hadn’t heard a thing. I asked him again and he confirmed exactly what I had heard and at the same distance. What could it have been? Someone suggested a bird in the marsh, but it had been too close and too distinct. I might not have said anything, but there were two of us who heard the same sound. It was something. We quickly put the thought away and turned back to the grave, dismissing the lively, excited panting as something else that just sounded like a dog. “Maybe it was Greta letting us know she is on her way to doggy heaven” I quipped. Neither Peter nor I wanted to give it much credence or make a big deal out of it. I couldn’t know exactly what he heard and I didn’t want him to think I was nuts, so I dropped it and he did the same. We decided to go inside and order a pizza.
We sat around the table waiting for the pizza to come, but not a word was spoken about Greta or what had taken place here this morning. It was like a regular day again. Andy ended up taking Jason home to get some sleep, and Peter left to help the vet whose car had broken down not far from the house. By the time the pizza came, Peter and Andy had returned and we sat together and drank cold cokes and stuffed our faces. I don’t recall who brought it up, but suddenly we were discussing how good we all felt. None of us had any detectable sadness hanging around. We began speaking about Greta freely and exchanged a few funny stories about her life with us. It was incredible. I felt almost like you do leaving the gym after a good workout and a hot shower. I couldn’t stop smiling.
Almost two weeks have passed since Greta left. I wanted to recount the experience because so many things stood out in my mind as it happened, things I don’t want to forget. It’s always the little details, like icing on a cake, that give your life its particular flavor. They are simple to enjoy and the easiest to slide away from memory as time passes and new details roll in. Except for a few moments recounting this experience, I have shed no tears since losing her. But I don’t really feel loss. I get a warm feeling inside when I think about Greta and that last day. It is a feeling of inspiration. Life seems to be at its fullest when we face emotional extremes. They let us know we are alive. I find it all too easy to slip into a mundane world, going through the motions, analyzing, calculating and controlling. But we really control very little in this life. Things can turn on a dime and sometimes the best place to be is honest experience and pure emotion. It’s when we find out who and what we are. Fear, anger, hurt, joy and love, experienced at a level we can’t control, like being washed about on the waves of a high sea. These are the moments that shape our lives, when we endure what should not be avoided or forgotten. They are also the moments that leave us emotionally naked to those around us, and perhaps that is why we learn to avoid them with such desperation.
I will not forget Greta, and I will not be saddened with her loss. That’s just the way it works here. One thing of which I am certain, everything we love we will lose, at least on this earth. But we gained the experience of her. All of the wonderful times only magnified the pain of her premature departure, yet even the pain was good. It brought four brothers together. I hadn’t noticed before but I was growing a little numb until that afternoon, perhaps a bit jaded. Like most people, I was slipping into that adult world where everything has to be explained and contained. It’s all about maintaining control. As children, we react to whatever emotion takes us at the moment. I remember afternoons in the summertime with my brothers, sitting around sipping sodas and laughing so hard that the fizzy refreshment would come spewing forth from someone’s nose and we would lose control and laugh until our sides hurt. When it was time for tears, they would come pouring down like a rainstorm. It wasn’t embarrassing; it was just honest experience and pure emotion. As we get older, we seem to forget that, or rather, we learn to control it and it fades slowly with our youth. It was easier to enjoy things too, back then. Of course there was magic in even the simplest of things, like when my Dad used to kiss us goodnight. Sometimes now it feels awkward just getting a hug from the man. I remember a time when it wasn’t so difficult to say ‘I love you’. I miss it. But somehow, through all of the difficulty of that day, Greta gave it back to me for a moment. We rode the wave together, my brothers and I, our souls bared as we labored in the heat. I don’t know if they felt it. Perhaps it was just me. I am going to try to remember that moment, the magic of her breath all around me as she lay four feet beneath us. It was easier to believe then than it is now, not two weeks later, but I am going to try. I want to believe in magic. I want to believe in love. I am going to try.
