A Good Dying

I suppose my first entry ought to be one of welcome or introduction, but death was part of my world last week so it's the topic about which I want to write. On Thursday I put down my dog of almost 16 years, a Black and White Field Trial Springer, beautiful to the end. She was nearly blind, deaf, arthritic, and suffering from an incurable vestibular disorder that caused her to lurch instead of walk and to crash and burn whenever she encountered stairs. Despite everything she was full of enthusiasm for life until a couple of weeks ago. She let us know it was time to go and the vet confirmed it.

I was blessed to be supported in her dying by a wonderful vet and a dear friend. The three of us gathered at my friend's house on the river and the vet administered the sedative on her dog bed on the back deck in the sun. We kissed her, admired photographs from her long life, and read a poem. It was a dying wrapped in love.

After the vet left, my friend and I searched his yard for the perfect spot to bury her. We chose one based on the view, the orientation to true north, and the tendancy to sun and warmth. We dug and cried, and talked, and laughed and dug some more. We laid her in her dog bed and tucked into her arms her first dog toy, some photographs, a biscuit... We kissed her and covered her with her old dog towel. We talked some more and cried some more. My friend uncovered her and made sure the name on her collar faced the sky. I made sure her long silky ears were smoothed down. We tucked her in again. We cried and talked. We laid hands on her and spoke to her. We wished her well on her journey.

We filled in the hole with dirt--gently, thoughtfully.
We rearranged the sod--meticulously.

We stood in the fall sun, unwilling to leave. My younger dog, her son, trotted out of the bushes and over to the grave. He put his head down, rubbed his cheek on the grass and rolled on his back. He stood and repeated the whole sequence. He returned to the bushes, without a glance at us.

This whole experience was significant for me both as a healing and because of its larger implications. We have a staff member at church who is hours? days? away from delivering her first child. The baby is eagerly awaited. Many hands and hearts will guide this infant from the womb to the world. Many voices are poised to say "welcome".

It will be a birthing wrapped in love.

Such, happily, is the case with most births: more often than not, there are people around to help us into the world and to greet our arrival.

When it's time to die, we're not always so fortunate. We can't control the manner or day of our leaving and as such can't assure that those who love us, whom we love, will be there to guide us, help us, and bid us farewell. There was a time when the task of caring for our empty bodies fell to those who loved us.

We were bathed--gently, thoughtfully.
We were dressed in our finest--meticulously.

Our grave was dug and our box was built by hands that had touched ours. These were sometimes messy tasks but they allowed those who performed them a chance to fully confront the grief of our leaving.

Today, death is sanitized. We're whisked away in special vehicles and tidied up or cremated by people who are professionals at this sort of thing. Backhoes arrive at a discreet hour to dig our holes and return out of sight of the family to fill them in again. Those who love us sit numbly in rooms or churches and struggle to comprehend, to grieve, to remember, to figure out a direction and a purpose for days ahead that seem purposeless.

Father Brian says that often a grieving family immerses itself in making funereal arrangements: housing relatives flying in from other states, getting the obituary into the papers, organizing wakes or memorials or services. They often state, "We don't want a funeral. We want a celebration of our beloved's life." He notes that a funeral is one way people can confront grief. He notes that it is part of a priest's job to help people confront and fully experience their grief. It's much less terrifying to attend to the myriad of details surrounding a death than it is to address the overwhelming grief itself. Put another way, part of a priest's job is to help people confront terror.

I suspect that by laundering the dying experience we've removed the tasks that used to help us confront the terror of our grief. There is something beautiful and purposeful and meditative about preparing a body for burial, about digging a grave, about laying and arranging, and gently filling in the hole.

I am grateful to have been able to actively participate in the dying and burial of my beloved little creature. I will continue to grieve for a while, but from the beginning there was a serenity blended in with that grief. There was no terror, nothing overwhelming.

It was a good dying.