Mino 2007-2023
When I had first driven onto the ferry, I’d tried to busy my mind with the pragmatism of deleting calendar events I knew would no longer come to pass. Anything to distract myself from the reality I was driving toward at 4:30 am this dark, wet, and chilly morning in January.
The ship crashed into the berth and the high-pitched grating squeal of steel colliding and sliding into place cut through the silence. I pulled off the ferry way before dusk that morning; my hands gripped the wheel tight as I drove along the highway. It was still pitch black out and the driving rain made it impossible to spot the slick pools of gathered water on the glassy pavement that pulled my car intermittently off-course along my way in a flash before my tires found their traction and jolted me back into the present moment. I couldn’t linger in the present along my drive, but let my mind drift back to memories of you. The only recollections of the journey are but those flashes when those puddles pulled me off course and the sting of my tears that left a scorching trail of grief on my cheeks are still present. The muffled drone of the pouring rain pounding the roof of my car had me encased in a cold cocoon of numbed sound; my mind is still like a glass lake that mirrored nothing but the image of you.
I pulled into the parking lot like I had last night, but this time stepped out of the car without you in my arms; I rang the bell. Someone came to the door shortly after and let me in. They then led me into an empty waiting room; a new cocoon before I am then directed to the next soundless chamber; a small empty room where I am numb again but for the sting of my tears. They left me there, waiting for the doctor to come and speak with me. A gentle knock on the door alerts me to her walking in, but I stare through her as she lists off more bad news of your struggle throughout the night and the imminence of our separation. I can feel my heart sink, and the pull now is just to get through all the paperwork so that they will finally take me to you. She leaves again and sends administrators in order to deal with the transactional elements and it’s all a blur. After I signed the last form, the doctor returned.
“Are you comfortable being there for the procedure?” she asked.
“Yes,” someone in me responds without hesitation.
We walk through the corridors and the bleeps of the ICU cut through my soundless entombment until I see you. You’re lying there hooked up to so many wires and oxygen, but as I draw near to you in the busy hospital unit, it feels like just me you again. I kneel by your side and feel the frailty of you as your heartbeat quickens when my hand meets your chest. The gentle, rhythmic pulse of your heart throbs in the palm of my hand. You waited, I’m told, and as much as the pain constricts my heart to let go, I cannot bear to make you wait any longer. I take a last moment to whisper my love to you and call for the doctor.
They brought us to a private room, and in your collapsed state in my arms, you feel so small. I’d carried your nearly fifty-pound body up and down the stairs in the last few days when your back legs no longer had the strength to carry the weight of you. But now you feel small, and like a well-loved stuffed bear, you’ve been my security, my confidant, my best friend, for the last 16 years. I hold your languid body and try to comfort you through this passing as much as feeling you close in my arms comforts me.
They leave me with you in this room. Its silhouetted winter forest scene seems fitting, bringing me back to our beginning at this very last moment with you. The image of the cold, snow-cased house where our journey together began in the Laurentian Mountains fills my mind, and my heart aches. I hold you tighter and remember how you bounced in the snow that was so high it completely buried one side of our house. We sit together, still in that moment, as the warmth of your spirit seeps into me and the warmth of your body seeps from you. I lie you back down on the gurney and hold your leathered paws in my shaking hand as I stroke the velvety fur in the little fold of your ear. I am numb with loss and you are no longer here, but I lean down and kiss you goodbye one last time before I step out of the room.
Walking through the hollow cocoons of waiting rooms, I feel a deep heaviness drape over me until I’m back out in the stinging icy rain that washes away the burn of my tears. I get back into the nest of my car to begin the journey in reverse. My tires cut through more pools of water on the highway and the sudden jolts that pulled the vehicle sideways momentarily break my numbed trance. But as the distance from you in body expands, the space you will forever hold in my heart swells.
I miss you already…
