Blue Footprints in Snow
Marley was going. To preserve his dignity, and to bring an end to his pain, we chose when, and where.
It would be on Saturday, and it would be here, in our home. Marley’s home where he learned to fetch and sit and shake paws. Where he stole whole slabs of butter from kitchen counters, where he gnawed furniture legs with baby teeth, sharp as needles. Where on a Friday night he would lie in a tangle of blankets and boy-legs as Lord of The Rings played interminably on the television. The scene of many romps and fights and hurt feelings. Here where the boys lost their grandmother, and later heard the news of their grandfather’s passing, and where Marley tried to love our hurt away. At the foot of this couch, where teenage romances were played out and teenage hearts were broken . Here were acceptance letters and scholarship letters were opened . Where exams were studied for and tears of exhaustion soaked pillows. Where two violins, a viola and a cello once played. Where lines were learned and Shakespeare was rehearsed. Here where mama sometimes raged and rampaged about the never ending mess when odd socks and water bottles were hauled out from under furniture. Here, four pairs of arms holding him, loving him, Marley said goodbye .
I am not any stranger to loss and grief , nor are my boys. I have grieved and buried beloved grandparents, adored parents, and a cherished uncle. I have lost friends. And I mean no disrespect to any of them and it in no way diminishes my love for them when I say I have never felt grief quite like this.
I have always loved dogs and have had many across my childhood , and of course lost them all, one by one, as is the way of things. And I shed tears and grieved , and eventually moved forward- looking towards the joy of the next new puppy.
So what’s different with Marley?
I have given this a lot of thought.
I knew it was going to be different.
I knew roughly the life expectancy of golden retrievers and counted the years as each birthday passed. But I dismissed the dread, not being able to fathom, especially after almost twelve years, what our lives would be like without him.
He came to us during a dark time – My children’s father had just survived a catastrophic medical event that left him debilitated, and for a while , unable to walk. In the throes of this dark and confusing time entered this precious pink-tongued moppet with a very defined personality. Marley spent the first several weeks mourning his littler mates and although he was lavished with attention, he remained a little aloof and unimpressed. It took him a long time to trust us, and a little longer to love us, but when he did his love was huge and indelible; and fierce.
That his love had to be earned made it all the more precious to us I think.
Marley could be playful and rambunctious. He loved long walks, and running though fields when he was young and fast and lean. And he was very affectionate.
But Marley had rules.
He did not like anyone’s face brought to his. He would avert his gaze and turn his head away if you got too close. But he had a way too, at a modest distance, of holding your gaze for long moments, staring deep into your eyes. Usually an attempt to communicate something meaningful I think.
I saw him do this when Timothy and Cristiana visited at Christmas with their young and energetic dog Layla who stole Marley’s toys and ate his food and drank out of his water bowl. Marley never once growled at her nor was he aggressive in any way- but he did quite a few times walk over to me and hold me in a deep and prolonged gaze after glancing around to where Layla was once again crossing his boundaries. I saw him do this several times in the days before he went – mostly to my youngest child. He knew, I think, that something was not quite right.
So the answer to that question as to why I loved him the way I did, and why his loss is so devastating – Well I think it’s a couple things. I had been a mother for fifteen years when we welcomed Marley to our family, and I am very mammalian. I think I scooped him into my litter and he became my fifth child . Not that we humanized him. We never dressed him up and he didn’t ride in car seats though he did get presents at Christmas and birthdays. And we certainly imbued him with infant qualities. He was Baby Marley, or simply the Puppy- for his entire life. Christian always called him “little boy” or “doux doux “ – a Trini term of endearment reserved for children and lovers. And too there was something about his blind, unfaltering, unconditional love for me that did me in. In a world that sometimes seemed chaotic and uncertain, with family issues, unresolved grief, the trials of raising boys into men combined with work in mental health made his unfaltering devotion to me excruciatingly precious. In a life that afforded me a hundred opportunities per day to slip up, at the end of that day there was always Marley with deeply piled fur where I could slide my toes as he lay at my feet or at the foot of my bed. He climbed that enormous bed, one last time just before he went , and we slept in a heap under blankets that bitterly cold night. When it became obvious that he was not well I tried everything at our disposal to save him- tests and scans and specialists. I threw money at the crisis that I didn’t really have. I was desperate. Frantic.
In my head I know absolutely that he was a dog.
But my heart didn’t know. It still doesn’t know.
The day before we said goodbye was difficult although not as hard as the one to follow. We were wrenched.
And wretched.
A friend had suggested that we make paw prints so I sent Ethan, who was thankful for an errand , out into the blistering cold to buy paint and heavy paper.
He returned with blue tempura and I made Marley’s paw prints on heavy while card stock. They didn’t look like much – his feet were so thickly furred. I wiped the blue paint off with a linen napkin but couldn’t get all the paint off and his tentative attempts at walking left blue marks all over the floor.
The next day, before the vet came, Liam took Marley outside where he lay in the snow for a long time. Looking out later, when he was gone, I showed Ethan blue footprints in the snow. The enormous poignancy of the metaphor struck a chord deep within me.
Blue Footprints.
Walking away.
Marley came to us when we were a family with four boys.
He left behind four men.
And that right there was the illustration for me – one, but only one, reason why he was so precious. Marley is the totem of their childhood . And he left us before the last of them could leave childhood behind, going away to school and stepping into life, away from us, away from him. So Marley left because his work here was complete.
He had seen his boys grow to men.
We would never be ready, but he was ready.
Blue footprints in snow.
Blue footprints across my heart.
Thank you, sweet baby. I’ll love you forever.
Cross. My. Heart.
Raising Cain 