A Big Little Life Read online

  T. S. Eliot again, in “East Coker,” lays down a truth that both comforts and terrifies: “And what you do not know is the only thing you know.” By “know” he means not our schooling as much as our learned convictions, the ideologies and fatuities and platitudes by which we define ourselves to ourselves and to others—and which are ignorance passing for knowledge. Such knowledge is of things that do not last, of systems that do not work, of pathways that lead nowhere. What we do not know—the destiny of the soul, the nature of eternity—is the knowledge that matters most, and only when we recognize this truth can we live with the humility required in the face of eternity.

  What I do not know is the only thing I know, and in that paradox sits Trixie. I do not know what she was in the fullness of her being, other than a dog, but I know the effect she had on us, and I know that she was both flesh and mystery, and therefore I know that she was something more than I can know.

  ON WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 2007, Trixie seemed listless, not her usual self, and I took her to the veterinarian. Bill Lyle thought she might have an infection, and he put her on an antibiotic.

  Thursday, she seemed already to be more like herself. I hid each capsule of medication in a gob of peanut butter, and in return for the treat, Trix pretended to be fooled.

  At eleven thirty Friday morning, Trixie refused food for the first time in her life, declining to take a single piece of the apple-cinnamon rice cake, one of her favorite things. Nothing could have been more ominous than this chow hound suddenly without appetite.

  Bill Lyle had the day off, and I took our girl to see Bruce Whitaker. That afternoon, in an ultrasound scan, he discovered a tumor on the spleen. “It could burst at any time, and she’ll die if it does. You have to get her into surgery right away.”

  A young vet tech, David, accompanied me to the SUV with Trixie, to lift her into the vehicle without putting pressure on her abdomen. He said, “Don’t drive too fast, you don’t need an accident. God is with her, you’ll get there in time, she’ll be okay.”

  His concern and kindness helped settle my nerves. On the drive to the veterinary specialty hospital, the facility at which Wayne Berry had performed Trixie’s spinal surgery, I did not exceed the speed limit more than did the other traffic. But mine was not the slowest vehicle on the road, either.

  In spite of not feeling well, Trix sat up in back, gazing out one window and then another. Regardless of the circumstances or the destination, a car ride was an adventure to be enjoyed.

  The day was warm but not insufferably hot, the sky cloudless, the air dry and limpid. The mountains rose purple in the east. This was a perfect afternoon for chasing tennis balls on the pepper-tree lawn, for sitting together on the outdoor sofa in the cool shade of the game-room terrace, watching hummingbirds hovering among the roses, the ocean in the distance. How much it hurt to think that this beautiful day was beyond our enjoyment now, and that perhaps all other days in the future would be less beautiful for the absence of her golden grin, her shimmering coat, herself.

  Gerda had left the house on errands before Trixie refused her eleven thirty treat. She didn’t know that the day had taken a dark turn.

  Sometimes, when going places where she felt ringing cell phones would be an intrusion—we are old-fashioned in that regard—Gerda did not switch on hers. This was one of those times, and I couldn’t raise her. I called Linda, told her what had happened, and asked her to track Gerda down and tell her to join me at the specialty hospital, which was in Irvine.

  Trix and I arrived at the hospital shortly before four o’clock. When I led her to the front desk, she surprised me by standing on her back legs, putting her forepaws on the counter, and greeting the reception staff with a big grin. We occasionally called her Miss Sociable, and she was not going to let illness rob her of that title.

  Because Bruce Whitaker had called ahead, Dr. Adam Gassel was ready to see her when we arrived. He came out to the waiting room to explain to me the couple of tests he needed to perform before surgery and to give me a very preliminary prognosis. He inspired confidence, much as Wayne Berry had done four years earlier, and I knew Trix was in good hands.

  Gerda arrived, aware that our girl’s condition was serious, but she didn’t know how grave because I had not spelled it out in detail to Linda. Dr. Gassel thought there was a good chance that if this was cancer, it had spread to her liver. In spite of ultrasound scans, which had to be done, he would not know for sure how bad things were until he opened her to remove the spleen. In the kindest and most direct way—directness in such moments is the essence of kindness—he warned me that there was a possibility he would find cancer so widely spread that he would have to come out of surgery, leaving her on the table, so we could decide whether to close her up and revive her without taking further action—or end her suffering while she was already anesthetized.

  Gerda said sharply, “Don’t be so negative.” She pressed her lips together because they were trembling. I realized that I should not have done an information dump on her. I had learned these details and possibilities in stages, and I’d had time to absorb them. She was hit with it all at once, which made hope harder to hold on to. And we both needed hope.

  In the large waiting room, on a Friday evening, a few people came and went with their pets, but we were often alone. We sat side by side, sometimes holding hands, anchoring each other in the shallow optimism that circumstances allowed.

  Wayne Berry heard that Trixie had been admitted. He came to reassure us that she could have no better surgeon for this procedure than Dr. Gassel. “She’s a tough one, your girl. Never count her out. She’ll stand right up from this.” He hugged Gerda, then me, and reminded us how little fazed Trixie had been after spinal surgery.

  Sometimes kindness can devastate, perhaps because we see so little of it day to day that we are unprepared for the way it pierces when we experience it in a time of crisis.

  Alone again, Gerda and I tried to talk of other things than our girl, but nothing else mattered enough to be worth the words. So we recalled the best of those daily moments when Short Stuff made us laugh, and the memories could still raise a smile, though they also raised tears.

  Between us, we demolished a box of Kleenex. We assumed some people must have thought we were a pair of basket cases—until we realized that five large boxes of Kleenex were distributed around the room. Anguish was common in that place.

  We were told by staff that Dr. Gassel had opened Trixie, that the tumor had begun to burst, that a half liter of blood had poured into her abdominal cavity, but the situation had been addressed in time. The surgeon would report to us later, after he had closed her and assessed her recovery from anesthesia.

  If I had gotten her to the specialty hospital an hour later, she would by now have died.

  A bridge had been safely crossed. But a bridge to what? We would not know, for sure, until the analysis of the tumor samples came back from the lab the following week.

  At eight thirty Friday evening, Adam Gassel came to the waiting room. “She’s doing well. Ultrasound suggested her liver and kidneys were clean, but I found nodules on the surface. They aren’t uncommon in older dogs, and they don’t necessarily indicate cancer.”

  The waiting had begun. Sometimes waiting is worse than knowing, and this was one of those times.

  At home, we ate what we found in the refrigerator, but nothing had any taste, and we had little appetite. In bed, in the dark, we held hands for a long time and said nothing.

  I never went to sleep that night, but spoke to God for hours. At first I asked Him to give Trixie just two more good years. But then I realized that I was praying for something that I wanted, which is not the purpose of prayer. My faith tells me that we should pray for strength to face our challenges, and for wisdom, but otherwise only for other people. And so I acknowledged my selfishness in wanting the joy of Trixie for two more years, and I asked instead that, if she must leave us, we be given the strength to cope with our grief, because her perfect inn
ocence and loyalty and gift for affection constituted an immeasurable loss.

  Adam Gassel called at nine in the morning with news. Trixie had gotten to her feet at four o’clock Saturday morning, only eight hours after surgery. She had a strong appetite. Her red-cell count wasn’t what it needed to be. But if that issue could be resolved, she would still be going home Monday or Tuesday. We could visit her for half an hour around four o’clock that day, and again on Sunday.

  We existed for four o’clock. At the specialty hospital, they brought Trixie to a consulting room, where we could lie on the floor with her. She was not herself, on painkillers that mellowed her to the condition of a bored sloth, but she was not as detached from reality as were most of the film producers and directors with whom I had worked over the years, and she recognized us. We cuddled her and were rewarded with a few thumps of her tail. They allowed us to stay not half an hour, but an hour and a half.

  Her beautiful silky white ventral coat had been shaved off, her pink belly exposed. The sutured incision measured twelve inches, but I was in no mood this time to make a Frankenpuppy joke.

  Gerda and I visited her again on Sunday afternoon, when she proved to be more like herself. We yearned to take her home, but while her red-cell count was better, her doctor still needed to monitor her closely.

  In eight years and nine months, Trixie had been away from us only during the few nights that she previously spent in hospitals and one night that she visited with her aunt Lynn and uncle Vito. We had never boarded her. Now the house seemed empty and cold without our girl.

  Monday morning, Dr. Gassel called to say the red-cell issue was resolved. We could bring Trixie home as soon as we wished. I arrived at the hospital half an hour later.

  As I paid the bill, a couple of staff members reported that during her three-night stay, Trix made not one sound, neither a bark nor a whimper. Our stoic little dog. Because she was so calm, they decided not to keep her caged after the first night because they doubted she would strain her incision. She was allowed to socialize with the staff, as far as her leash would permit. Each time another dog whimpered, in fear or on the down slope of a med cycle and not yet scheduled for its next dose, Trixie went to its cage, lying near it, making eye contact, and inevitably the complaining dog quieted.

  I recalled the grandfather with his walker: “You have been given stewardship of what you in your faith might call a holy soul.”

  When the paperwork was done and I had reviewed the instructions regarding her care and medications, they brought Short Stuff to me, and, oh, she was fully herself now: eyes sparkling, ears raised in expectation, pep in her step, tail waving hello to those whom she approached and thank you to those who were behind her.

  I went to my knees and rubbed her face with my fingers, with my knuckles, as she liked. She made a rare sound: a catlike purr.

  They put a cone on her head to prevent her from bothering her incision. She had made no attempt to lick or worry the sutures; but perhaps the ride in the SUV would make her nervous.

  All the way home, she sat in the back, drinking in the passing sights. I glimpsed her in the rearview mirror, grinning at me as if even the hated cone could not spoil this moment of reclaimed freedom.

  At home, I freed her from the cone, for at all times, either Gerda or I, or both of us, would be with her. She greeted her mom with kisses and wiggled with delight on seeing Linda again. Elaine was retired, but the strange aura of Elaine still hung around her office chair, and the Trickster sniffed at that. She greeted Elisa, too, Krista, Jose, Fabian, and everyone else who worked with us and who smiled to see her prancing through the halls every day.

  That evening I lifted her onto our bed. She knew this was the best place for her now, and she made no attempt to get down. The three of us were so happy to be together that we all slept soundly that night, past the hour at which for years we had routinely arisen.

  We never put the cone on her again. She didn’t chew at her sutures, didn’t once lick the incision.

  Although we had hope that the biopsies would come back negative, there seemed every reason to forget about keeping her weight at the ideal sixty-five pounds. In those days, Dannon made a non-yogurt, low-carb smoothie that I loved, especially the peach. I had sometimes shared a few spoonfuls with Trix. Now I poured an entire seven-ounce bottle in a bowl and set it before her. She looked at me as if I’d lost my mind, sharing so much of this ambrosia, but she set to work on it before I changed my mind.

  Tuesday and Wednesday were good days, but on Thursday, June 28, Dr. Gassel called with bad news. The tumor of the spleen, which he removed, was malignant, also the liver lesions, but the kidneys were not involved.

  With the surgeon’s guidance, we determined that chemotherapy would begin on July 10, the day Trix’s sutures were to be removed. Ninety percent of dogs handle chemotherapy well, without the side effects that humans suffer.

  That Thursday evening, we invited some neighbors to dinner, knowing that the best thing for Trixie would be people. Nothing excited her like the sound of the doorbell, because whoever came calling was her old friend or her new one—except for X. That was a fine evening for her, and she happily received the affection of all.

  The next morning, Friday, a week after Trix’s surgery, Gerda and I returned with her to the specialty hospital to meet the woman who would be her oncologist and to wait during an echocardiogram that would ascertain any problem, congenital or otherwise, that might limit the type and potency of the chemo she would receive.

  They found another tumor in her heart. The cancer was called hemangiosarcoma, and her prognosis was grim. She would not be a candidate for chemo of any potency.

  Worse, they discovered a blood clot on the wall of her heart. Were it to break loose, she would suffer a pulmonary embolism and die. Dr. Gassel could not say with certainty how long she would live, but he suggested two weeks.

  In a state of despair, we brought her home, determined to make perfect days of whatever time our golden girl had left. She was in no pain, following the splenectomy. The staples in her tummy would not allow her to run and jump, but she could have all other kinds of fun, including anything she wanted to eat, even ice cream by the dish.

  Gerda and I could hardly bear eye contact with each other, as tears threatened each of us at the thought of the other’s approaching loss. But we reached out more often to touch, to hold hands.

  Our friends and neighbors Mike and Mary Lou Delaney with their usual graciousness, gave us a harbor of love and understanding. “You don’t want to be alone this evening,” Mike said. “Come on down, nothing special, pizza and wine.”

  In the past, for the five of us, Mike planned short vacations in Rancho Santa Fe, at a splendid resort that was friendly to dogs. He arranged every detail, including searching out restaurants to which we could take Trixie. He’d recently planned a longer autumn excursion to Yosemite, though it would not happen now.

  To simplify things, Mike prefers to drive every mile of the trip and to pay for food and lodging and everything else with his credit cards. After we’re home, he copies receipts, gives us an accounting, and we send him a check for half. This is unbelievably convenient for me and Gerda. In fact, I now know what a kept man feels like—though in my adolescent fantasies, my sugar mama more resembled Marilyn Monroe than the rangy specimen that is Mike Delaney.

  Mike is retired from a life in lubricants, which isn’t half as racy as it sounds. The Delaneys owned a company that made a wide range of petroleum-based lubricants for industry. These days, Mike manages investments, worries about his grandchildren’s future, and tries to keep Mary Lou out of trouble. The investments and the grandchildren get about 10 percent of that time.

  Mary Lou was once a cheerleader back in the day, and I mean back in the day when the football was a rock and when the game had to be halted every time a mastodon ambled onto the field. She and Gerda became friends before I met Mary Lou, so there wasn’t much I could do about it except commit suicide, to which I
have moral objections.

  Only a month before, my novel The Good Guy appeared with this dedication: “To Mike and Mary Lou Delaney, for your kindness, for your friendship, and for all the laughter—even if a lot of the time you don’t know why we’re laughing at you. With you. Laughing with you. We love you guys.”

  So that Friday evening, after receiving Trixie’s grim prognosis, we took her with us to the Delaneys’ house. Our girl especially loved Mike and Mary Lou, and roamed their home as though it were her own. We sat at the patio for a while, and Short Stuff explored every corner of their yard and garden, giving herself as fully as ever to the wonder of all things. Repeatedly, she came to us for a pat or pet, then returned to her explorations.

  Mary Lou cooked a special chicken breast for Trix, and Trix found it delicious, along with other treats we had brought for her. She was as happy as we had ever seen—and that is a happiness of the highest order.

  At eleven o’clock, we went home with the hope of two weeks of our girl’s company. The crisis, however, came before dawn.

  We woke to the sound of Trixie having breathing difficulties. She had wanted to sleep in her bed again, and now she sat beside it in a state of high distress. She labored for breath—but did not whimper.

  We thought the moment had come, that a piece of the blood clot on the wall of her heart had traveled to one of her lungs. We dropped to our knees and held her, trying to comfort and reassure her.

  During the following terrible half an hour, I feared for Gerda because she was shaking so violently with the prospect of our loss. Not merely her hands shook, but also her entire body, as though the temperature of the room had plunged below zero.

  Having survived a rotten childhood, having survived a near-thing knife attack when I was forty-four, having seen a man shot in front of me and having looked down the barrel of that same gun, I had known what it felt like to be helpless in the face of mortal threat, but I had never before felt a fraction as helpless as I felt with Trixie wheezing in my arms. Here was the truth of our condition in this world, which we strive so hard to deny every day: Each of us, each living thing, lives by the hand of grace. I did not want to see our beautiful girl die in this manner, not with fear or suffering, yet I had no power to spare her.