Fireflies, summer sunrises, godspeed to my Zu

 

By Mary Kay Roth

I saw my first fireflies this week, as I was sitting outside on one of those languid June evenings while my wind chimes harmonized with the thrum of a neighbor’s sprinkler. Summer stretched before me with an invitation to slower times, and the hope that these warm, lazy days might ease my disquieting and seemingly infinite capacity to cry.

Google the death of a dog and you’ll get thousands of entries. Apologies, I didn’t really intend on writing another.  But sadness pretty much swallows me whole right now, so I will add one more story.

The story of Zuzu, keeper of sacred secrets, soulmate, constant companion.  A dog who has been making the world a better place since I returned from 12 Hills Dog Rescue, more than a decade ago, after the owners declared her un-adoptable, as she was a goofy looking mutt of mysterious lineage with shorter than average legs. I immediately snatched her up to prove them wrong. 

As a puppy she French-kissed an unsuspecting friend who knelt down to pet her and was shocked to discover Zu’s long, recording-breaking tongue. Her legs grew – kinda-sorta – plenty long enough to walk with her mistress. And over the years she demonstrated a predilection for pup cups, mind-boggling shedding and Mary socks.

A sweet, gentle girl with melancholy eyes and a mighty strong spirit, Zuzu kept me from going stir-crazy through the stark isolation of the pandemic.  When I lost my parents, tears spilled down onto the top of her head as she gently nestled in my lap. She was loyal and constant, alongside me all last year as we faced down my cancer together. 

No matter what happened, I knew everything would be OK, because I could hold onto Zu.  Far too soon, she died this week, but of course all dogs leave us far too soon. And I am left untethered. 

Strangely enough, my own mom and dad didn’t much like the notion of pets, bringing home our only dog, a hapless cocker spaniel named Prince George. I was nine and adored that hound, taught him everything from rolling over to leaping through hula hoops. But after only a few years with us he ran away, vanished ... and I remember asking everyone and anyone: Will Prince go to heaven? 

Our minister at the time paused at the question and noted that humans were far superior to other critters, so of course four-legged types would not likely enter the kingdom of God.  Seriously, I can trace the origin of my doubts and misgivings concerning organized religion – to that moment.  

Of course, decades later, I realize that minister was a very foolish man. Because, if there’s anyone with a golden ticket into heaven it’s certainly not humans (who are constantly trying to scorch the earth) but the critters who give us love without question, understanding and compassion.

It is indeed quite remarkable when you post the passing of a pet on social media, you’ll get more emojis than perhaps any other post. Something about their loss is a shared experience that runs tender deep.

Zu loved me beyond reason and I am flattened by some of the purest, most powerful heartache I have ever felt. Someone on Facebook described it as “a gravel burn to the soul.” A noted magazine writer called it “a tsunami of grief, sweeping us out to sea.”

I am drawn to Ted Kooser’s Death of a Dog: 

 

The next morning I felt that our house

had been lifted away from its foundation

during the night, and was now adrift,

though so heavy it drew a foot or more

of whatever was buoying it up, not water

but something cold and thin and clear,

silence riffling its surface as the house

began to turn on a strengthening current,

leaving, taking my wife and me with it,

and though it had never occurred

to me until that moment, for fifteen years

our dog had held down what we had

by pressing his belly to the floors,

his front paws, too, and with him gone

the house had begun to float out onto

emptiness, no solid ground in sight.

Our culture often treats the death of a pet like the death of a car. Wait a few weeks and go buy another.   

I’m with Kooser. After sharing an intimate place in my everyday life with this dog, there is “no solid ground in sight.” 

Zu’s absence is palpable, yet her footfall is everywhere.  I’m sucker punched each time I think she wants to come inside, and there is nobody at the backdoor. Nobody waiting for the remains of my peanut butter toast each morning.  Nobody there to greet me when I come home, her raccoon tail wagging with an insane fervor as if she hasn’t seen me for weeks.

At night, no pup curls up at the bottom of my bed, spinning around four times before she settles. At dawn, no sweet girl bounds up to notify me of the wakening day. And at the lake, she no longer trots beside me with the happiest of smiles upon her face, our six legs moving to a special rhythm all our own – as she glances up periodically, just to make sure I am there.

I took Zuzu for a final sunset walk at the lake on the evening before I said goodbye, and whispered all the things she already knew. We buried her with her socks and favorite blanket, planted rosemary and lavender atop the grave.  

I’ve always been confused about the notion of life after death, but I want to believe Zu is out there, perhaps ambling along the famous Rainbow Bridge to greet our Snowball – and all noble pups from the Good Dog Club. One friend believes her soul is scattering in the wind like fairy dust. Another says to watch for those fleeting glimpses of a dog, just on the edge of the horizon. And a very wise woman gently suggests my heart is not broken, but instead broken open with all the ways Zu has changed me – with lessons in living and loving, opening up places in my heart I never knew existed.

All these prospects give me some comfort, but bloody hell, I still hurt.

I know Zuzu loved and was loved, fiercely.  I know I am surely blessed, because I had a great dog with a kissable nose, who liked to be stroked just beneath her ears. I wish her godspeed on a journey that will take her beyond age, pain and the two Rottweilers that always terrified her.

I pull myself out of bed these early summer mornings, take an almost unbearable drive to the lake with no one in my passenger seat, make myself head down the familiar path and, somewhere along the way, pause for sunrise.

Gradually, slowly, the clouds start turning those crazy glorious shades of gold and orange.  And this much I know for sure, Zuzu is still there with me, somewhere, somehow.  

At first she waits beside me, good-naturedly, always a little confused why her human insists on gazing at the sky every morning. Then, eventually and inevitably, she grows impatient and tugs on the leash, ready to move on.