Wonderers Heart

From the time Mottsu died, I began to dread the time Wally, his dog, would die. I wonder if others do that, after someone close to you dies and the mortality of all living things is reaffirmed, do you anticipate a further loss as unbearable? If that apprehension is a shared experience it isn’t one that has with shared with me, or by me until now.

I feared the loss of Wally would be a grief too great, not on it’s own but compounded with the already bewildering loss of Mottsu, a grief to great to navigate with a sound mind. That sounds a bit theatrical. I didn’t want to be melodramatic and when I voiced my fears my friends brushed me off.

“Wally won’t die…” they said “he is healthy” I was told.

My head and heart knew otherwise, Wally was healthy and even so he would die one day. He was already 10, and the vet referred to him as a ‘senior pet’. The denial of existential reality distressed me, kind though the intent of friends was. I felt demented by my fears when no-one else heard them, and everyone refused to validate them.

Walking with Wally and Shortbread in the park one-day I bumped into Bill, walking his dogs. Bill was a friend and colleague of Mottsu’s, it was always good to see him. Bill asked how I was and I told him about my anxiety, my dark concern about how I would bear Wally’s death.

Bill spoke with calm and authority, “Anne” he said “Wally will die one day and you will be sad, you’ll be OK”.

Wally did die, I was there with him. I miss that little dog and it comforts me to imagine him reunited with Mottsu. Not floating on clouds together or playing fetch but the spirit of one consoled by the essence of the other.

Do you think that’s possible?

I wrote about dogs yesterday and one of the stories is incomplete so I’ll say a little more about dogs, and the love of dogs as well as the loss of dogs.

I saw Mabel in the street recently, she was standing on the train tracks having crossed half way, she looked a little disoriented. This was the first time I had ever seen her unaccompanied by Max. I said hello, and asked where her dear old dog was.

Mabel told me she was looking for Max, he had run away. The fact that Max’s top speed was a lumbering walk, and he had probably not run for years, was a moot point as I empathised with her dismay at the loss of Max.

A truck rattled over the railway lines and Mabel turned to watch it travel down the road. “Was that barking ?” she said, “Max might be locked in that truck.” I hadn’t heard a bark. We talked about places where Max might be, I promised to keep a look out. Mabel imagined punishments to administer on his return, no biscuits for bad dogs.

We crossed the tracks and said farewells on the next corner.

I couldn’t help but recall the refrain “Don’t die Max, don’t die”; Mabel’s plaintive pleading with Max to stay with her, a few weeks earlier. It is a bitter sweet thought that Max couldn’t die in Mabel’s mind. It is heartbreaking too that she might still believe Max ran away, leaving her to walk alone.

Today I was thinking about the experience of losing a dog, the loss of Wally. The weather in my stomach changed – a deep churning. Even now. I also know a little of the agony of waiting for someone, who is not coming home, to come home. Max would not have chosen to leave Mabel to wait for him.