by Julie Barton
Greg and I told the roommates about our romance and they both said, “Yep, we know.” So much for keeping it a secret. Still, once our relationship was public, dynamics in the house shifted. We all mourned the loss of our lovely family-of-friends vibe. We would now become a couple and two friends.
Not long after Bunker had fully healed after the second surgery, I got a phone call from Clay. “Julie?” he said. “I just wanted to know if you would please be in my wedding. Megan has picked out some dresses. She’ll call you to talk about sizes and stuff. It’d be really great if you could be part of it. It would mean a lot to me,” he said.
I hesitated before answering. The wedding was only six weeks away, and I wondered if I was a late addition, if my mom had forced Clay to include me. Either way, I felt as if the inclusion was a milestone. “I’d be happy to,” I said, and that felt right.
I invited Greg to fly home to Ohio with me, to be my date. Everyone in the family adored Greg, noting audibly that I’d finally wised up and chosen a nice guy. Aurora and Bob already considered Greg part of the family.
I remember standing on Clay’s wedding day watching the photographer snap pictures of my parents flanking my brother. He smiled, towering, at six foot four, over both my mom and dad. They were each holding one of his hands. Tears came to my eyes because, as flawed as they were, my parents tried so hard to love. They showed up when they realized that my emotional problems had become dire. How could I tell them that, despite everything, their devotion to me in my early twenties saved my life? That their belief in me was what helped me want to learn to try to love myself? The photographer paused in between shots and Clay took a deep breath. He was an adult now. Married. But I could see, perhaps for the first time, the little boy in him. I could sense the hurts he held just beneath his skin, his feelings of inadequacy, his longing for his loving but too absent father, his inability to talk to his mom, his fear of losing out to his sister and subsequent anger. I understood the solace he found in his dearest friends, a group of guys from high school who became like his brothers, who have loved, comforted, and drunk a lot of beer with him for almost thirty years now. In his desperation, Clay had made his own little makeshift family of friends. I felt immense tenderness toward him and all those guys as they smiled for the photographer. I was swept up in the joy of a wedding day. But also, I think a little part of me truly began to understand him and his ways of coping with the pain of growing up.
My job, after beginning to understand that my brother’s abuse had nothing to do with me, was to try, again and again, to stop carrying it inside my own mind. It would become a lifelong mindfulness practice for me, to not think terrible things about myself, to not draw immediate, negative, judgmental, sad conclusions about every single move I made. My job is still to work my entire life to stop the self-hate. Bunker was my first and most influential teacher in this regard. He radiated contentedness and loved me no matter what. No matter how I showed up to him, no matter my mood, my energy level, no matter how I looked or smelled, he loved and adored me beyond measure. I felt the same way for him—and I’d saved him. We’d saved each other. Learning through watching his unconditional love slowly began to help me find true, compassionate self-love. It took me a long time, because healing often takes a long, meandering, circuitous route. But over time, with meditation, medication, therapy, friends, love from Greg, and lots of writing, I began to realize that the innocent, animal-loving little girl in me just wanted to love, and to be loved, and it would never be too late to give that to her.
Two months after the second surgery, Bunker and I hopped into the car and drove to Marymoor. It was the first time we’d gone there since the surgeries, since the incident with my parents and Aunt Aurora, when Bunker had fallen so badly. As we turned off of the highway and toward the park, he started prancing in the back seat, howling. “Almost there, buddy,” I said, laughing, pulling into the parking lot.
I opened the car door at Marymoor and Bunker bounded out of it like a spring. He ran twenty feet, then stopped to look back at me, making sure I was coming. I was fumbling with the keys, trying to lock the door. I had my running shoes on, and I zipped my keys into my jacket pocket. He ran in circles, barking, waiting for me. The way Bunker loved me, so fully, clearly, and without exception, helped me remember every day to try to bring that kind of love to myself and others in my life. I ran toward him and he took off as fast as his bionic hips could go, which was not fast at all, rather just slow enough that I could keep up with him, run right behind him, watch his funny, slightly inflexible new hips do their job. He would never run like a normal dog, and I loved him for this. Both his back legs swung to the left, and he still ran his heart out. I ran next to him, watching him leap clumsily over branches, his tongue dangling, as carefree as I’d ever seen him. We made it to the creek’s edge and he stopped there, circled me three times, and then howled his deep from-the-depths howl. I squatted down next to him, held his downy soft ears in my hands, and then whispered, “No, my love. Thank you.”
EPILOGUE: A FEW MORE THINGS I WANT YOU TO KNOW.
Four years after that romp in Marymoor, Greg and I were married in a tiny church in the woods on San Juan Island. My father walked me down the aisle and, at the last minute, I asked Clay to be a groomsman. He accepted graciously and wore a tuxedo. Bunker wore a tuxedo too and was our official ring bearer. Melissa walked him down the aisle with a baby-blue leash and he sat to my left as I promised my love to Greg. We’ve been married fifteen years now, and it’s been hard sometimes, but he’s still here, and I’m still in love, still appreciating him and his calm, his level, steady nature. We have two beautiful daughters, one who got his blue eyes, and one who got a gorgeous deep green, the color of the earth, the perfect combination of both our eyes. Those girls are our lights.
Before we were married in 2000, Chris hosted an engagement party for us at his apartment in Belltown, near downtown Seattle. He made us a beautiful video with photographs and footage of our four years together, as a couple and as four dear friends. That night, Melissa and Chris went back to his parents’ house and kissed for the first time. When she called me in the morning to tell me, I screamed so loud, I’m pretty sure I shattered a window in north Seattle. They were married two years after we were. I was her maid of honor and I cried happy tears through the whole ceremony. Their reception was at a restaurant at the foot of Lake Union, where we could see our house, now fondly labeled “The Love Shack,” since it had so gently fostered us all into our new loves, our new lives. Melissa and Chris have three sons now and live in Los Angeles. We get together every chance we can get.
About my depression: There have been many times when I thought I was not depressed anymore, that I didn’t need medication. I’ve tried to go off of antidepressants four or five times. Each time, I last under six months before I have to start taking them again. I sink down into that black place, and it is awful. I hope I’ve described it well enough in this story. It’s a wall that closes off my mind. It’s blackness. Depression is an awful voice telling me to end it all. Once, when I resumed medication, it didn’t work and I had to frantically switch medications. That scared me enough to know that it’s stupid to try to go off of antidepressants. Why would I? Why on earth would I gamble with my life? I remember hearing news anchor Mike Wallace say that he would always be on SSRI medication and he was simply grateful for antidepressants, because without them, he would have ended his life. I couldn’t agree more. Those drugs are as essential to me as water. To whichever neurobiologists came up with SSRIs, thank you. I literally owe you my life.
I have asked Clay about some of the incidents between us as children and he said he remembered some, not all, but that he believed me, and he was sorry. His apology was both heartfelt and anticlimactic. Nothing was undone with an apology. Watching him now, as an adult myself, I know that he’s not that child anymore; neither am I. He’s a good man. He’s a loving man. He’s going to be okay. I am too. I have
forgiven Clay, but I will make sure that my story is never forgotten. Too many siblings are getting hurt and hurting each other. Sibling violence is one of the last sanctioned forms of domestic abuse. Parents often say that kids just hit each other. While some aggression between siblings is inevitable, parents need to be equipped with ways to intervene and stop the fighting before it turns into serious physical, emotional, or verbal abuse. Physical fighting should never be allowed. No child should be permitted to regularly intimidate, torture, or hurt his or her sibling, because the effects of this kind of treatment will last a lifetime.
Bunker died in 2007. His entire beautiful life, I dreaded the day he would leave me. I remember crying with him on the steps of my house when he was only six because I knew he was probably halfway through his lifespan. We had moved from Seattle to Connecticut in 2000 for Greg’s post-doctoral fellowship. In 2005, we moved to Berkeley for Greg’s new position as a professor. By then, Bunker was nine years old, his entire face white with age. But he was still healthy. In 2006 I took him to the veterinarian for a full work-up of his elderly body, and they told me everything looked fine.
In April 2007, our oldest daughter was two, and I was seven months pregnant with our second girl. We’d bought a house, and soon after we moved in, Bunker had begun sleeping in my daughter’s room. She was having bad dreams, and somehow he knew. He’d made a nest in her stuffed animals and he spent every night watching over her, ever the healer. One morning I went to her room and found an odd spot of blood on the carpet near where he slept. There was a pet food scare at the time. Food produced in China had poisoned dogs, causing massive stomach bleeding and death. I made an appointment for the veterinarian that morning and took him in while my daughter was at preschool. The vet took Bunker back for an X-ray of his abdomen and returned him to me, telling me he would be right back with the results. I was prepared for an all-clear. After all, I had taken such careful care of Bunker his whole life. Most veterinary visits were further proof that he was fine and dandy, and that I worried too much.
But this time the doctor called me into a different examination room and said, “I’m afraid I have some bad news.” I buckled. All the blood rushed to my face. I remember thinking, No, No, No. “In the corner of the X-ray here, you can see that his lungs are almost entirely filled with cancerous tumors.” No, No, No, No. He was eleven. I was not prepared to lose him. I was a young mother. I needed his support. I needed his consistency. I needed him.
The doctor left and I called my mom. I called her first because she is always there for me. Always. She answered, and I burst into sobs like the ones I had in New York. Awful, horrific sobs. “Bunker’s got cancer,” I cried. “The veterinarian just gave him six to eight weeks to live. Bunker’s going to die, Mom!”
“Oh, my god,” my mom said, and in her voice I heard tears too. I hung up and called Greg, told him, and by then everything was buzzing with terrible, awful shock. I had to pick up my two-year-old from her preschool and I needed to pull myself together. I had this beautiful little girl to care for and protect, and perhaps Bunker knew that. Perhaps he thought that his job was done. He’d cared for me and let me care for him until he knew I was going to be okay, and then he began to let go.
Those next several nights, I woke up in the middle of the night crying. Bunker had begun sleeping next to me again, because I’d asked him to. I slept with one arm draped off the bed and on his rib cage, just like I did when he was a puppy, and after his surgery, because I wanted to feel him breathing. For days, I wept something fierce. Once, when I woke up crying in the middle of the night, Greg heard me and said, “Oh, Julie, honey,” scooting up behind me to hold me as we faced Bunker’s unfathomable passing together. “Bunker,” Greg whispered into my ear. “What a good boy.”
He died ten days after the diagnosis. The veterinarian had warned me that if Bunker became lethargic, if his breathing became shallow and fast, to consider bringing him in for euthanasia. On the ninth day after the diagnosis, all of those warnings were realities. I took Bunker to the office and they put us in a room with dim light and a blanket on the floor.
But I couldn’t do it. I told them I needed one more night with him. “One more night,” I said. “Please. Do you think he’ll make it one more night?” The vet warned me that what was happening inside Bunker’s body was serious. Organs were beginning to shut down. He said that he’d seen dogs explode from the inside, dying terribly painful deaths that could’ve been prevented. “I can’t yet. I just can’t say good-bye. I’ll bring him tomorrow,” I said, shuffling out of the veterinarian office, feeling selfish and foolishly risky. The last thing I wanted was Bunker’s suffering, but I couldn’t fathom a life without him. I had twenty-four hours to make peace with the end of his life. Twenty-four hours to say good-bye. Greg took care of our daughter while I sat in our bed with Bunker, weeping over him, asking him to please watch over me after he was gone. “Please, buddy. Show me you’re still with me after you’re gone. Somehow. Show me I’m not alone. Thank you so much for your life. Thank you so much for helping me heal. Thank you so much for helping me see that I could be better, that I could survive, that I could make a good life for us, that letting a good man in was the best decision I could have ever made. Thank you for helping me see I wasn’t totally broken after all. Thank you for showing me I was capable of healing.” Through all of this, Bunker looked empty, out into nothing, until I put my face in front of his, and he saw me again, his long and beautiful feathered tail wagging weakly. My boy. Oh, my dear, dear boy.
The morning Bunker was to leave us, Greg went out and bought the best steak he could find. He grilled it on the barbecue outside and I walked Bunker gently down the stairs. He was so weak he couldn’t stand, and he flopped to the ground, his front legs splayed out flat, his face sorrowful. I said, “It’s time to go, Bunk. I’ll be okay, buddy. I really will. You did your work. You healed me and so many other people. You were my savior, you know.” I whispered this to him and his bumpy old nose sniffed the air for his last meal. Greg carefully sliced the meat into bite-sized pieces and we sat on either side of our dog and fed him one bite at a time. In thirty minutes we would take him to be euthanized. I honestly didn’t know if I would have the strength to go on. I couldn’t imagine my life without him. I was thirty-three now, married, with a toddler, pregnant with our second child. And I could not imagine adult life without Bunker. It was simply unfathomable.
Greg pulled up to the veterinarian’s office and Bunker and I sat in the back of the car. We opened the hatch and Bunker refused to get out. He pulled back with all his might and I cried. I wept because I knew what I had to do, what he had to do. He had to leave me. And I worried I was doing the wrong thing. I was terrified I was making a mistake, but the doctor’s words, organs can explode, ran through my mind in a terrifying mantra. I needed to protect my boy from that pain. I needed to carry him through his death, just as he had carried me through our whole lives together.
The moment the vet put the injection into Bunker’s leg, when his soul left the room, every color changed. The light looked different. I wept, curled over my enormously pregnant belly. I cried over his body and the veterinarian left Greg and me to say good-bye. I lay with my head on Bunker’s lifeless head whispering, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, my love. I will miss you so much. Thank you. Thank you for my life. You will always be my angel.”
When our daughter came home from preschool that afternoon and we told her Bunker had gone to heaven, she looked me straight in the eyes with those blue pools that she inherited from her father, and said, “But who will protect me from the monsters?” I wanted to ask her the same question. I wanted to say that I needed him to protect me from the monsters, too. But he had taught me that I had the capacity to protect myself. I had the capacity to choose positivity and light. I even had the capacity to help heal others. So I looked my girl in her eyes, held both her hands, and said, “Daddy and I will protect you, sw
eet girl. Daddy and I will be here for you every single day of your life.”
• • •
A few years later, after our beautiful second daughter had reached almost three, I decided that it was time to scatter Bunker’s ashes into the ocean. He loved to swim and run free, and I wanted his spirit to soar. Honestly, I wanted his essence to be free enough so that he might come back to me. I wanted a sign that he was not gone forever.
I went with three friends to Santa Cruz, where we were all tossing something into the ocean, something that meant the world to us, something we needed to let go of in order to heal. One friend, who had just endured a painful divorce, threw a heart necklace out past the breakers. Another threw a Ganesh talisman, hoping perhaps that her future held promise and love. I took Bunker’s box of ashes and waded as far out as I could. I drenched my jeans, my T-shirt was sopped up to my chest, and I said out loud, “Bunker, wherever you are, I need you to know I’m still here and I still love you and I’m still grateful. I’m okay, but sometimes I still really need you and I need to know you’re still here with me. How will I know?” I needed a sign. Sleeping with his ashes next to my bed had rendered no magical dreams, no beautiful appearances.