Will's Red Coat

by Tom Ryan

  Will had me, and he had Atticus. But it turned out he had more friends than I ever guessed. He would actually meet very few of them, but I’d seen many of their stories on Facebook and in letters.

  “If Will can do this, I can beat my cancer.”

  “If Will can learn to love again, so can I. I thought it was impossible after my son died.”

  “If Will can be brave enough to trust again, I’m going to trust again too.”

  People with cancer, with heart disease, with broken hearts, with disabilities, with depression—Will had them believing in themselves again. He had them believing in possibilities. Battered wives, men who’d suffered amputations. People facing terminal illnesses or who had just given up on life or love. They had all been inspired by Will.

  One of my favorite stories came from Ann Marie Buttaro.

  “I was ready to give up on love. I had been married and divorced, and my children were grown. I had a few relationships but for one reason or another they didn’t work out. I thought I was content to stay single for the rest of my life. But then I read Will’s Wisdom: ‘It’s never too late to trust again, to love or be loved again; and it’s never too late to live again.’ So I decided to try again. We met on an online dating site. I liked his photo by accident. I think God had something to do with that! Now we are married. Thank you, Will, for showing me it’s never too late!”

  There were those who had been in despair, laid off after thirty years at the same job, and were looking for the courage to chase new dreams. Some people with agoraphobia swore Will gave them the courage to give the world another chance, and they went back to school or expanded their world socially by joining clubs, going to museums, or becoming part of hiking groups. Women betrayed by cheating husbands could relate to what happened to Will. They swore it was time to love again, or at least open their hearts to it.

  These sentiments made their way onto the cards attached to all the arrangements.

  There were vases on the floor, the ottoman, the coffee table, the large armchair, and the couch. There were so many flowers I had to put them on the windowsills, and they spilled into the kitchen, the bathroom, and the bedroom. When Carrie called to say she was almost out of flowers, I said, “Thank goodness, because we have no more room!”

  But the calls kept coming. People wanted to say thank you and good-bye to Will.

  Looking at her bare glass flower cooler, Carrie told them she still had some roses left. If they wanted to, they could order a single long-stemmed rose for Will, and her staff would attach a note to it. That was the biggest vase of all. I’m not sure how many roses there were, but it seemed like more than fifty.

  Watching those flowers come for a little dog who couldn’t see well, couldn’t hear in the least, had lost his appetite, and was so weak he could barely stand, I thought of the pleasure he’d receive with his wondrous nose. As I placed the bouquets around the apartment, I reminded myself that it doesn’t matter where or what you come from, it’s how you end up. Here was Will, that shelter long forgotten, his abandonment erased, warmed by quilts made just for him and by the sunshine reaching through the picture window to caress him. He was surrounded by an ocean of color and fragrance that could only seem like heaven on earth. This was what he had made of his life. This was his Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, his “Ode to Joy”!

  Will continued to sleep as the flowers made their way into our home. He was covered up and snoring soundly, completely unaware of that exclamation of love awaiting him. I had to leave a path to his bed, but it was very narrow in order to fit everything in. When he awakened, he trembled at the scent. He tried to stand, but his blankets weighed him down. I peeled them off him and helped him up. His rear legs shook with the effort as he craned his neck to reach into his private garden. He fell, tried to get up. I helped him stand again. With shaky legs he made his way down the garden path. He looked all around him, and when he paused too long or reached out too far with his nose, he fell again. He struggled to get up, and I kept helping him. When he tired, he lay down. Even then he tried to crawl across the floor to get closer to all those visitors who had come to say good-bye to him. His eyes were vibrant, brilliant, and alive.

  Twice he fell asleep, and I covered him.

  Before the sun went down, I took him out for another loop in the Will Wagon. Cars pulled over and people got out with tears and handkerchiefs to say farewell. Many of the people of Jackson had opened their hearts to him from a distance, and this was their chance to say good-bye. The town never felt more special to me than it did on that day. We finished our walk with one last visit to Dutch Bloemen Winkel. Carrie and her staff were exhausted. Every bouquet for Will had been created as if it were the only one; no two were the same. All the flowers were gone, and still the phone kept ringing.

  When we returned home, Will and I were exhausted.

  We slept through the night, a rarity in those last days, and when I awakened, I looked over the edge of the bed, just as I had done every morning since he came to live with us. There was Will, just as I had left him.

  When Atticus and I entered the living room, I’d almost forgotten the flowers were there. I took time to read several cards. Each sentiment was unique. The feelings expressed were genuine and heartbreaking.

  But as uplifting as it was to feel the love Will had been blessed with, I could feel the melancholy sneaking up on me. We were down to our last hours together.

  The day before, the world had had the opportunity to say good-bye to dear Will. This day belonged to me and to Atticus.

  I never expected Will to live so long. I couldn’t fathom that I would love him as much as I did, especially not after those first months. I had Atticus in my life, and he had always been enough. He and I were just doing an old dog a favor at the end of his life. It was an act of charity.

  When Will didn’t get out of bed, I went looking for him. He was awake but he couldn’t get up. I greeted him with cheer and carried him outside. As it was in the beginning, it was in the end: I had to hold his hips up so that he could go to the bathroom and not fall in it.

  My heavy heart aside, the day couldn’t have been any more pleasant. It was as picturesque as a postcard, with a dazzling sky and warm sunshine. Thank goodness for Rachael’s suggestion to wait. Will would go to the meadow and the mountaintops beyond on a perfect day.

  The scent of midautumn greeted us for our last loop around town. At the gazebo by the Wildcat River across from the post office, I took Will out of his wagon and let him walk around as best he could. He didn’t last long, but before he settled down like a lamb, he shuffled up to Atticus and the two touched noses. They held each other’s eyes until Will’s legs gave out. In that silent moment, there was more being said, I believed, than I would ever know.

  Rachael met us at our house and we sat in the backyard talking about chipmunks and bears and Wildflower Will’s garden. As we played with Atticus and kept Will close, the old fellow just looked tired. He had nothing left.

  “You okay?” Rachael asked.

  “Yeah, I’m being brave.” I smiled. “I feel okay.”

  “You’re doing the right thing, Tom. Please know that. You’ve always done right by Will and Atti.”

  “I know . . . I know . . .”

  From the meadow, the mountains were resplendent. I carried Will up the hill in the first prayer shawl that was made for him. It came from Lisa Money down in North Carolina, and it was as red as the rose I carried with us. Rachael and I were silent. Atticus led the way. He had been up this path many times, rarely stopping at the meadow, and almost always climbing to the top of the mountain, even under the stars on the nights we couldn’t sleep. When we found a level, comfortable spot, we all sat together. We fed treats to Will and Atticus. When Will couldn’t keep himself upright, Rachael tucked her jacket behind him. There was music and laughter and kisses. It was as light as love.

  After a long while, Rachael said, “Are you ready for the first injection? It will just make him sleepy.�
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  I held him in my arms, wrapped in his handmade blanket and with his rose under his nose, when she attached the needle to the port. He looked up at me and I smiled down at him.

  “I’m here, Will. I love you. Thank you for everything, my friend.”

  It didn’t take long for sleep to take over his body. His familiar snores rose up to greet us. They were so loud we couldn’t help but smile through the weight of our hearts. I placed my phone on his chest and played some of his Willaby songs.

  Twenty minutes later Rachael asked me. “Okay?”

  “Yeah, okay. But let me stand up first.”

  When the second needle went into the port, it was almost instantaneous. Will grew light, and for that split second I wanted to pull his life back to me. But it was gone, and I felt it leave. He was gone.

  I asked Rachael and Atticus if I could have a few moments alone with Will. They stayed back together, Atticus sitting and watching me carry Will toward the mountains in the distance.

  I walked halfway across the field cradling Will in my arms. I let out a primal wail that echoed in the ravines and across the mountaintops. It was as wild as the landscape. His pain had become mine.

  There Will and I stood, right where I wanted him to be when we said good-bye, under the watchful eyes of Agiocochook and Passaconaway.

  I brought him out to the place where he sat down a few days ago, so the mountains could see him, I told myself.

  I squeezed the vessel of that body I knew so well against my chest. I wanted it to feel my heart beat. I wanted Will to feel my love for him, and how proud I was to be part of his journey. Finally I raised him above my head in that October meadow and asked the mountain gods to look after him.

  “He is yours now. Please take care of him. I have loved him like no other.”

  When I turned to walk back to Atticus and Rachael, I pulled Will’s ear against my mouth and I whispered some words I borrowed from William Butler Yeats.

  I would ride with you upon the wind,

  Run on top of the disheveled tide,

  And dance upon the mountains like a flame.

  Rachael offered to take Will’s body back to the hospital by herself, but I said we were also going.

  “Do you want me to take Will in my car?” she asked.

  “No, I’ve got him.”

  How could I let him go? We’d been together since that day in Connecticut, and I was not yet ready to say good-bye. I had delivered his soul to the place where it was meant to be, and now I would see his body to the very end. In those ten miles from the meadow to North Country Animal Hospital, I drove with Will cradled in my left arm. I kissed him a hundred times, at least, and wanted to kiss him a hundred more.

  I was shattered. My soul was split open and rebuilt all at once. I was empty, I was full. I was half dead and completely alive. Both tired and awake, confused and clear. It wasn’t just from the day, it was for all of Will, and all of me.

  I can think of no greater gift than to help someone regain who they are. To guide them until they find their way again, and remember who they were meant to be. That’s what we did with Will.

  Just as when I had held a lonely alcoholic man during his dying hours, I could feel the miracle of Will’s soul depart. The lightness of the body that once confined him. I pictured him perhaps being reborn as a puppy or a bear cub or a chipmunk, and see him playing, running without bad hips, seeing the stars with clear eyes, hearing the wind and the birdsong.

  Whenever a friend experiences the death of one they love, and words are hard to come by, I ask them, “What does your faith tell you? What do you believe? This is when it matters most. This is when faith takes over.”

  That night, back in our apartment, sitting with Atticus and surrounded by Will’s flowers, but without Will for the first time in nearly two and a half years, I asked myself the same question. What does my faith tell me?

  I believe that the soul doesn’t die. It is permanent. Not just on this plane, but on other planes as well. And I believe that my life goes on as well, carrying forth the gifts Will and I had exchanged.

  For I believe.

  Yes, I believe.

  12

  Beech Leaves

  Some nights in the midst of this loneliness I swung among the scattered stars at the end of the thin thread of faith alone.

  —WENDELL BERRY

  In Japanese, the word kintsukuroi means “to repair with gold.” It is the art of mending broken pottery with gold or silver lacquer and understanding that the piece is more valuable for having been broken. What once was ruined forevermore glitters and glows at the broken places.

  Whenever people talk to me about how Atticus and I rescued Will, I tell them it was an inside job. Psychology 101 tells us we cannot rescue anyone but ourselves. You can help someone out of a deep, dark hole, but the rest of it us up to them. All the credit for Will’s rescue goes to him. We offered him hope, a home, some help along the way, but what he did with it was out of our control.

  This is the core of Will’s story, his choice to live again. He made it that morning he crawled to my bedside after those first weeks, and he made it every day after that. I’ll never underestimate the courage that took. Looking at his various beds around the apartment, listening for snores I would no longer hear, thinking about how I would finally be able to sleep through my nights without a bell ringing or having to give him a surprise bath, I was exhausted. More important, though, I felt reverential.

  It’s nice to think that love can conquer all. It’s a Hallmark sentiment, and it may offer hope to the hopeless. But for those of us who have loved and lost, it doesn’t ring true. I have loved people in the past who were too broken, too far gone, to live again. They crawl into a bottle or take pills or get lost in anger. I have known some animals who were the same way. They couldn’t remake themselves. They couldn’t rise above their bitterness or what humankind had done to them. A fresh start was not possible, and opening their hearts again was not realistic. They were simply broken to never be made whole again.

  Love offers us her gifts, but she must be met somewhere in the middle with courage and faith. That’s part of Will’s legacy. He didn’t give up when he had every reason to do so.

  Life can be so many heavenly things, but it can also be violent and savage and thoughtless. So how do we fix it? How do we mend the broken and make someone or something whole again? I’m no expert—I still reach out in the darkness for that hand just out of sight—but I’ve grown to believe it has to start with us. We fix ourselves, and when we are ready, we try to help others. We never rob them of their journey, their experiences—the ones that help define who they are. Some treks up the mountain have to be made solo. But you never know when a helping hand or a cup of coffee or a smile will feed a starving soul.

  One of Will’s gifts was helping me to remember what it meant to be gentle. I can be loud and coarse, witty and cutting, strong and obtuse. I can be a bull in a china shop. Like all of us, I’ve been broken into bits and pieces, but I choose to move on and believe. Will had me practicing gentle, empathetic ways.

  Rarely did I ever say, “Poor Will.”

  It was more important to put myself into his place than to look down upon him. If anything, I’d say, “Tell me what hurts.” I never really cared what had happened to him. I was more focused on what we could do to help him move forward.

  In the days after Will died I read books that helped me make sense of my emotions. Poetry, theology, and mythology. I turned to a dog-eared paperback copy of Joseph Campbell’s speeches and essays. I kept returning to the same passage that reflected his interview with Bill Moyers on PBS. Moyers asked him about the meaning of life, and Campbell responded that we’re not looking for the meaning of life but for the experience of being alive.

  To give your heart, to have it filled and renewed, knowing all the while it will one day break again because of that love—it’s all part of the experience. Vulnerability is a necessary component of love.

/>   On the night Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, Bobby Kennedy spoke in front of a crowd of African Americans who didn’t yet know of King’s murder. He spoke with grace and eloquence. Among his words: “And let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.”

  Will was my lesson in gentleness, even when he was fighting me and his teeth ripped into my flesh. It was a lesson in humility and kindness. I came to him unarmed, time and time again. After several months, he realized he no longer had to attack. My gift to him was patience. His gift was helping me evolve beyond the man I used to be.

  Hours after saying good-bye to Will, the sun set, shadows grew tall in our backyard, and darkness spilled in through the windows. Our Facebook page was as lively as an Irish wake as I learned more about the measure of Will’s influence. More than two hundred people informed me that they had adopted elderly dogs because of Will. Others had fostered them until they found a home. With that same hope of helping animals in need, I posted a link to a memorial fund in Will’s name at the Conway Area Humane Society website. Within five minutes, the site crashed when twenty-seven thousand people tried to donate at the same time. That’s when the first tears fell for me that day. There was no sadness, but joy. Will had truly lived—and touched the lives of others.

  I spent an hour making phone calls consoling friends around the country who I knew were struggling with his death.

  I was numb in the days that followed. I couldn’t bear to read the thousands of sympathy cards that were sent in Will’s memory. They contained too much sadness. I didn’t want to be sad; I wanted to breathe and find peace.