I lost Duncan the summer I’d had him fifteen years, almost on the exact date he’d been delivered to me. Duncan had been lively and strong until the end, but the last few months of his life he’d started having strokes. They were small ones, ones he recovered from quickly. They’d take him off balance, but after re-hydrating him and giving him a vitamin, he’d perk up and go chasing rabbits off into the wood as if he were still a pup. Then, toward the end, I found him in the middle of a fit. When he came out of it, he walked sideways and was nearly blind. Still, he didn’t seem to be suffering and he was more than content to lie beside somebody and have his ears rubbed, so Oliver and I decided it wasn’t time to have him put down. I wasn’t ready to part with him anyway, but I was slowly working on preparing myself for the inevitable. Duncan was dying. It was only a matter of time until he did and I knew it.
I woke up in the middle of the night one night to the whispers of the elves. I lie there and listened, unable as always to make out a word that they said. Still, something told me that I needed to go into the living room, so I climbed out of my bed and walked along the cool floorboards into the front of the cabin. I heard an odd noise, a sort of raspy snort, and flipped on the light to see my little dog lying on the couch, twitching. It was obvious that there was something terribly wrong.
“Oliver!” I called as I knelt beside my dog, “Oliver! Come quick! It’s Duncan!”
Oliver was beside me in a flash. He put his hands on Duncan’s chest, turned him, and put his ear against his side. When he lifted his head, his face was stone serious. He turned his dark eyes to me and shook his head. “Hold him, Sil,” He whispered, “Sit with me on the sofa and let’s hold him.”
He didn’t need to say any more. I lifted my ancient Scottish terrier into my arms and I cradled him like a baby. I ran my hands over his smooth fur and kissed his little face. I watched my tears land in his beard and stick. I wiped them away. I watched him take short, shallow breaths. Over a few hours they gradually became more and quieter until they were faint. It took me a few minutes to realize it when he stopped breathing all together, but I know that Oliver knew it the second it happened because I heard him crying softly behind me.
“Oh my,” I whispered as I ran my hand over Duncan’s smooth fur, “He’s left us, hasn’t he? Duncan‘s gone away.”
“I’m sorry,” Oliver whispered harshly. He cleared his throat, “It’s just his time.”
I put my hands over my face, but I didn’t cry right away. I couldn’t decide if it were sorrow or relief I felt that he was gone. I decided that it was both, but those are two emotions that are difficult to feel at the same time. They don’t mingle well. Ollie put his arms around me from behind and cradled me like a child, rocking me gently from side to side.
“He was so old!” I bawled. “He was the best dog ever!”
“I’m so sorry. Yes, Sil, Duncan was the best dog that ever lived. My God, we had him longer than we’ve had Caro!” He shook a little.
We sat there like that for a time, Oliver holding me and me holding my poor old dog, both of us weeping quietly so we didn’t wake the children. Finally, about the time the sun was on the rise, Oliver told me it was time to bury our pet.
I allowed him to take Duncan from my arms. He lovingly wrapped him in the blanket he often slept on by the stove and carried him out to a shady corner in the garden. Just before the tree line where the deer often stood and watched us, he began to dig a hole. I sat on the porch with a rag and I sobbed as I watched him plunge the shovel deeper and deeper into the Earth. Finally, he took our ancient Scottish terrier into his arms and he kissed him gently on his old face before he placed him in the ground. Then he removed his t-shirt and laid it across him before he began to refill the hole with dirt.
When he was finished, he came and he sat beside me and neither of us said a thing.
The children woke a few hours later. I let Oliver tell them that Duncan had found his rest. We both went with them out to the place where he was buried. We both hold them while they cried. Losing Duncan to them was the same as losing a brother. They’d never known a day without the old bloke, they’d never spent a night without him sleeping beside one of them on their bed. They’d never known death before losing him, not one of them, and it was devastating and confusing and painful. I wished that I could do something, anything, to ease their suffering, but it was impossible to do through my own grief. I felt so selfish as I sat and cried with them, but maybe I really wasn’t. Maybe I was just teaching them that it was all right to be so sad you fell apart. Maybe they needed to know that it was OK to feel bad when you lost something you loved. Maybe I taught them that in life you can’t always be strong and that there are times when it’s perfectly acceptable and even expected, that you are so overwhelmed by emotional pain that you literally cannot stand.
Oliver was more solid. Still, with a heart as hard a pudding, he teared up from time to time and fought it away. Xander came over later in the day and took him out for a pint while Lucy and I bawled softly in the kitchen. Duncan had been a part of their lives, too, and his passing hit them as well as their children. When Nigel, Natalie, and the twins arrived with them it was a whole new round of tears.
It’s funny how animals become a part of your life, real and true as if they were your own flesh and blood. Oliver had gotten me that dog as a replacement for a child we’d lost. Even though we knew full well that he could never really take the place of our Cara, he’d filled a spot that needed filling and he’d helped us both to heal in ways that maybe we wouldn’t have as completely without him. We’d loved that dog as our child, given him the same attention and care that we had all of them. It seemed so unfair that we’d all outlive him, somehow strangely unnatural, even though we knew all along that we’d lose him sooner or later. It tore us apart at the gut, though. It wasn’t much different than it would have been if someone had come along and yanked a baby from our arms. We’d felt that before.
“He was a brave little bloke,” Gryffin sniffed. He was nine years old, his cheeks were splotched as he rested his head on Oliver’s shoulder, “He was about as tall as the cabbages and he’d go chasing deer out of the birdfeeders.”
“Yeah,” Xander smiled, “Barking his brains loose while those wee little stumps he had for legs were just going and going. Imagine if he’d ever got one! Poor, brave ole li’el Dunky-doo.” He shook his head and continued. He spoke loudly as if he were reading from a book, “Fearless Dunkers, defender of bird feeders and mighty conqueror of various dinner scraps! Lord of the Food Bowl and Champion of the Water Dish…” It took me a second to realise he was being funny. “Blimey, he was so old he smelled dead a year ago!”
“He was older than that,” Oliver agreed, “And he did smell of rotten potatoes at the end.”
“’e was older dan God’s granddad!” Gryffin replied with a grin, though his eyes were still red and watery, “That li’el ole Hunky Dunky-doo!” He dropped the accent, “We were lucky to have him for so long. We really were. He actually died six years ago. If he hadn’t swallowed that battery when he ate the pink rabbit."
“Now that’s a lad,” Oliver smiled and messed his son’s hair.
We all sat together for a while on the stoop. None of us had any inclination to eat supper.
We eventually recovered from the loss of our beloved Duncan. A few weeks later Oliver asked us if we’d like to have another pet, since all we had left were two cats and the spotted grey and white goat, Tangwystl.
“I just don’t want another dog,” I told him later in private, “Right now I want to hold on to Duncan. I don’t have the strength to love anybody new right now. It takes too much courage to love somebody. I’m just not brave enough to lose them. When I’m feeling brave, we can get another dog, but, please, Ollie, I just can‘t take it just yet…”
“Silvia,” He pulled me close, “Please don’t cry anymore. I hate it when you cry. It’s OK. We don’t have to get another dog. Not ever if you don’t want one. And I
think you are very brave. You’re very brave to take the time to understand how you feel and you’re brave to say it.”
“I’m being selfish.”
“Shush. You’re the least selfish person I know. You’re being honest. Oy, come on,” he tilted my head back and smiled at me, “Stop it! Stop crying! It‘s OK. I miss him, too. We all miss him. Getting another dog isn‘t going to bring him back, yeah? And you‘re the one going to take care of a new one, so if you‘re not ready, it‘s really us being selfish wanting to drag a new one in. Shush now, Love, and let‘s go eat something sweet. Sugar fixes everything.”
It took me months to get over losing my dog. I missed him as much as I’d missed any person who’d been a part of my every day, especially the ones who I knew would never be coming back. Sometimes I’d hear his bark on the winds. Once or twice the little square we cut in the door for him to come in and out of swung as if he’d passed through it, but there was nothing there. A few times I felt him brush against my leg as I made dinner. Was it his spirit telling me he wasn’t as far away as I feared or was it just my mind trying to comfort me? I wondered, but I was still thankful for the times when it would happen. Faith, Oliver had told me long ago, was believing that something magical could happen at any moment of the day. So I believed.
Years after Duncan left us and Nigel, Caro and Nattie had begun their lives, I helped my youngest son, Warren, to pack his bags. He was heading off to study composition at the London School of Music. My youngest, my baby, was standing before me, tall and strong with his hair a mess on the top of his head, shoving the last of his blue jeans into a cardboard box.
You’d think that after having sent the others off I’d have been comfortable letting Ren go without too many words or tears, but I wasn’t. I watched him, remembering the clumsy toddler who used to pull on my skirts. I could still see that little boy lost somewhere in his lean face. He looked like Oliver. Even his hands were like his fathers, long and slender as he clicked shut his computer and slipped it into a case.
I excused myself quietly from his room and went outside where I wandered into the wood and sobbed alone for about an hour. I took another fifteen minutes after I stopped to gather myself and cool down, hoping when I returned I was not bright red. I knew I would be. Damned pale skin always gave me away, especially when I didn’t want it to.
When I came back into the garden, Annie and Bess were there with Warren, the three of them standing in the middle of the yard with some mates, laughing loudly and talking excitedly about heading off for university. I stood back and I watched them, while that lump kept returning to my chest. I remembered the days the three of them were born. Annie, now beautiful and animated in the mid-day sun, who struggled to breathe at her birth. Little Bess, who came into the world fighting and had never cowered from battle once since. And Warren, our Little Renny, who now towered above everyone and commanded the scene with his very presence.
How proud I was of them. Every one of them. And how much my heart bled that they were old enough to leave me. Where had all the time gone? When had this happened? When had they gotten so big, so strong, so independent? And what on Earth was I going to do once they were gone?
Off they went, opened their wings and flew away. Bess went to study anthropology in Cardiff. She lived at home for a few months and then got a flat with a couple of her schoolmates. She came and went as she always had, showing up mostly for suppers and holidays with loads of stories to tell us all. She was always travelling somewhere or doing something exciting, like going to Easter Island for six weeks to aid on an archaeological study.
“It’s such a big, beautiful, fascinating world out there, Auntie Silvia,” She told me once over a quick lunch in London, “I want to go everywhere and see everything! I wish Annie would go with me sometimes, but her feet are glued here in Britain.”
“Do you miss her?” I asked, remembering how many years the two of them had spent fighting like cats in a bag.
“Terribly.” Tears sprang into her eyes, “I love my life, you know? I love to travel, but sometimes I just want to go home. Annie is my home and she’s usually so far away. It’s hard.”
Annie had decided that she wanted to settle on studying business at King’s College in London, and was working three jobs to boot. She wasn’t much to be seen as of late. She and Carolena had rented a flat together with another girl, who disappeared a few months later in the middle of the night with most of their clothes. Shortly after that, Warren decided he didn’t like living where he was in London and he took up residence with the girls. Annie liked that quite a bit, she said, because his presence deterred boys from inviting themselves in. Annie had many suitors and none she was interested in dating more than casually.
By the time Warren moved in, Carolena was in love with the older brother of a friend she worked with. He was a tall, light haired, handsome bloke named Adam Moldovan. They’d met at a costume party and had been joined at the hip since. Oliver and I liked Adam quite a lot as he had a quick sense of humour and a kindly disposition. It was a bonus that, according to both Warren and Annie, he respected and adored Carolena as well. It was the only thing, Warren said, that kept him from exercising brotherly protection.
“Adam’s all right,” He told Oliver and I one evening as we were all having dinner. “He calls before he comes over and he leaves when he ought to. It’s Annie’s dates I don’t like being in the house.”
“At least her dates don’t giggle like fools,” Caro told him.
“Or scream ‘Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!’ at the top of their lungs all night long while people are trying to sleep,” Annie added bravely.
Warren turned deep crimson and stared at the tablecloth.
There was an awkward silence where several of us could not look at each other without laughing.
Lucy cleared her throat, “So, Warren, have you auditioned for the symphony yet?”
Warren was still reading at the London College of Music. Of course, he shined there. The competition was thick and he occasionally felt overwhelmed and insecure, but his dedication and talent carried him through the rough spots. He’d call Oliver and me up just bursting with news of who he’d met and what he was doing. We were often lost in translation, but we were excited because he was. He stayed in London for two years before he graduated and was asked to audition for an orchestra in Berlin. From Berlin he played his French horn and then he was invited to play piano in concert in the Czech Republic. He stayed on there for about six weeks before he was subsequently asked to play the piano for an opera in Vienna. He rang often to tell us how unbelievably cold it was in the city and how unbelievably blessed he felt to be doing what he was doing.
“Life’s fantastic, Mum!” He told me breathlessly. “Really! Who would have ever thought a boy from the wood would be walking in the footsteps of Mozart?”
“Yes, Renny,” I smiled into the phone, “It is fantastic. I‘m so happy for you.”
Finally in his element, our baby boy had done what I told him. He’d spread his wings and he had flown away. So far away. I missed him. I missed them all.
I must admit, I went a little crazy with all of them gone. Actually, I went a lot crazy. I found myself being clingy and needy with Oliver when he was home. When he was gone, I was lonely and bored. I had no interest in any of my chores or hobbies. I found myself easily brought to tears and not sleeping well. I spent most of my days hanging about in the garden, talking to my trees.
“I want them!” I shouted at least ten times a day to the winds, “Send them home! Make them little again! I want my muffins little again!”
The goat was cute and funny, but she wasn’t enough to fill my void. I thought about getting another dog, but I couldn’t stand the idea of the heartbreak it would bring when he crossed the veil. I was not willing to go through that again. The pain of losing Duncan had left me shy. I could get a cat, I supposed, but a cat was likely to just be wild in the wood. The other’s had all gotten that way. I knew I needed to jus
t get used to the idea that I would see the children at Christmases and when I was lucky enough to make or receive a visit. It just seemed so horribly dismal. I still had my need to mother something and no one to look after.
Seven muffins, seven empty beds. Three rooms upstairs and a nursery downstairs that we had put on just for our children, all sitting quietly where there used to be so much noise and so much action. And me, who’d given up a career and all self-interest to raise a family, had no idea of what to do with myself.
Oliver came home from work one night with a bag of sweets for the circle and a faerie cake. He took off his office jacket and walked to the stove where I was standing. “I’ve been thinking, Just Silvia, that I know what your problem is.”
“I have a problem, do I?” I asked inoffensively as I turned my chicken in the pan.
“Well, it’s not a problem, perhaps,” He tossed his jacket over the back of a chair, “It’s more of a predicament.”
“And what is my predicament, pray thee?” I stuck my face into his, “Are you forgetting something?”
“Not at all, Love!” He gave me a kiss, “I’ve thought of everything.”
“And what is everything?”
“Your problem is simple. You’re bored.”
“I am,” I agreed.
“Yes, you are! You’ve been bored since the moment you waved goodbye to Warren as he got on that plane, you have. I think you need a little something to occupy your energy,” He rolled the faerie cake in his fingers and then licked icing from his thumb.
“What do you suggest?” I asked as I turned off the stove.
“Well…is supper finished, Love?”
“It is. Are you hungry?”
“Yes.”
“Well, wash your hands then. I’ll have it for you in a second.”
“I don’t want to eat right now.”
“Why?”
“Because I’d rather do this,” I should have known when I saw the smile curve in the corners of his mouth he was up to something, but, being out of practice, he caught me off my guard. In a flash he took that faerie cake and he smashed it right into my face.
After Forever Ends Page 50