Knowing how something will feel before it happens is rarely possible.
One morning last week, I left Pi with a family member and headed to the car with my other dog, Blue. Pi seemed tired. Planning to bring him along on our daily hike if I heard him, I paused at the door to the garage to listen for Pi’s famous mournful wail. Hearing nothing, I put Blue in the car and turned to get into the front seat. My breath left my lungs in a whoosh, causing me to gasp and curl over my diaphragm. The pain from enormous loss was real and all-encompassing. The feeling came with words.
“This is what it will feel like when I am gone.”
I rushed back into the house to find Pi staring at me expectantly. I’d been given a preview of what would one day be what is.
It was always going to be hard to let go of my love shadow. Pi went everywhere with me, and now he’s somewhere else without me. The evenings are hard, and the mornings are the absolute worst.
In a way I wasn’t able to do with other beloved fur companions, I cared more for Pi’s transition than my forthcoming loss. He is buried in a new garden bed I had spontaneously made a few days prior, with no idea why. Pi showed me on our last afternoon together what it was for when he, for the first time in a couple of years, laid up high on a big chair and stared out the window at the new garden.
It will be a garden with prairie grass, and on spring mornings, tender green shoots will be dew-dropped—Pi's favorite.
I’ve been afraid of Death since my first miscarriage. While it made sense, I found it perplexing. Up until then, I’d never feared this thing that can’t be avoided. When the fear wrapped around me, I resisted facing the truth of it. Nightmares followed. I woke up screaming after wandering too close to what it might be like to die. When the twins were born, nightmares shifted to both babies suffocating under the covers next to me while they actually slept in cribs nearby.
I raged and quailed in front of Death when my first dog, Bonni Blue, died after sixteen life-filled years. I raged and quailed again when Bella and then, five years ago, Maggie, took Death’s inescapable hand.
Quail—verb, 2: to recoil in dread or terror: cower. Merriam-Webster
As I write this, I’m sitting next to the chaise where Pi would be napping if he were alive. Pi’s smell arises from his collar lying across my chest. I’ve taken to wearing it as a bracelet, the jangle accompanying morning hikes. An infusion of the ghost sound to comfort my poor heart. Blue often turns in the direction of it, looking for the dog-boy who raised her.
Sitting in a movie theater twenty-three years ago, to the shocking embarrassment of my children, I sobbed while watching My Dog Skip.
The twins moved to seats several aisles away, hoping what I was doing wasn’t catching. Up to that point, they had yet to see me cry. It wouldn’t happen in front of them again until 2007, when my first dog died. It was a frightening grief. Bonni had taken Death’s hand, and I was terrified. That terror remained through each subsequent death. I quailed through nightmare after nightmare, screaming myself awake, scaring Blue enough to leave the room, Pi snuffling and snuggling in closer until I remembered where we were.
When Death reached out toward Pi one rainy afternoon this week, I didn’t quail. Instead, I held Pi in the car with the window wide open. He hung his head out and breathed in Life until he was ready to take Death’s hand.
Just before Pi went to the next place, he licked my face. I believe he was telling me to be resilient. To be joyful despite pain and physical ailments. Open hearted. Grace-filled. To be accepting. And, determined as fuck to be with those you love.
Pi went to his garden, wrapped in lavender and sage. A large heart stone marks the spot of The Pi Man: a massive lion heart in a terrier’s body.
It is the grief of all things. No better description than I am grieving life... Pi’s splendor.
Do not imagine me here as I was
Imagine me there as I would be
If I could
Imagine there is prairie grass
And a breeze carrying the scent of enchantment
Trails through fairy woods
Hills and valleys and logs to lean against
And naps in meadows
With dragonflies and angels overhead
Imagine a moon so filled with love it hugs back
And a sun so smiley it grins from ear to ear
Imagine me forever as me
Forever with you
Imagine a love shadow
Behind you
As you brush your teeth
Imagine me
I’m right there
Imagine me
My love shadow was as tender as the prairie grass come spring, his spirit strong enough that it will be felt from there to here for the rest of my life.
"For he really lies buried in my heart" (My Dog Skip, 2000).
So much love. Thank you for living with us for most of your 18 years Pi Man.
You will remain with us from here to forever. 💕