Nearing the End

I'd intended to write my deeply-researched article on insomnia. Instead, a impending vet visit inspired this reflection on my best friend JuJu.

JuJu

Yesterday, a friend told me that I am experiencing anticipatory grief. My mother is nearly 90 years old. JuJu, my dog and best friend of the past 14 years, is at least 16 or 17 years old, but more likely, even older. I call my mother daily, and if she doesn’t answer the phone or return my call within half an hour, I drive to her apartment to make sure she’s still alive. Throughout the day, I check on JuJu, watching to see if his chest is still rising and falling.

Both my mom’s and JuJu’s days are numbered. That’s just a fact. They’ve both far exceeded life expectancy. They both deal with countless health issues. They are so very old.

They are the only family I have.

Later today, I will take JuJu to an emergency hospital for diagnostics. He’s shown increasing signs of doggie dementia, but throughout the winter and colder days of spring, he was still running — actually, more like hopping like a bunny — down the hills near our apartment. JuJu is virtually blind and deaf. He has intervertebral disk disease. This past Monday, when the temperatures were still relatively cool, JuJu saw his acupuncturist and physical therapist, and neither was alarmed by his behavior.

But last night I awoke at 2:30 a.m. and found JuJu walking in tight circles in front of our apartment door. I took him outside and he dutifully relieved himself, came back in, and resumed walking in circles. Earlier in the day, he was sidling, as if his equilibrium was off. I called his vet, Dr. Leslie at Indraloka’s NEPA Veterinary Clinic, and was told to take him to an emergency room for tests.

It could be worsening dementia, vestibular disease, a stroke, inner ear issues, or a brain tumor.

“If it’s the worst-case scenario, you don’t have to have him euthanized there,” Dr. Leslie assured. “You can bring him here.”

I’m crying as I write this.

I have always loved dogs more than anything. I have always loved my dogs more than I thought myself capable of loving. But even by the extraordinary standards set by each dog that I’ve been blessed to share life with, JuJu is special.

Maybe I’m writing this to ask for prayers. Maybe Great Universal Spirit will allow me to eke out a few more months with JuJu. Maybe I’m just trying to process. With my previous dogs, Jersey and Gus, I did not know their last day was their last day until I received the terrible news that it was time to let them go. Maybe I’m just trying to gird myself for that possibility today.

When dogs live as long as JuJu has, their personalities undergo dramatic changes from their younger selves. It can be hard to remember who they once were. JuJu was the funnest, funniest dog ever. As a shih-tzu mix, he’s got short legs, and the height he could reach jumping was always astonishing. He sure as heck startled a good many strangers walking down the street, minding their own business, when he Baryshnikov-ed himself into their chests.

Before he became deaf, JuJu, on many occasions, let out a distinctive bark. He had the deepest baritone voice. People used to hear him and ask, incredulously, how that sound managed to come out of that small dog. My friend Jenny said JuJu had a voice like Barry White.

Finding each other

I was standing in a long line at a Starbucks in Oceanside, California, when I saw a flyer for JuJu. He was at the Camp Pendleton animal shelter, where he’d been rescued from a San Diego kill shelter. I returned to my friend Mary Ann’s house later that evening with two tepid Americanos and JuJu.

We drove across the country together. I would be in 7/11s and hear someone laying on a car horn. I’d look out the window to see JuJu in my Forester’s driver’s seat, both front paws on that horn.

We spent a month in Santa Fe once; we camped out overnight in the Dallas airport because our flight was canceled due to weather. JuJu was the easiest dog ever to care for and be with.

I’m still hoping for the best. Or maybe I’m still in denial. Maybe I’m writing this to ask for prayers for me. Prayers that I do the right thing, whatever that may be. Prayers that I don’t rush to fill the void JuJu’s passing — whether tomorrow or next year — will create. Prayers that I will be willing and able to love my next dog as much as I love JuJu, knowing that heartbreak is inevitable.

Anticipatory grief helps us cope with and prepare for inevitable loss. The most notable of its symptoms for me is anxiety, wanting to escape. As soon as I got off the phone with Dr. Leslie, I wanted to go jogging more than anything — a physical representation of the feelings I want to escape. But I know I need to be here, in my apartment, with JuJu. If the worst happens later this afternoon, would I want to remember that I spent the last day of JuJu’s life jogging to ease my own discomfort?

JuJu deserves better than that. And so do I.

I know you, my readers, my friends, know well what I’m going through and that the worst is yet to come. And I also know that all the pain and grief I will go through is worth the life I’ve had with JuJu.

JuJu, I will love you always, forever.