Note: if you are not an animal person you may not understand; also, please know that Keely and I don’t have children so Neenah was truly our daughter. She made a couple into The Family.
The world is replete with cruel ironies, and yesterday when Neenah passed away, my wife and I experienced a hammer-to-the-head blow of irony. We had brought Neenah in for a routine check-up. She had experienced a little diarrhea over the past month and her hips were stiff; she was an old lady at sixteen but healthy. The vet had finished his initial exam and said she was in good shape. When he took her back to get a blood and stool sample–nothing odd there and something she had experienced before–Keely and I talked of plans we could make in light of Neenah’s health. We had returned to the States partially to give her a “retirement” somewhere safe and easy; not that she didn’t have it relatively safe and easy everywhere we took her, but psychologically we thought it best to ease back on travel in her golden years.
We realized she was just trucking along and our attention to her health over the years had kept her in great shape. So, we started talking of bringing her abroad again or even being able to handle living in a cabin in a remote section of Ecuador.
Healthy and in a safe place with a good vet doing a routine blood draw, she got scared, then had a seizure that we think led to a stroke. She never came back. We were right there hoping she would come out of the catatonic state she had fallen into–her eyes were open and widely dilated and her gums and tongue so pale we knew there was a circulation issue. Her heart was fine but her respirations shallow and erratic (she was intubated to help). She never came back. We called to her, stroked her, pinched her but she never came back. After forty-five minutes we realized that even if somehow she came out of that horrible state she would no longer be the same Neenah, her brain affected by a stroke and/or a serious lack of oxygen. We made the decision then to euthanize her.
We expected some illness to take her some time, and for the two of us to have to make a long, hard decision. That would’ve been a painful situation but one that we controlled. We couldn’t control this lightning quick descent.
An hour earlier we were planning our day with a casualness that now seems awful: after the vets we’ll drop Neenah off then go do errands, then maybe the beach. We couldn’t see a day without Neenah. We never have had a time without her.
Classic Irony heard us speaking of Neenah’s health and our plans of new freedoms and decided such hubris would not stand. Point taken Irony but fuck you anyway.
We don’t want the freedom we now have. Hey we can now take that six-month job cataloging a bird species in some remote area, way off the grid and requiring backcountry living and self-reliance. Fuck that too. I’d take this cushy suburban apartment and a mediocre day-to-day life over anything else, as long as we could have the ability to hear her wake us up every morning and greet us every afternoon.
We don't want this new freedom we have.
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