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Posts Tagged ‘death’

The Five Stages

Wednesday, December 17th, 2008

Everybody has heard of the 5 stages of grief, right? Sadness, denial, anger, bargaining, and acceptance. Well I seem to be experiencing the 5 stages of guilt. In some ways, I think end of life care is more difficult for animals than it is with humans, because they can’t communicate with you their feelings and wants, so the best you can do is guess. Did I do too little? Did I do too much? Was he sad when I left him alone at work? Did I make him sicker by feeding him chicken and rice sometimes instead of his special prescription dog food? Why did I cut his walks short to leave for work 10 minutes earlier? Was he scared when I brought him to the vet that last time?

I just keep replaying in my mind that last moment when I felt his head go limp in my hands, and wonder if the outcome would have been different if he had a choice. I can’t imagine what it is like not knowing that you are about to die, but being in a room full of people who do.

I guess I had always thought that when the time came for us to put Enzo down, he would be much much sicker, and that there would be no room for this tiny lingering doubt in my mind; no second guessing. My head knows that we made the right decision, (I think had we not taken him to the vet that morning, he likely would have been that sick within a day or two) but my heart aches every time I think about it.

I miss him.

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Jennifer

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2006

When I was in 7th grade, my carpool driver was a senior named Jennifer. Every morning she picked up me and my sister, as well as my friend Matt and his older sister Lauren and drove us to school. She was definitely a unique person. She had a bumper sticker that read “Born Again Wicca”, kept rats for pets, and listened to nothing but Tori Amos’ “Little Earthquakes” and the Indigo Girls’ first album. But she was also one of the kindest people I knew. When my sister puked in the car one day on the way to school, Jennifer didn’t get angry, just cleaned her up and brought her back home.

She was also one of the first adults I knew to not treat me like a kid, despite being 5 years older than I was. One day her car broke down on the way back from school. Lauren and I were the only ones in the car. Since I wouldn’t be much help pushing the car, I had to sit in the front seat and steer. She moved the driver’s seat up as far as it would go, and sat me down in it. As I sat with my knee locked against the brake pedal and my hands gripping the steering wheel, she looked at me and asked, “Are you scared?” I’m not even sure if I answered, because nobody had ever really bothered to ask me something like that.

The next year, during an argument with her boyfriend, Jennifer shot herself. I didn’t go to her funeral (something I now regret,) but when a teacher announced her death at our 8th grade class meeting, I stepped out into the hallway and cried. I only knew her for that single year, but every time I hear “Crucify Myself” or “Closer To Fine” it brings me right back to 1992, sitting in the back seat of her Ford Tempo.

I miss her.

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Hamptonia

Wednesday, August 31st, 2005

Got back last night from a nice family vacation in East Hampton. I took a redeye to New York Wednesday night and arrived (with eyes appropriately red) at around 6 am Thursday morning. I took a quick nap at my brother’s place (where my parents had arrived the previous day) before heading to Long Island with the dog in tow. My sister in law, her mother, and my niece had arrived the day before, so they were waiting for us when we arrived. And maybe I’m biased, but I have to declare here that my niece is officially the Cutest Baby of All Time. She walks like a pro now, and has a wide vocabulary consisting of words like “Mommy”, “apple”, “dog”, “shoes”, and “goggles” (which she learned while I was there, thank you very much.)

The rest of the time was spent doing some combination of the following: reading (finished the new Harry Potter book), swimming, hanging out with the fam, going to the beach, eating waaaayyyy too much, watching a few movies, and playing with my niece. You’ll notice that “sleeping” was not in that list. This is because my family has a strange aversion to allowing my sister and I to sleep in on vacations. This has been the case for as long as I can remember. Usually this involves my family walking into the room, not explicitly trying to wake us up, but talking at a normal volume, using the computer, etc. Eventually, we either break down and get up, or my Mom directly tells us to get up. Sunday morning, my brother first woke us up at 7:57am to give us donuts (which was, admittedly, very nice) and then the circus began. I eventually caved in and got up around 9 or so, but my sister kept sleeping. At 10, my Mom told my sister to get up.

Mom: Get up!
Sister: Ugh.
Mom: Get up! It’s late!
Sister: Why? Don’t we only have [quick_family_thing] to do?
Mom: If you don’t get up, people will be waiting for you!
Sister: Why?? What are we doing??
Mom (with great urgency): I don’t know!

Really, how can you argue with that?

My sister and I took the bus back to Manhattan Sunday afternoon where I got to see her swank new apartment. We watched a bit of TV, had dinner, and in the evening I met up with my high school friend Eli. I hadn’t seen her since high school, so it was nice to catch up. We met at Union Square, and I had a brief flash of panic when I thought I might not recognize her if I saw her, but we managed to find each other with no problem. We went to a tea house, then met up with a friend of hers and sat up on the roof deck of the apartment he was watching. In high school Eli and I would always have New York City vs. San Francisco debates (I being on the New York side, and she being on the San Francisco side) so we decided it was some sort of karmic retribution that she should end up in New York, and I in the Bay Area.

Monday morning I got up early to meet my other high-school bud Lisa before she had to go to work. We sat in Au Bon Pain and had expensive orange juice and had a nice lil’ chat. She filled me in on her exciting adventures, and I filled her in on my boring non-adventures. Good times.

Afterwards I picked up my stuff at my sister’s apartment before meeting my sister-in-law for lunch at the newly-redone MoMA. It’s very nice; nicer than the SF MoMA, I’m inclined to say. After lunch it was off to the airport via subway, then back to the good ol’ Bay Area.

It was a really nice, relaxing trip, despite getting less sleep than I get here. I also gotta give huge proppy shout-out thanks to Buddy for taking care of Enzo while I was gone.

In some sadder news, my dog Wendy was put to sleep early Monday morning. My parents put her in a kennel, and while she was at the kennel, her hind legs collapsed (she had pretty severe arthritis.) The kennel people took her to the vet, where they gave her injections of arthritis medication to try to get her back on her feet. Unfortunately, the medication is bad for your kidneys (hers were likely not doing to well to begin with) so her kidneys began to fail. Since her kidneys were failing, she started to have seizures. Fortunately, she held on long enough for my parents to return home, so they were there when the vet put her to sleep. (My other two dogs were put to sleep when no members of the family were present.) Wendy was 15 years old and had a very good life, but I was still really sad to see her go. She was the last of my childhood pets, so I think she was probably lonely after my other two dogs died. She’ll be cremated like my other dogs and sent back home.

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Gong Gong

Monday, January 12th, 2004

It sounds like a profoundly stupid thing to say, but you know, when someone dies, you never see them again. Ever. It’s a strange feeling to be able to look back in your memory and say that is the last time I saw, and ever will see, this person.

On New Year’s Day, my grandfather, my Mom’s dad, had a stroke and fell into a coma. As the hours and days passed, the hope fell away that he would ever come out of it. My Mom and her sisters flew out to California to see him, and I visited him twice. He held on for nearly six days, but he passed away Tuesday night.

People have asked me, “Was it unexpected?” And I answer, “No, it wasn’t.” He had Parkinson’s disease for many years, and recently had moved into an assisted-living community because of his declining physical health. But truthfully, it was unexpected. It’s always unexpected. Despite the fact that he couldn’t walk anymore, that he could barely see, and even despite the fact that he had had more than one close call over the past few years, nothing really prepares you for that call from your Mom saying, “Gong Gong passed away at 10:45.”

I cried, some. I cried for my Mom, and the look she had on her face when she came downstairs on New Year’s saying, “Gong Gong is in coma.” I cried for my Aunts, and how one of them couldn’t look me in the eye when I came to see Gong Gong for the last time. I cried for my grandmother, and how she kissed Gong Gong on the forehead when she left him just hours before he passed.

I once heard a quote that went something like, “When someone dies, you cry because deep down, you’re glad it wasn’t you.” While I don’t necessarily belive this, I knew that part of the reason I cried was that no matter how many people around me have passed away, it never feels any less scary.

But when I find myself thinking this way, I realize that, for Gong Gong, I don’t think it was scary. His last words before he fell into the coma were, “Hao shu fu,” which means, “So comfortable.” He died in his sleep with his daughters at his side, after living 93 years and seeing the birth of 12 grand children and 4 great-grandchildren. And I think that perhaps he had been ready for it for a long time. So, unexpected? Yes. Scary? Maybe not. Gong Gong’s finally at peace, and he’ll be remembered with love by us all.

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Aunt Ruth

Sunday, March 30th, 2003

Ruth Nielsen was my babysitter from when I was 6 months old until I was 10. My mom had started working when I was 6 months old, so she needed someone to look after us kids during the day. Ruth was an older lady with big, red hair and a matching purse for every outfit. She drove an old blue diesel Mercedes, which she used to take us to countless violin lessons, doctor’s appointments, and anywhere else we needed to go. When she found out that Chinese kids often call their parents’ friends “Aunt” and “Uncle”, she had us call her Aunt Ruth.

She was probably the most good-hearted and unpretentious person I have ever known. She never went to college, used the word “ain’t” liberally, and called handicapped parking spaces by the un-PC term “retarded spaces.” But she instilled in us important rules: don’t drink anything until you’ve finished your meal because otherwise you’ll be full; no sleeping in the car; eat the crust of the bread because that’s where all the vitamins are; when kids get out of a car, they always have to wait by the fender until the driver gets out; if you’re bad, you’ll have to sit on the davenport — with no talking. Beyond that, she always made sure that we tried our hardest in school, and were good to each other and our parents. Even after she stopped looking after us regularly, she still came to our violin recitals and important events, and even came out to New York City for my brother’s wedding. She had two kids of her own, but I think that she thought of me, my brother, and sister almost as her own children too, and she bragged about us as if we were. And the truth is, growing up, she was as much a parent to me as my actual parents were.

A couple of weeks ago, we received an e-mail from her husband Martin saying that Aunt Ruth had been diagnosed with lung cancer, and that it had spread to her brain. She was still in good spirits, though, and started radiation treatments. But things never got better. Last Wednesday night while I was having dinner with friends in Las Vegas, I got a call from my mom saying that Aunt Ruth wasn’t doing well, and that she, my sister, and brother were planning on flying back to Albuquerque to see her that weekend. My mom knew that I was on spring break, so she wasn’t sure if I wanted to come. But without hesitation, I said I would come. We all flew out to Albuquerque Saturday morning, but Aunt Ruth died while we were in the air. The hospice kept her there until we got there. It was such a change to see her so quiet and without her makeup that she put on even when she had surgery. We said our goodbyes and shed lots of tears, but even now it feels strange, because she was one of those people who you just knew was going to live forever. She was there when I was a baby, and she was supposed to be there when I was old. But she died with her husband and children at her side, after living 85 very full years, and with the knowledge that we were coming to see her. And I’m sure that wherever she is, she’s still looking out for us.

I miss her.

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