Dreams

I’m a psychologist and I understand that dreams are made of distorted fragments of day residue. That means that we take tiny fragments of things that happened during our day and distort those fragments. Some times, we distort them until they are no longer recognizable. Some times we distort them into images, events, and fantasy that momentarily allow us to bear our pain a little more easily.

Yesterday on 10/15/09 at 5:40, I euthanized my eldest dog. I had known for many months that he was moving into death. Upon awaking every morning, the first thing I did was go check on the dogs. I fully expected that God was going to answer the prayer I was ashamed to admit I prayed every night. I kept praying to God that he would take him in his sleep to save me the pain of euthanizing him. I wanted his heart to simply quit beating so that Jake was never frightened or in pain. And, I wanted not to be forced to euthanize him. Sometimes, God says no.

What little I slept last night was fitful. I kept waking to the thought that he is dead and crying myself back to sleep. Finally, I slept to a dream of him running and playing in our backyard—young, healthy, a rascally little scamp with spotted Dalmatian like paws. The dream reminded me of his escape to the school soccer field and refusal to return home. I bought an entire meat lovers pizza believing I could toll him back with it. I couldn’t. He loved freedom more than pizza and he really loved pizza. The dream also reminded me of several escapes in Kentucky when he would charge up one of the Appalachian mountains and then stop, look back and wait for me to struggle a little farther up the mountain and a little closer to him. Then, he’d run higher. I awoke with all the hope in the world that he was young, healthy and vibrant still. I shook myself back to reality and tears. Every time I fell asleep, I awoke to memories of images like him strolling from my bedroom into the living room with one of my cigarettes hanging from his fleshy lips. He looked so much like Joe Camel when he did that. He alternated that entrance with him strolling from my bedroom with one cup of my bra perched on his head as if it were a beanie and the rest of the bra dragging along side. I remembered catching Jake having his way with a little fluffy white dog wearing a red sweater in our back yard. Didn’t matter to Jake that he was shooting blanks. I remembered him walking the perimeter of our backyard right up against the new privacy fence. The four of them together marched like ducks around the very edge of the back yard keeping weeds down and intruders out of their backyard. Every time I fell asleep, I awoke to the reality and to my tears.

I went downstairs to check on Savvy Jo. She was his litter mate and his incubator mate when they both had Parvo as infants. He was “over the hump” faster than her and the VET was afraid to send him home because they were so attached to each other. He kept Jake extra days so that he could keep him in the incubator with Savvy Jo. As adults, they each have their own beds, but they usually slept together. Sometimes, they played a game of musical beds. Savvy is very upset and won’t sleep in their bed. At some level, she knows.

Eric left for work and I went back to bed for a while. I went back to sleep and the dream was of Jake beautiful and alive except that we had removed his back legs. He had nothing wrong with his back legs, but he kept collapsing. I guess that is the distortion. Amputate his back legs and he won’t be dead. I told you dreams are distortions. Sometimes, they are so distorted they are unrecognizable and psychotic. In the dream, he had learned to get around the back yard without his back legs. He had somehow even learned to climb to the top edge of the privacy fence and perch atop it looking into the distant freedom.

I’m praying there is a Rainbow Bridge. I’m praying that my mom and dad, my daughter and Eric’s mom & dad are looking out for him. I’m praying he’s reached that distant freedom, that he has no pain, that he can run free without fear of cars or mean people, and that God has a lot of Beggin Strips on hand. He loves Beggin Strips.

I’m in so much pain, that I have got to believe in something.