My dog is a precious companion who has helped me survive the worst times of my life
Bella, our black boxer-lab mix has come to the end of her life and is receiving hospice care. I was a meager twenty-something year old when I purchased her for two-hundred and fifty dollars nearly thirteen years ago.
I drove to a farm off a dirt road in a town in the middle of nowhere Maine to pick her up. The last of the litter. I cradled her in my palms where she fit perfectly at eight weeks old. I was in disbelief that she was coming home with me. What would I name her? I had belabored the topic for weeks.
If I had no one in the world, I had this perfect puppy and everything would be alright. The first great responsibility of my life.
As I carefully carried her to the car, a little girl ran out from the house next to the barn. “Her name is Bella!” She yelled. “I named her after the girl in Twilight. Promise me you won’t change it!” She demanded. Who was this girl? Did she do this to every person who picked a puppy from the litter? Wasn’t every dog named Bella?
I came to my senses. If I did name her Bella, I would never be responsible for deciding what to name her. It felt like the enormous burden of choosing Bella’s fate had been lifted off of me. I looked at the little girl and told her earnestly, “Sounds like it’s settled then, her name is Bella.”
Bella spent her first car ride home quivering in a little ball on my passenger’s seat. I was already fretting. Would she like living with me? Where would I take her to play? Should I let her sleep on my bed or try to crate train her? Would she miss her mom? I had to make sure there was no possible way she would ever miss her mom.
The moment we pulled into my apartment parking lot, and I put the car into park, she threw up in my cup holder. That is how Bella and I began our life together.
As I write this she is laying in our backyard on the long summer grass in the shade of a tree, panting heavily, refusing to eat even the sweetest, most peanut buttery of treats. She’s still drinking water, but it almost comes out of her as fast as it enters, resulting in many accidents all around the house. I’ve rolled up the only two (sort of) nice rugs in the house and left them in the corners of the rooms they once blanketed: the playroom and our bedroom. A reminder every time I walk into one of these rooms that Bella is going to die soon.
Our eighteen-month old daughter June came home on hospice last year. After June died I thought, nothing could ever be so painful. No subsequent death could ever hurt as much. I now had a steel coat of armor that no other death could penetrate. I truly believed no other death could cause me harm. Turns out, I was wrong. No death could ever be as painful as losing my child, but other deaths still hurt. A lot.
Losing Bella in the wake of losing June feels cruel. It feels unfair. It’s something I must navigate for my four year old daughter after losing her sister. I worry about my living daughter the most.
I read the literature. I try to say the right things. I probably say the wrong things. I embrace my daughter’s emotions, and tell her everything is going to be alright. I tell her that Bella loves her and that we, too, love her so much. I try to be strong. I reassure her that other people and animals in her life are not also leaving. For now, it’s Bella’s time to die.
She asks me many questions. Some I am unable to answer. We sit on the cold tiled basement floor, petting Bella. My daughter reads Bella a story. We struggle with the permanence of her death. “Will Bella be gone forever?” She asks me.
Bella knows all three of our children. To them, she is their oldest sister. When we hear Bella whining at the front door to be let in, I always say, “Oh Bella!” Because I likely forgot I let her out twenty minutes before, and yet, she faithfully stays and waits patiently at the door no matter how many times I’ve forgotten to let her back in.
I scoop my son up and tell my daughter, “Let’s go! We have to let your sister in.” Our one-year-old son knows the word “sister”. It’s the word he whispers as we walk through the house past photos of June. It’s the word he whispers as we walk down the stairs to the front door to let Bella in.
This week Bella will likely join June in the heavens. Our daughter and I talk a lot about Bella meeting Junie again. “Junie won’t be alone anymore,” she told me this morning. She’s so wise. “Well she has God, but now she will have Bella too,” she says. And for a sliver of a second, I feel so much relief.
Written by Taryn Jarboe, RN
Founder Carrying June