She lays cupped in my left hand, her little head resting lightly against my arm. Her bright black little eyes are staring straight ahead, her chest rising and falling rapidly. She won’t eat anything, not her beloved rotisserie chicken, or broccoli, or yogurt. My hand is so desperate to send her healing that it is sweating, and she adjusts slightly because it is too hot. I lift my right hand off of her, about two inches away. She is not getting better. Not without the oxygen, not with the antibiotics. There is something else wrong with her. Maybe tumors. We don’t know. I just know that she won’t be coming home today. Or ever.
Tears are running unhindered down my face. One drops onto Tossie’s back and I watch it soak into the black fur on top of her head. I sniff but don’t want to reach for the kleenex. I just want to hold her. “Okay, I’m ready,” I tell Jen the assistant. She takes Tossie out of my hands and she stretches her little arms toward me, wanting to come back. I can’t see anymore. I go into examination room 8, the one in the corner with the outside window. The sun is shining, the sky blue after days of snow. I call my daughter and put her on speakerphone. I wait. The door opens and Jen places Tossie in my lap. She faces me, her little nose poking out of her little bed, her front right paw resting on the edge, her white whiskers twitching. I stroke her head gently and Kari talks to her from the speakerphone just inches away. I keep my eye on her chest heaving up and down, just as I used to watch Mom’s heart beat in her chest. Everything blurs. Fast fast fast fast fast stop. I will not write what Kari said to her pet because that is private but as the sun shone on Tossie she stayed staring at me, now limp and still.
Do I say it was beautiful? Or do I say it sucked shit? Or both? Death sucks. We have had too much death lately, especially with our pets. Too much. I want to scream. I am angry now as I type. I want to yell at someone. I want to blame someone. I feel badly for being so angry. I want to start a fight with my husband so I can release some of this. I should just sit with this, but everything is too big right now, this loss is a hole opening wider in my gut, right there, below my heart, and when I look in it yawns out to the whole rest of the Universe, and I wonder what would happen if I followed it to its Source? Where would I be?
I don’t know. I don’t know anything right now. I don’t know if I’ve known anything for sure. But I know that Tossie wasn’t just a rat. If anybody says that, I may have to hate them. But then I realize they just don’t understand. They are ignorant. Because if you ever knew Tossie, you would see her sparkle. If you were ever privileged enough to hold her or have her brux in your hands you would know you were in the presence of something big, something significant. And now she’s gone from here. And I’m sad. I’m very sad. I will be better. It will all be better. And it IS good. I have been accused of being too optimistic, too positive, of seeing things with rose-tinted glasses, but I am here to tell you that I am here, fully present in this moment of great personal pain and I STILL believe that life is good, that everything IS good. In the face of death I remain unmoved in my knowingness that love never dies - once we love we are connected forever. And this? All of this? This is all illusion, and will be gone someday but love is real, and never goes away. This I know. I love you, Tossie. You were a good, good lady rat.