(((This turned into an essay of sorts about my dog Ruby’s cremation day (a word I hated when it came to being associated with her) and it’s about her essence of course… written not of sound mind perhaps, but there’s beauty in the story and I needed to tell it quick…thank you all so much for your kindness and love))))))
My beautiful ruby passed away in my arms last night. She died of natural causes on her dog bed while I spooned her and sang to her in her final moments. I am without words. We all loved her beyond measure…
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Well, first morning without her. (Now it’s afternoon) ….I was saying to a friend, “its quantum”…a silence that’s turned in on itself…our parrot Grub is calling her name, “Ruby, Ruby!”. Whistling the dog call, the whistle he does so well, “Pspsstphhw”. “Come here, girl!” But still it feels silent and vacuous…Even with our other dog Zinka nipping and gnawing as she does in the morning first thing -even with her nails on the wood floor and her barking at the mailman…I’m not hearing Ruby’s waking routine–her clamoring for a walk, busting open the bathroom door, poking her head through…her circling three times on her bed before she plunks down with either a thud or a gentle curl. Ahhh, this void. Brutal. Then there’s what my friend, who just lost her dog said to me in a sweet consoling email-the question of “what do you do with all that love?” That’s the thing…I guess, you lean in harder, punch and rip the substrate even more furiously…love people harder for all the sorrow you know they feel too…I guess that’s all we can do…I know, you know, we all must know this- even before we get there with whichever supreme loss we know will inevitably happen and that we must endure…but it’s a knowing that’s ineffable and changes shape before you can etch it out with any words or actions. So without the proper words, I’ll just say, I guess I actually don’t know you know, or I know…but we “do” instead, letting our actions speak for us in these times, no matter how fumbled they may seem. Everything I reach for, touch, look at, contains a split second of me thinking she is here still in the house, then I get that harsh burst of reality…muscle memory…she is embedded in every pain, ache, and bug bite I’m scratching today-I got these bites when she was smiling and sitting at the park the other day- so engaged and happy.. I’m still trying to wake up…trying to get in the mode to write, cause there’s so much I want to say about her-if i loved her boundlessly for 15 1/2 years, I love her even more now…didn’t think this was possible! I had said yesterday in my post that I was “terrified of living in a Rubyless world”…But I knew the truth that Ruby was always in everything already-she is why I reached and loved harder than I thought was possible for a broken soul like myself…She made me less base…more tender….every tree top, every blade of grass, everything that traces an outline of anything else-she seemed to be present in -and this changed me and the way I saw the world…My heart today feels like it’s been pummeled by a million tiny hammers made of feathers, and my heart knows better than before that it has a job to do…and Ruby led me to this knowingness from the moment I cupped her beating heart in my palm and felt it stop…
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Yesterday morning started with a long drive at dawn through the country where we were able to attend her cremation…the man gave me directions the night before that clearly and intentionally brought us on the scenic route (this we realized when we returned home as the highway was right there) He said “I find people end up elsewhere if they use GPS”…I feel after meeting this man, that what he meant by “elsewhere” was a metaphor…He wanted us to be present for the beautiful drive …not “elsewhere” GPS would have led us to the highway and we’d have missed the stunning entry to his world…That drive, her last, was part of the whole experience-of the letting go..(We don’t use GPS, and i don’t even drive!…but he didn’t know this!)…I had seen commercials all these years for this place…an animal cemetery/crematory called “Loving Rest Pet Cemetery” and I always cried when it came on…I never thought in a million years however I’d seek this particular place out for the same reasons most of you wouldn’t (it always made me think of the Erroll Morris film doc called “Gates Of Heaven”)…But I knew all these years that when I thought of her death it really concerned me that I wouldn’t know what was going to happen to her body once I gave it up to whomever (vet etc.) for her to be cremated-for me this matters. And I knew when I lived in Seattle in particular, burial wasn’t an option. I’m old school. When my grandmother died at home (she lived with us) she remained in state her last night and my mom tenderly sponged her and changed her nightgown before the undertakers took her away on a snowy February morning…(our old dog, that had become inseparable from her, died a few days later) So I guess its instilled in me, to not have your loved one whisked away before you can say goodbye on your own terms and take care of them one last time…In a perfect world maybe you’d have 48 hours, like some other cultures do.
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I didn’t want to bury her here in Iowa since we may not be staying here much longer…A while back a friend had told me she brought her dog and placed it inside the refrigerator at the place he was to be cremated…this was a start, I remember thinking…I felt like “ok”,: “ill at least do that, when the time comes”…wrap her up in a blanket like my friend did- and put a picture of her in her best years to show the attendants that she was loved, (as my friend did) I was extremely touched by this story…Nothing against anyone else’s choices, as it’s not always possible to avoid, and we all have different needs and outlooks on this sort of thing, but I didn’t want Ruby in a fridge…for me, that was harder to stomach than the flames themselves.
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As anyone with an old dog knows, you have many scares…we had mast cell cancer surgery, lumps and bumps on both ends removed, allergies(Ruby would for years allow me to put all 4 legs at once in little bowls, to soak her paws that used to get infected with yeast and excessive licking)…then 6 months ago the seizures came, in one 24 hour bout-and we were told this would be the end…The ER vet said, “one month tops” (hell, he wanted us to put her to sleep that very night!). Well in typical Ruby fashion, she bounced back a week later and became very vibrant-almost more so then pre- seizure (b12!) and the seizures never returned…But in that short window, when we weren’t sure if she would make it, I did some research and got prepared for the inevitable… What are the odds, my vet uses this place from the TV commercial for their cremations…So I called to ask if I could deliver her myself at least. When they said I could, I felt elated I may have bypassed the need for her to be placed in the fridge….then I asked if I can attend. “Yes” they said. Jackpot! lastly, I asked, “can she be cremated alone”? “Yes”. Relief. I knew I at least had that part of the equation prepared and felt a bit less anxiety…I wouldn’t have to worry any longer about some complacent glue huffer handling my beloved Ruby…How it was going to go down in terms of her death, was anybody’s guess at the time, and this of course has always caused me major anxiety and of course great sorrow. So, I feel blessed and astonished at how it ended. It was a beautiful departure that she died in my arms at home, naturally. I had laid alongside her all day into the evening and sang to her for the last 20 minutes before she let go.
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After her last drive through a stunning countryside, we arrived and I had the notion in my mind that if it felt too creepy or wrong, we could take her home and bury her (which would be the only other option). When we pulled up it didn’t feel real…..The man who came out looked like a farmer, not a pet cemetery guy, (or at least he didn’t look like the guy from the commercial that I was expecting-but it was him) a plus, but I was still rattled and unsure- I had my doubts…I asked the guy “so what made you go into this line of business”?…..I asked about a million questions and had to wrap my head around what was about to happen…Eventually he asked; “will you be ready in 5 minutes” ? Mike my fiancé, tenderly assured me she was really dead and that she really was no longer needing her body…I needed to be told this even though I knew this….I was a child again in this moment….I huffed her neck, the backs of her velvety ears, embraced her for a few minutes, one last time and then I let John (the man) take her out of the van and we all went inside. I had her wrapped in a beautiful blanket that i will never wash…and had her cremated with another.
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Because it felt like being on a farm- that helped me psychologically…it was like a big barn with machinery…a fork lift for horses was the first thing you see upon entering-which he was very proud to show and explain to me…A huge cremation chamber for them…I tried to think of the furnace Ruby was placed into as a portal-a place in which she would simply go back to the elements and be transformed…By the time I left I had a fondness of sorts, for the furnace-it didn’t seem as sinister or morbid anymore….I think that because Ruby was being associated with this beast of a caldron I had to see some sort of beauty in it now…(maybe “beauty” and” fondness” are too strong a words, I’m at a loss for now! I just needed to not be slayed by their epic finality and cruel truth)…I liked that it was open and light inside the room, big glass doors opened to the countryside- not at all creepy….In fact it was helpful that there wasn’t any pretense…no pews, no inner sanctum (though he said they used to have that in another building, but it burned down). When the dreaded moment came and he placed her in the cremation chamber, a metal door came down slowly and I let out a wail that must have been centuries old….I didn’t know a sound like that existed within me. It was so hard to release her, but I knew I had to be there when the process started…when the fire was turned on… to know and see the transformation-to see her out all the way. It was a loud rumble, not unlike a jet engine taking off.
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It turns out the man, John, that runs this operation (family run) was one of the biggest characters I’ve ever met…..kind of a Santa Claus type…big overalls…long white hair…since the cremation took 90 minutes, he had time to tell me many stories…He told me that he has never cremated a horse that belonged to a man-only women. The most recent one was 45 years old (the horse). He told me too that he gets tons of calls from frantic families that have lost elderly loved ones and are about to bury them and then the loved ones old dog suddenly dies…These people want to have a quick cremation so they can put the ashes in the casket. He always helps them out. Not surprising this is so common, as it happened to us. He also told me one of the reasons it was always a rule (back in the day) to not let people be in the same room as the crematory or to not have a wall to separate them from the furnace, is because I guess there is fear of people trying to jump inside to be with their loved one, or pet…I get this!! My guess is he had me pegged as a potential jumper when he heard those wails……but there were no walls.
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Anyway, this place had an animal cemetery and you have to believe me…it wasn’t hokey, or let’s just say, in this context it made sense and was very sweet and innocent…these folks were for real, or at least they were the type of “for real” I needed them to be…I sat on a little bench in the cemetery comforted by the fact that there were so many loved, departed pets surrounding me…Tombstones etched with names like “Midnight”, “Tootsie,” “Samantha Parker” even some horses!….. I sat on a bench and watched Ruby come up out of the smoke stack…As I mentioned….the setting was extremely rural-hillsides that seemed to be fluorescing(in the words of Gary Heffern regarding his dog Butch’s death and my observations of Iowa’s stunning coloration)), little homesteads with horses and mules….winding roads…heavenly .It brought me so much comfort to think of her particles descending upon this beautiful swatch of land.
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It just so happened John was a huge bluegrass fan and player -and at some point he invited us into his home which was part of the compound…we had no idea until he invited us in what was in-store….He eventually led us to a room with 100 guitars or so on the walls mostly…but before that he made me play a song and then he sang a couple for me…Kind of sounded like Johnny Cash-he had major heart and soul, like a preacher singing, which he was- for the animals…it was so surreal…but it made me think how amazing it was that Ruby was sent off by this eccentric (in the best of ways ) gatekeeper, that was such a celebratory character…It’s as if she were saying…”Jesse, this is why you play music and can’t go off the rails”…and ” I’m going to be ok Jesse, I’m just REALLY going to be in everything now, literally…you will see me everywhere!”…..Anyone that knows me knows, I don’t usually sing in strangers living rooms- meaning I don’t bust into song just cuz a guitar is laying around…I’m kind of squirrely that way! But I sang for her…
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Jesse Sykes’ Wikipedia page
