A really empty nest

This was definitely not what I had in mind when I said Mom and I have been enjoying the extra free time from having an empty nest. There is nothing so empty as a house that used to have a dog in it. While you all are often doing your own things even when you’re home, Mystic was always here: here in the morning waiting patiently for her walk, here in the afternoon to greet us after work, and here to keep us company when no one else was around.

Mystic hid her pain well from us until the very end, as dogs are trained by evolution to do, one of the vets told Mom. But maybe it explains why she slept on a blanket right beside Mom’s bed the past few weeks. Fortunately, we were able to get Mystic home, where a very kind and gentle hospice-care vet assured us it was the right time to let Mystic go. Mystic went to sleep one last time, happily licking gobfuls of peanut butter from Mom’s hand.

I found a nice spot for Mystic’s grave, under a tree about 15 feet from where Aldo is buried. Mary Alice and Mr. Graham—Mystic’s two favorite people outside our extended family—came over to help dig, mercifully, as we had to remove two huge rocks from the spot I picked. But we used the rocks to mark and protect her grave.

                     A dog can never tell you what she knows from the
                     smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know
                     almost nothing.

                          From "Her Grave" by Mary Oliver (New and Selected Poems (1992))

Mystic

January 26, 2005 — October 31, 2018