In a time of grieving, even for a pet, a kind of contemplative dreaming eventually takes place. I wasn’t prepared for how quickly I would begin dreaming about Simon, and it seems to coincide with my return to the woods through which he and I traversed during the past nearly two years.
Sentimentality is easy to slip into when you’re grieving a dog. Those who love dogs know of what I write, and I’ll try to avoid it here. I’ve now grieved three good dogs. But Simon, the last of these three, was without question my closest friend. In moving to a new place in the summer of 2021, and with my wife off at work most days and my daughter no longer living at home, Simon and I were daily companions. I don’t think that I took him for granted, but there were moments of simple perfunctory existence with him. It was a given that he went with me most places in the car, and a given that we walked two or three miles every day with only rare exceptions. And at home, it was a given that whatever room I was in, Simon was in there as well. That relationship really traces back to when the illegal lockdowns began—and the 10 years before that, Simon was our family’s dog, well loved, deeply affectionate and part of our daily lives.
The dreams are vivid and do not always feature Simon as he was, a short-haired pointer with mahogany markings and deep eyes to look into. Some of the dogs in the dreams are different breeds entirely, and yet for some reason, I am well acquainted with them. They seek, and usually get, my attention and whatever I’m doing, there is a dog nearby and his or her presence is palpable to me.
So it is clear, this is not a complete essay and that’s because I’m not done mourning this good dog. There are no timelines, of course, but I thought I’d ease up just a little by now. Yet, mornings like this one, he sits across from me on his couch, or at my feet awaiting a bite of some stray piece of food he knows I’ll give him. I see him through the large bay window that looks out on the backyard where he uneasily traipsed most cold mornings sniffing where the rabbits had gone. There’s that sentimentality I tried to avoid.
I can’t walk through the house, the yard—front or back—without knowing he’s there. I can’t roll over in bed without hearing a soft growl from him as he shifted to get comfortable with my new position. And I can’t drive to the post office, or the grocery store without a sad smile as I exit those places looking for him as he waited patiently in the back of the car.
As I’d written in the last post, after Simon passed, Simon talked to me. I was in earnest about this point, and I know that most people read that with a kind of, ‘yes, my dog talks, too…’ I’ll only say that after so many years together, and the last ones of constant daily contact, Simon talked to me. He isn’t doing that now. I hear his vocalizations around me, but I don’t know what he’s saying. Perhaps I’m choosing not to know. I still harbor a good deal of guilt because when it comes down to it, I tried to set all the parameters around him I could as he got older. I prayed and hoped that one night he would just drift off in sleep and thought about the sadness of that, combined with a peace that he’d gone his way. But like most people who love their dogs, that time didn’t come and I had to revert to my promise to him not to let him suffer. That promise sounds so compassionate—but in reality, it’s gut-wrenching and awful and I guess I’m still angry about it.
We will eventually succeed, though never replace Simon. As my wife says, ‘we’re dog people..’ and that’s true enough. For now, though—the memories haunt me, though the sharp edge is getting more dull. I keep busy now most days by doing some substitute teaching, or writing a few articles. If I’m lucky, as I was this past week, I do both.
But generally at night, after Sue has gone to bed and I’m alone watching a show, or reading. I get up from the couch quietly and fold the purple quilt that used to cover Simon in the evenings, but now adorns my lap. In the quiet and half-light of a dim lamp, I walk back toward the bedroom without the need for the last treat of the night, knowing the dog-door is shut and already locked. And I wonder if there is a rainbow bridge, and if my good dogs, Simon, Scoop and Lucy all have souls—and are running together on green fields.