August 22, 2022

He swam away, last Thursday

The tide, a traveling vet with a black leather bag worn down by other visits such as this one, took him out on a sunny day, a day like today

We knew the tide would take him, we knew he would float out far, far away to places too far to swim to

our boat has a hole and no oars

None of us knew how much empty beach he’d leave behind, or how quickly he would leave

Our sons dug the hole that we lined with cedar boughs

With a strength so vast I stumble over the size of the memory, our eldest lifted the limp body and walked to the hole to pass the furry shell to my husband standing in the hole

Curled up neatly we let petals fall around him, a sprig or two of blues and pinks, then the blanket of knitted wool squares

But only after—stop! His nose has dirt on it! Please wipe it clean! I cried out.

I scrambled to the fountain with a leaking palm of water, begging Josh to clean his nose like my life depended on it—because it did

This death felt like dying

Until it didn’t

With a strange frenzy we filled the hole and wept and laid the beach rocks the boys had just gathered into a spiral over the dry dirt

In the middle we set the copper bowls —water for Rocky to drink in the afterlife, or at least a place for little songbirds to visit—

He’d like that too

We are still here, just our dog is gone

I look for him everywhere and want him so

I want his fur in my face and my hot tears to catch in the crook of his ear, where the black meets the white over his departure and my dad’s new cancer and my broken brother and my scattered family and my endless ache and my little self still six and scared and so very sad and my sad big sister, wide eyed with grief

This is all too much

But I went for a swim anyway

After the radiation and the dark tale of what esophageal cancer surgery does to the body and my dad tipsy with fear and rosy cheeks and a quaver in his voice as we went arm and arm back to the white car in the bright sunshine and back to his assisted living where they waited to connect the tube and give him liquid food, tubed water

In the water, there, green and thick the bay quiet but for me I rolled on my back and perched my head upon the orange float and watched as a seabird circled high above me

Just wings and blue, belly flickering as it changed direction mid flight

What is this place

I met one moon jelly near the dock and looked for my dog and my broken heart in the green water

Nothing stirred

Just the water, surrounding me in that salty embrace, pushing ever so gently back against my body like my dog at night upon the blankets

Warm and still

Constant companion

Outside of time

Waiting for me to come home