Getting Old And The Lesson of Impermanence.

Jersey, our family dog, was 17 years old when she died. We adopted her from a rescue place when she was 18 months’ old. For the last year of her life, she was deaf and blind. She also lost her sense of smell so she completed lost her ability to navigate. She would go round and round in circles. Our vet asked us every time we took Jersey in whether we would like to put her down. His tone sounded mildly accusatory and a little bewildered. “Why do you want to keep this poor thing alive? She has had a good life. Time to let her go.” This question was implied in his tone. Our friends shared his sentiment. My rational brain knew that if I were in the same condition, I would not want my life to be prolonged. I knew I should let Jersey go but my emotional brain came up with all sorts of reasons why it wasn’t time yet.

Then one day I read a book called “The Art of Racing In the Rain” and I knew what we needed to do for Jersey. It’s a beautifully written book narrated in the voice of a dog, Enzo, whose human dad’s name is Denny, a racecar driver. This is how Enzo’s story begins: 

“Gestures are all that I have; sometimes they must be grand in nature. And while I occasionally step over the line and into the world of the melodramatic, it is what I must do in order to communicate clearly and effectively. In order to make my point understood without question. I have no words I can rely on because, much to my dismay, my tongue was designed long and flat and loose, and therefore, is a horribly ineffective tool for pushing food around my mouth while chewing, and an even less effective tool for making clever and complicated polysyllabic sounds that can be linked together to form sentences. And that’s why I’m here now waiting for Denny to come home—he should be here soon—lying on the cool tiles of the kitchen floor in a puddle of my own urine.

I’m old. And while I’m very capable of getting older, that’s not the way I want to go out. Shot full of pain medication and steroids to reduce the swelling of my joints. Vision fogged with cataracts. Puffy, plasticky packages of Doggie Depends stocked in the pantry. I’m sure Denny would get me one of those little wagons I’ve seen on the streets, the ones that cradle the hindquarters so a dog can drag his ass behind him when things start to fail. That’s humiliating and degrading. I’m not sure if it’s worse than dressing up a dog for Halloween, but it’s close. He would do it out of love, of course. I’m sure he would keep me alive as long as he possibly could, my body deteriorating, disintegrating around me, dissolving until there’s nothing left but my brain floating in a glass jar filled with clear liquid, my eyeballs drifting at the surface and all sorts of cables and tubes feeding what remains. But I don’t want to be kept alive. Because I know what’s next. I’ve seen it on TV. A documentary I saw about Mongolia, of all places. It was the best thing I’ve ever seen on television, other than the 1993 Grand Prix of Europe, of course, the greatest automobile race of all time in which Ayrton Senna proved himself to be a genius in the rain. After the 1993 Grand Prix, the best thing I’ve ever seen on TV is a documentary that explained everything to me, made it all clear, told the whole truth: when a dog is finished living his lifetimes as a dog, his next incarnation will be as a man...

I didn’t want [Denny] to feel bad about this. I wanted him to see the obvious, that it’s okay for him to let me go. He’s been going through so much, and he’s finally through it. He needs to not have me around to worry about anymore. He needs me to free him to be brilliant.

I will miss him and little Zo?, and I know they will miss me. But I can’t let sentimentality cloud my grand plan. After this happens, Denny will be free to live his life, and I will return to earth in a new form, as a man, and I will find him and shake his hand and comment on how talented he is, and then I will wink at him and say, “Enzo says hello,” and turn and walk quickly away as he calls after me, “Do I know you?” He will call, “Have we met before?”

After many months of agony about the imminent end of our beloved dog, these few paragraphs about a fictional dog brought me clarity and a sense of tranquility. By the time I got to the end of the book, my doubts and trepidation vanished.

Enzo continues as his story is coming to the end:

“My life seems like it has been so long and so short at the same time. People speak of a will to live. They rarely speak of a will to die. Because people are afraid of death. Death is dark and unknown and frightening. But not for me. It is not the end. With every bit of strength I have in my body, I wrench myself to a standing position. Though my hips are frozen and my legs burn with pain, I hobble to the door of the bedroom.

Growing old is a pathetic thing. It is full of limitations and reduction. It happens to us all...

I don’t want Denny to worry about me. I don’t want to force him to take me on a one-way visit to the vet. He loves me so much...

 “It’s okay,” he says to me. “If you need to go now, you can go.”

I turn my head, and there, before me, is my life. My childhood. My world. My world is all around me. All around the fields of Spangle, where I was born. The rolling hills covered with the golden grasses that sway in the wind and tickle my stomach when I move over them. The sky so perfectly blue and the sun so round.

This is what I would like. To play in those fields for a little longer. To spend a little more time being me before I become someone else. This is what I would like…

I saw a film once. A documentary. On the television, which I watch a lot. Denny once told me not to watch so much. I saw a documentary about dogs in Mongolia. It said that after dogs die, they return as men. But there was something else—

I feel his warm breath on my neck, his hands. He leans down to me, though I can no longer see him, he leans down to my ear.

The fields are so large I could run forever in one direction and then run forever back. There is no end to these fields.

“It’s okay, boy,” he says softly, gently, into my ear.

—I remember! This documentary said that after a dog dies, his soul is released into the world around us. His soul is released to run in the world, run through the fields, enjoy the earth, the wind, the rivers, the rain, the sun, the—

When a dog dies, his soul is released to run until he is ready to be reborn. I remember.

“It’s okay.”

When I am reborn as a man, I will find Denny. I will find Zo?. I will walk up to them and shake their hands and tell them that Enzo says hello. They will see.

“You can go.”

Before me I see my world: the fields around Spangle. There are no fences. No buildings. No people. There is only me and the grass and the sky and the earth. Only me.

“I love you, boy.”

I take a few steps into the field, and it feels so good, so nice to be in the cool air, to smell the smells all around me. To feel the sun on my coat. I feel like I am here.

“You can go.”

I gather my strength and I start off and it feels good, like I have no age at all, like I am timeless. I pick up speed. I run.

“It’s okay, Enzo.”

I don’t look back, but I know he’s there. I bark twice because I want him to hear, I want him to know. I feel his eyes on me but I don’t turn back. Off into the field, into the vastness of the universe ahead, I run.

“You can go,” he calls to me.

Faster, the wind presses against my face as I run, faster, I feel my heart beating wildly and I bark twice to tell him, to tell everyone in the world, to say faster! I bark twice so he knows, so he remembers. What I want now is what I’ve always wanted.

One more lap, Denny! One more lap! Faster!”

I cried like I never cried before and closed the last page of the book. So, on January 14, 2016, we took Jersey and made a one-way trip to the vet. It was very hard but I in my mind I imagined as Jersey was taking her last breath, she began to run as fast as she can and barked as loud as she can. In my mind now she is always as young and playful as when we first took her home. We got another puppy six months ago. I actually didn’t want another dog. I didn't want to go through the grief of losing another dog again. I have had enough losses in my life. I lost two brothers when I was in my teens; my dad died when I was in my thirties; and I already buried 3 dogs. Soon I will be facing another death. My mom is 94. She’s mostly blind and deaf with dementia. She’s old. She probably can get a lot older but I am sure that’s not how she wants to go out. I wonder if she was still lucid and could communicate, what would be her wish? I will never know. But this is what I would wish. I wish when it’s her time to go, she will feel strong and young again. She will feel the cool air and the warm sun on her face and skin as she runs free in a beautiful field of yellow and purple flowers in her light billowy white dress. It’s like she has no age at all, like she’s timeless.

I don't want to face another loss, I don't want to have any more grief but that is not how life works. Death is always with us and if we are open to thinking about it, it helps us to discover what matters most, what is important in life. Death is a good teacher for living a useful life and dying without regret. Death also opens us to our deepest emotions and our humanity. It is the thing that binds all living creatures, as all of us will eventually have to face it. For now, it is time to walk my dog and enjoy the beautiful spring-like day in the midst of winter. And appreciate these beautiful moments, moment by moment, as nothing is permanent. When each moment is gone, it is gone forever. Even grief is temporary. Only impermanence is constant. In Buddhism, impermanence is often referred to as the “Law of Change and Becoming.” It is the doorway to growth, even through loss and grief. It is nice to think that after we died our souls are released to run free in beautiful sun-soaked fields.