Remembering Tommie

Last Monday, Tommie, my dog for the past 16 years, passed away lying next to me while I slept. It wasn’t a complete surprise since he was so old, but it was still heartwrenching none the less.

My husband, Rob, and I realized Tommie wasn’t acting like himself after the two of us had a long discussion about all the different things we had to do in the coming week to quickly move on the rebuild of our house which had been our obsession for the past 5 months, second to our baby.  See, Rob, Tommie, and I had been staying with my parents down in Sunnyvale since the new year, as our new home is being put together. Since here, we had our first child, Milo, which has forced us to focus most of our energy on the care of the baby. We took over my parents’ living room and turned it into a nursery with a twin bed for whomever took care of Milo during the night. Tommie spent his days nested on a fleece blanket behind a glider chair in the nursery where I breastfed, and he spent the nights upstairs with either Rob or me – whoever didn’t have night duty.

As you can imagine, this past month has been incredibly trying. Rob and I have been physically and emotionally spent as new parents not quite living at home. Rob has taken on all the stress of the remodel. I’ve taken on stress of having a baby rely on my body for all his nourishment, as I recover from the birth. In addition, I've taken on most of the nighttime care as Rob had returned to work since the birth of the baby. Tommie was not immune to all the things that have been going on either – whether it was moving out of our place in San Francisco back Dec or adopting new daily routines. He saw a lot of attention diverted away from him to the new baby. 

Knowing this, Rob and I made it a point to walk Tommie each evening so he got some bonding time and exercise each day. Rob actually had been doing pack walks every night for more than 6 months – a ritual started back on Guerrero St in SF. The last couple of nights, however, Tommie showed some reluctance with participating in what used to be the highlight of his day. He would pause at the front door, halfway down the driveway, pause, and pause again a few times at the very beginning of the walks. However, Rob and I pulled Tommie along since we knew the exercise was good for him and his arthritic legs.

The night before he died, we noticed Tommie was especially slow moving, his breathing impaired, his heart racing and neck craned. Based on Rob’s experience with the death of his cat, Fuzz, years back, Rob's gut told him this could be our last night with Tommie even though we had a relatively normal pack walk to Starbucks earlier in the day. 

I, however, had hope. Although a dog, Tommie had nine lives resiliency. But I also knew we had so much going on with the care of the newborn, the house stuff, and the stress of living with parents, we couldn’t possibly fit a sick dog or the decision to put Tommie down on our list of things to worry about.  It really sounds stupid, but that’s how I felt. It was simply bad timing - I couldn't take on any more. Rob suggested we take him into emergency care, either he, or I, or the whole crew including Milo could pile into the car at midnight.  I felt we couldn’t possibly do that either as I pictured us all in a depressing pet emergency room all night with the baby crying and me having to pump or nurse. Plus, I dreaded spending exorbitant amounts of money towards heroics that would be needed in order to prolong Tommie’s life for what…a few more days or months? So I said I'd take Tommie to the vet in the morning.

So Rob suggested I either take the night off from Milo duty or have Tommie sleep with me downstairs. Since Rob had to be up at 5:45 AM the next day, I thought having Tommie sleep in bed with me would be most prudent.

That night, Tommie and I cared for Milo. Surprisingly, it was one of the most smoothest nights I had with the newborn. Tommie would watch me feed the baby from bed, his breaths now a staccato and his neck craned even more. During the last feeding which was around 5:30 AM, I looked at Tommie, then down at Milo with my eyes welling up, dripping tears. Milo stared up at me with that wrinkle of concern between his eyes, an expression he got from Rob. Tommie rested his head on the bed and watched. Once Milo went back to sleep, I held Tommie in my arms. Tight. Then I got us both comfortably positioned for the next round of sleep on the small twin bed. I laid on my side and he was at my legs, the way we slept hundreds of times before.

I woke up, probably only an hour later when Rob said goodbye to me before he left for work. As I lay there, I asked Rob, how is he? Tommie had since moved himself right by my chest. I felt the warmth of his body and no more wheezing. It felt peaceful.

Rob checked on Tommie and I knew from the expression on his face and the words that didn’t come from his mouth that Tommie was gone. Rob carried his body to his fleece blanket and back to the corner of the bed. By then, Milo woke up. We all gathered around Tommie.

Rob hugged Tommie and put his ear close to Tommie’s chest. He was convinced he felt a faint heartbeat. Between tears, he told me to continue to touch him and say my goodbye in case Tommie was still there. He told me you don't want to abandon him at that moment. I hugged Tommie and told him how much I loved him. I rocked Milo in my other arm. We cried and said our goodbyes to him. Even though he was deaf, I hope he heard us and felt us there. He likely passed away then, surrounded by his family.

I’m not sure how to mourn the death of my companion who I met when I was 26 (I will turn 42 this year). He's the dog I came home to everyday after work, greeting me with profuse dog wags. He'd run "Figure Eights" around me when I returned from long trips or most recently, meeting me at the front door when I returned from the hospital after birthing the baby. He was there when Rob asked me to marry him at Land's End. And during sad, lonely or just plain sucky times, I could count on hugging on his white fluffiness who knew to love me for no reason. Through all the life changes or when life didn't move fast enough for me, he was my constant.

But now my constant companion is gone.  I can only believe the way he left me was purposeful. He passed on during the hour the whole house slept (even Milo!) and he managed to walk over to my side so I was with him but didn’t have to go through the agony of seeing him take his last breath. 

As I go through my days, all I see is him and think about how he left me: with the start of a new life with Rob, new Baby Milo, and the soon-to-be-finished new home that we were looking forward to sharing with him. 

It's hard to grasp that my buddy is gone, but I find some comfort in knowing he’s taken care of me in the most selfless and loyal way I could ever imagine. I told Rob, I want to make sure Tommie didn't just slip away from our lives and that we don't recognize how he left us. He asked me, do you want to recognize how he lived or how he died? I responded, both. I won't ever forget all the memories I have of him. They are all around me. How he died and how I remember his death maybe a coping mechanism for me as I go through this sad time. Maybe I've romanticized it to make me feel better. But I'd like to remember him as my companion all these years and when he passed away he didn't abandon me but left me with my new life companions, you and Milo, I told Rob. To me, that is the greatest gesture of love I've ever experienced.