What does it mean to be with death?
To honor death? To find some ounce of love in the death process? For it is the very strength of our love that makes it so hard to unwind the grip our hearts have as we resist that line between death and life as it approaches.
Last summer I had a guru who came into my life in the form of a sweet white, wise Labrador.
His name was Boomer, the best friend, confidant and true love of my friend and housemate at the time.
In July we went on a camping trip to the desert. We spent the weekend climbing, sweaty, dusty and happy, but Boomer was slowing down. Our friends carried him up and down the mountain to the Craig so he could be with us while we climbed. The heat was tough and the air dry and Boomer had his first sneezing attack ending in a bloody nose. The first of many. The bloody noses continued even after returning home and the vet recommended an anti-fungal treatment thinking he may have picked something up in the desert.
My medical training and curiosity led me to look in his nose and my heart sank, I didn’t have the heart to speak it out loud just yet. The next two months we spent time wiping the blood from the carpet and the walls after each sneezing attack, hand-feeding him as his appetite waned and chasing the rogue old boy down the driveway as he valiantly tried escaping each day to take himself on a neighborhood walk.
His spirit never faltered and he held his nobility and steadiness for all of us, my friend’s spirit however started to grapple with the possibility that her furry child was declining faster than any of us had anticipated. This woman, having already lived through losses that no 22-year-old should have to endure, was a pillar of strength, even as she came to me in the kitchen asking what my intuition said.
Weeks before we got the official diagnosis I’d whispered it to myself, “nasal carcinoma”, I didn’t want it to be true - not just for Boomer's sake as he struggled to breathe each time he excitedly greeted us….. but for his momma’s sake and what it would mean for her. Why now, why this? What kind of cruel question when life gives us a choice: to end the life of a being you love with all your heart or to hold on and watch them suffer and lose all dignity?
—— I wandered the hillsides barefoot gathering wildflower blooms, bouquets to grace our home on Boomers last day- A few weeks earlier I’d planted the idea that his euthanasia could be done at home, surrounded by those he loved instead of at a sterile cold vet office. We could have a last celebration of life, Together. ——
It was a perfect kind of summer morning, the sunlight sparkled, the house was bursting with bouquets, the air smelled of bacon. Boomers favorite. We gathered in the backyard as we carried the heaviness of the day and also the reverence for life.
Friends came over and we shared our voices, stories and song- “love surrounds you, angels surround you every day all day long, morning noon and night you are surrounded by the light”. We held my friend as she wept, bravely holding herself and Boomer. She only let it show for a flash, how scared she was to live in a world without him.
I thought to myself “if only every being knew they were this loved on their last days…”
Boomer's eyes closed as the compassionate vet gently found his veins and slowed his heart. On her way out, the vet said she’d never experienced a goodbye quite like this one. Thank you, Boomer for being a wise friend and teacher and showing me just how beautiful a life full of love can be. The point wasn’t to erase the pain, the pain still came with full force, but there was a choice to make it more beautiful, to make it intentional, to hold, to cry, to share love one last time.
I wish every being could know just how much they are loved in their last moments. The amount of presence we give one another can turn a finite moment infinite.
Yours in Health,
Dr. Elise Sulser ND
