Day Six of Remembering

The Marbles of Grief

Grief is like a bowl of shiny marbles; my eye is always drawn to a different color and just when I settle on that one color, I’m pulled to another. Yet the bowl is finite – only a certain number of marbles contained in a limited space. And there is grief in these limitations as well. No more photos though I have thousands already, no more walks in the woods or excursions to the beach though I will still go; no more games of fetch or tug; no more cuddles on the couch or laughter at the small things, the daily things that fill the bowl with so many pretty marbles. 

Rubin came to us from a breeder, but I use that term lightly. I thought I understood breeders, but only later would I learn realize his breeder was more interested in the money than the quality of the dogs she produced. Still, once you fall for a dog, how can you return it? How can you give it away to anyone else?

We picked him out from a cluster of puppies and made the long journey to Central Oregon to pick him up and bring him home. He was adorable; all curls and fluff, all confidence and boldness and 100% puppy. His specific quirks started from the first day he walked through our door. We’d ordered a new dog bed and it arrived the day we returned with him in tow. We opened the large box, pulled out the oversized dog bed, and immediately he mounted it and started humping. We were shocked and thought it was just a fluke until it became in almost daily habit. 

I can still picture it now — how he’d grab that bed at the corner and start thrusting his hips. We had hardwood floors and his little feet could never get traction so he soon learned to lay on his side and sideways hump. It was hysterical at the time, but only later did we realize it was how he dealt with his intense anxiety. We learned this after coming home numerous times to find the dog bed in shreds, foam pieces all over the floor and stuck in his curls. “Separation anxiety,” the vet behaviorist diagnosed and so we began a series of supplements and dog training in an attempt to curb the anxiety and the subsequent behavior. 

It took awhile and for about 8 years, we were successful. Then, in his senior years, the behavior returned again. This was most likely due to his medications, some actually warning of hyper-activity, but it became a nightly ritual for the last year of his life. He’d eat dinner, head to the living room, and pull at his bed in a frisky and playful way. Then it was game on and there was nothing you could do to actually stop him. He was obsessed. 

He had other quirks too. A bad jaw, a bum knee, and tendency toward anorexia — a refusal to eat until we started feeding him raw food (and then we had a good run of eating that also lasted for about 8 years.) Rubin had terrible allergies that lead to skin and ear infections that if we didn’t manage, turned into staph infections. He was, in may ways, a challenge. We had to develop a strict routine for leaving him alone so that when we came home, our couch and throw pillows were not ripped to shreds. He barked and lunged at certain dogs, he demanded our attention with excessive barking, and he was obstinate and stubborn at the most inopportune times.

Once we took him on a cross country ski trip. I kept him tethered to me for most of the time and he absolutely loved running in the snow next to me. Feeling confident, I let him off the leash and while he ran by my side for the rest of the day, when it was time to go back on leash, he raced away, keeping just enough distance between us that I could not reach him to pull him toward me. He danced and barked at the game he thought we were playing and I tried everything I could think of to get him to come back to me. I even resorted to lying in the snow with lunch meat on my chest. He was so fast and so ornery, he snatched that meat and raced off laughing and chewing, just out of my grasp. We finally gave up and just got back on our skis and headed to the car where, once we opened the door, he just leapt in as if that’s what he wanted the whole time. 

Despite all of that, we absolutely loved him. Now I miss the humping and the insistence, the daily routine we went through to keep him healthy with herbs and supplements, and the way he greeted people he knew – docking his head in between their knees, sometimes much to their displeasure. I miss the simple things like the sound of his breathing late in the night or the big sigh he gave when he finally settled down. The way he taunted his dog friends to chase him, leapt high in the air to avoid a friendly tackle, or raced around the yard in figure 8s all by himself, the biggest smile on his face. I miss the obstinance and the stubbornness and the straight out defiance.  

I once told a friend that Rubin was 98% sweet and 2% asshole. I miss the asshole as much as I miss the sweet boy; I miss the boy who laid his head in my lap when he felt ill and sat by my side just so he could lean against me. These are my marbles of grief in a bowl of finite space and each marble makes my heart swell and my eyes teary.