BRIAN MCGRORY
Brown eyes of
wisdom
By Brian McGrory,
Globe Columnist August 31, 2004
They should come
with a warning label, these creatures. They should
come with a label
that says you're going to fall hopelessly in love,only
to have your heart
shattered before you could ever possibly prepare.
And then you face
one of life's truly wrenching decisions.
Which is where I
am now. Specifically, as I type these words I am
on the back deck
of a rented house in Maine surrounded by fields and
forest, watching a
sleeping golden retriever named Harry drift another
day
closer to
death.
He is gorgeous,
this dog, with a gray face that shows the wisdom
gained from his 10
years on Earth and brown eyes that are the most
thoughtful
I've ever seen. He
is sprawled out on the wood, his blond fur damp from
his
morning swim and
his breathing labored from his disease.
And I ponder the
question that has dominated my thoughts for weeks:
How will I know
when the time is right?
He arrived in my
life nearly a decade ago on one of those storybook
Christmas season
nights that is too good to ever forget. He was a gift
to my wife, and
when she opened the box the tears that spilled down
her
face were those of
joy.
Women, of course,
come and go, but dogs are forever, so when the
marriage ended,
Harry stayed with me. Since then, we've moved from
Boston to
Washington, D.C., and back again, fetched maybe a quarter of
a
million throws,
walked, I would wager, over 10,000 miles together. He carried
a
tennis ball in his
mouth for most of them, convinced that anyone who
saw him would be
duly impressed. And, judging by their reactions, he's
right.
Throughout, he has
shown me sunrises and sunsets that I wouldn't
otherwise have
seen. He has taught me that snow is a gift, that the
ocean is there for
swimming, that the coldest winter mornings and the
hottest
summer days are
never as bad as people say.
He has introduced
me to people, kind people, whom I otherwise
wouldn't have met.
He has forced me to take time every morning to
contemplate
the day ahead.
With his tail-swishing swagger, he has taught me to
slow
down, to pause in
an Esplanade field or on a Public Garden bench, the
journey
being as good as
the destination. The big ruse, which I think he
figured out years
ago, was that all these walks were meant for him.
He has been an
anchor in bad times, a ballast amid occasional
uncertainty, a
dose of humility when things might be going a little
too
well. He has been
a sanctuary, a confidant, and an occasional excuse.
He regards it as
his personal mission to make me laugh, whether by a
ritualistic dance
over a pig's ear or a gushing lick to my face. He's
never once said
the wrong thing, and it's impossible to be in a bad
mood
around
him.
All along, he
lives by one simple mantra: Count me in. Anything I'm
doing, he wants to
do as well, no leash or nagging required. At home,
he prefers to lie
on the stoop of our condominium building, presiding
over
the world around
him.
His time, though,
is fleeting, a fact that he's starting to
understand. In
April, his lifelong veterinarian, Pam Bendock, blinked back tears
as
she informed me
that his stomach pains were caused by lymphoma.
Several
rounds of
chemotherapy failed to do what was hoped. Two weeks ago, I
stopped
his
treatments.
These days, he has
lost 10 pounds or more and can't keep food
inside. He often
wakes in the dark before dawn moaning softly in pain. But
by
daybreak, he is
urging me toward the beach or guiding me on another
walk, ball in
mouth, ready to fetch, albeit slowly.
Maybe I should be
embarrassed to admit that a dog can change a man,
but I'm not. So as
the clock winds out on a life well lived, I look back
at
the lessons
learned from this calm and dignified creature, lessons
of
temperance,
patience, and compassion that will guide us to the
end.
And I look into
those handsome brown eyes for the sign that the
time has come.
He'll give it to me, when he's ready. And hard as it will
be,
we'll both know
the journey was better than we could have ever
possibly
hoped.
Brian McGrory is a
Globe columnist. He can be reached at
(c) Copyright 2004
The New York Times Company
