Vivien

Back in 2007, I blogged about a new addition to our family. Vivien, a French bulldog. It was only my second blog post. That was a little over five years ago. And on Monday, as it eventually is with all living things, it was Vivien's time to go.

I don't really want to talk about it. But I need to. A little.

This is day 3 after Cristina and I watched Vivien take her last breath on our living room floor. She had been having some digestive issues for a couple of days, not able to poop to put it bluntly, and things took a turn for the worse on Monday. The vet came, we made a plan, and life--if not Vivi's bowels-- was flowing along normally. He needed to get her hydrated, so we were giving her coconut water every hour. We had the deworming medicine ready to go as soon as she was able to hold down liquids. We didn't know for sure if she had worms, but there was a suspicion, so it was a reasonable course of action.

Never got that far. Though she seemed a bit more normal after the vet's visit, she died around 8:30 pm.

I don't want to recount every detail of her last few days. I don't want to remember her staring at her water bowl just an hour before she died, probably wanting to drink, but knowing she couldn't. I don't want my lasting memories to be the horrible, sinking feeling--surreal really--when it finally hit us that she wasn't breathing anymore. All that stuff is still fresh right now. Still an open wound. But I want desperately to remember the thousands of little moments that made having her in our life so pleasurable. I want the painful memories to fade, as they always do. The sooner the better. But I don't want to lose the happy memories in the process.

I never understood the kind of love a parent has for a child until I had my own. I think it's impossible to truly know that kind of love until you experience it. It's like skydiving. We can all imagine skydiving, we can picture it very clearly, understand what a thrill it must be, but if we've never actually jumped out of a plane, we can never truly understand what it's like to skydive.

Just about everyone has a pet of some kind. And everyone who owns a pet will eventually lose a pet. It's part of the deal. But you can never really know what it feels like to lose a pet until you've lost one. I've had lots of animals in my life. At one point during my childhood, we had several dogs and cats, hamsters, birds, goats, donkeys, and a horse. An abundance of animal riches. I should be so used to losing pets that it's easy to deal with. But losing Vivien has made me realize something. It's not just the loss of the pet that is so hard. The loss is magnified by having a family who is simultaneously experiencing that disconnection of love that occurs when the pet dies. I'm sad that my little Frenchie doesn't greet me at the door anymore, but that sadness is compounded by Alex's sadness that his dog can't snuggle with him, and add Bella's intense, 8-year-old feelings of crushing loss, and Sofia's, and Cristina's. The collective impact is almost unbearable.

So I'm going to make a list. Whatever comes to my mind, in no particular chronological order or priority of importance. These are the things that if we weren't all still so sad, we could talk about at the dinner table with smiles and fondness.

• Vivien snoring. Sometimes so loudly we had to turn the TV up while watching a movie.
• Vivi trembling during car rides, despite our attempts to reassure her that she'd be okay.
• The ka-pow explosion of the dog door when Vivi would pass through it full speed.
• Vivi going outside on cool days and finding a sunbeam to stretch out in. One time I was watching her lay in the sun from the dining room. One of the kids passing through asked me what I was looking at. "Vivi," I said quietly, and she popped up and came inside. She had heard her name through the glass sliding door, through the back porch, and out in the yard.
• Vivi on her back in my lap, getting her belly scratched. She would let me do that for hours if I wanted to.
• Vivi loved being touched. Anytime, anywhere. If you were willing to pet, rub, scratch, or even just touch her, she was yours. Often I would scratch her belly with my foot while sitting on the couch, and when I stopped, she'd reposition herself so that my foot was in place to rub again.
• Any time I would be cutting any kind of meat in the kitchen, she would join me, hoping that I'd share.
• If I dropped something on the kitchen floor, like a piece of meat or cheese, I'd call Vivien. She'd come grunting around the corner from her favorite napping spot in the living room and happily clean up whatever I dropped. Snacks trump naps everytime.
• Vivi sitting when the kids had her food bowl filled and ready to put down.
• Ling Ling rubbing her head against Vivi. She was always very affectionate towards Vivi. On Vivi's last day, while the vet was checking her out, Ling Ling walked up and rubbed her forehead against Vivi's face.
• Putting my finger in the little dent above Vivi's nose. I liked to scratch it for her, since I knew it was a spot she could never get to herself.
• Vivi getting jealous when she saw one of us petting one of the cats. She always wanted in on that action.
• Vivi's terrible gas was not something to remember, but it was always nice to blame your own on her. She didn't mind.
• Taking Viv camping near Payson, Arizona, and going on a hike which turned out to be too long for her and having to carry her most of the way back.
• Watching TV and a dog in the movie barks and Vivi hops up with a return bark and runs out the dog door to investigate.
• Vivi snuggling with Alex or Bella.
• Walking by Bella's room and finding Vivi curled up on Bella's bed, which could only be accomplished by Bella putting her up there. She'd look at me with a guilty look but make no attempt to hop down.
• Vivi eating her food with loud slurps and grunts, and usually a loud belch afterwards.
• Bathing Vivi in the bathtub and when finished, trying to get her to shake off before I toweled her dry. She rarely shook for me.
• Vivi's little stuffed "squirrel" (I think it's actually some kind of Pokemon character). It was the only toy she ever played with. She'd play fetch with it, sit and chew on it, or lick it. Years of use, and yet it never lost it's tail or an ear, though one ear is dangling. We wanted to bury it with her, but when we were burying her, we couldn't find it. We found it a few days later and plan to put it on her grave.
• Vivi loved to lay on things. If there was a discarded towel, pair of dirty jeans, fallen pillow, that was what she would sleep on. She was even able to pull pillows off the sofa or jackets off of their pegs. We'd come home and find a jacket on the floor, now covered with dog hair, and a guilty-looking Viv watching us hang it up again. 

We'll miss you, Viv.