I knock softly, then slowly open the door. Teddy goes before me, a short leash’s length ahead of me. We enter another room for the dying. A man sleeps in one hospital bed, and in another a woman is asleep. Single beds, I think to myself, and consider the irony. I take another step forward and see a woman, a sitter, in a chair around the corner nearest to the bed where the woman sleeps. The sitter is keeping watch for Mr. and Mrs. Carington, an elderly married couple who are, unusually enough, in a hospice together.
Sometimes hospice patients hear us enter and wake. If they do, we make small talk. If they’re able, they reach out to pet Teddy. He will then move closer to them, getting their scent, enjoying the attention. If they remain asleep, we linger for a moment, in a kind of silent tribute perhaps, before making our exit.
Teddy is a huge, completely white Great Pyrenees. He’s also a therapy dog. My wife and I adopted him two years ago. He’s four years old, and as is often the case with rescue dogs, his earlier life wasn’t the easiest. He was kept crated for many hours each day, so much so that his bottom teeth are pretty much gone. He kept gnawing on the crate door, but no one would let him out.
Now he has a purpose. Great Pyrenees are often protectors of livestock. Sheep, goats, cows, horses, and even geese are their charges. My wife Linda and I don’t have livestock, so we decided to train Teddy to become a therapy dog. Pyrs like to have a job, and being a therapy dog seems to agree with Teddy.
Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Carington awaken. I make small talk with the sitter. I tell her that I remember the Caringtons from the year before, when they both lived in the Alzheimer’s unit of this same retirement community in rural Texas, between Austin and Houston. We own a small farmhouse nearby. I remember that, when first seeing Teddy then, Mr. Carington called to his wife Mary to come see the dog. Teddy is something of a spectacle, so this isn’t so unusual. However, Mr. Carington exclaimed, “The dog’s tail is like a white bedsheet!” An odd visual description, but that is why I remembered this couple. On that day, Mrs. Carington emerged from their room in the Alzheimer’s unit to take a look. She smiled, apparently agreeing with her husband.
Now, Teddy and I leave the Caringtons’ room, and I have the same thought I often do when visiting these people. I may not see them again. They may be gone. But I also know that others will soon take their places. There is a rhythm to this.
As Teddy and I walk down the hall towards another room, to visit the next person on my list, I’m still thinking about the Caringtons. Death is a sad thing, yes, but there must be some kind of tender solace in finishing off life along with your partner, your spouse, your husband or wife. Together. Such a strange thing, in fact, and I have not seen such a thing before during any of our visits.
I look for my own wife, Linda, in the long hallway of disappearing lives. I do not see her, but I know she’s with another person who also has a therapy dog. They’re visiting someone else.
Alone with Teddy, I think about our own lives. We’ve been married over 40 years, but there have been times when I doubted if we would continue. Six years ago, Linda was diagnosed with breast cancer. In addition to the surgery for that, it was also discovered that she had a thymoma, a tumour lodged between one lung and her heart. That required another surgery prior to the scheduled chemotherapy and radiation treatments. At the time, I had many doubts, as did Linda. What would happen next? What would become of us? But things worked out over the months that followed. Then, when Linda finished her last radiation treatment, I fell ill. I was so weak I was almost falling over. That’s when I was diagnosed with colon cancer. Several operations later, I too began chemotherapy. Months later, I finished with it and we both moved forward. Then, a year or so later, our beloved Golden Retriever was diagnosed with lymphoma. River was gone in five weeks.
When we said goodbye to River, I think we were also saying goodbye to our personal cancer era. We decided to adopt a new dog, a different breed. We chose Teddy, and he’s been a true blessing. A therapy dog, he takes us places we would never have ventured before.
I’ve arrived at the next room, but before I knock softly on the door, I think of the Caringtons again. I think of Linda and I, and how on so many nights, we each watched the other suffer. We wondered what each of us would possibly do if the other departed early. I never considered how time and circumstances might change things, how we might depart together. The odds of this happening are very rare indeed, so in a way, I envy the Caringtons. Very few of us will be so lucky.
[su_panel background=”#f2f2f2″ color=”#000000″ border=”0px none #ffffff” shadow=”0px 0px 0px #ffffff”]Christopher Woods is a writer, teacher and photographer who lives in Texas. His books include a novel, The Dream Patch; a prose collection, Under a Riverbed Sky; and a book of stage monologues for actors, Heart Speak. To view his photography, visit his online gallery.
image: Kjunstorm (Creative Commons BY)
