Two years ago today...

Bill and I woke up exhausted. We had spent the night crying. I swear I had checked to see if Mama Pajama was still alive every fifteen minutes all night long. But two years ago today, on a Monday morning, we had an appointment to have her put to sleep.

My dear vet really hadn't believed she would make it through the weekend. He had seen her on Friday; he had sat on the floor of the exam room, eye level with her, while I held her in my lap. As she lay there, her urine ran down in a big puddle below. Just ran out of her. He said, "I'm on call all weekend. You call me if you need to before Monday." He didn't think she'd make it to Monday.

She was losing the battle with the damn disease. Neutrophylic Vasculitis. And her kidney filtering system was shot. Her back legs were as wide at the bottom as they were at the top. Stove pipes. We cried all weekend long. We just held her, and told her how much we loved her, and we cried. I almost called the vet on Sunday afternoon. She had a bad spell. Struggling to get enough air, she looked a little panicky.

But she settled.

She had been sleeping between us on the bed. The blue pads rustled every time any one moved, but she was so incontinent that without them we would have all been drenched. She took shallow little breaths, around sixty times a minute, and her heart beat about 200 times a minute. She wouldn't eat. Some days I could get her to eat raw hamburger. Some days a little bread. One day she ate some waffle with syrup. But mostly she said, "no, thanks, I'd rather not."

She had beaten the best Whippets in the country on the coursing field. She had beaten Irish Wolfhounds, and Rhodesian Ridgebacks and Greyhounds, Borzoi, Salukis, Pharaoh Hounds, Deerhounds, Ibizans and Basenjis for Best In Field. Nearly every time she ran for BIF, she won. Twice she had beaten all but one dog in the Triathlon at the National, finishing second. Twice she was Best Altered at the National. But now she was losing the fight for her life.

On that Monday morning, May 12th two years ago, I carried her downstairs, and put her in "her" chair. (The one I had given to Bill for Christmas, which was never going to have dogs allowed in it. She showed us the folly in that, in less than a day.) I could barely see through my swollen eyelids, but I could see that her hind legs were enormous. I took her pulse at somewhere in the vicinity of 260. It's hard to count that fast. This was it.

I fed the other dogs their breakfast and got dressed. I came down to take her to the car. Bill was leaning over her, crying his own goodbye. But...

When he backed away, and she looked up at me, there was something different in her eyes! I nearly choked on my own spit. "Bill! LOOK at her!" He couldn't see anything different, but he said if I had any misgivings not to go. I sat and stared at her for ten minutes. I offered her something to eat, I don't remember what now, and she gamely tried to feign interest, but mostly she just stared at me. "Not yet," I heard her say. "Not just yet."

Mama Pajama has told stories all her life. People who don't hear dogspeak, who don't acknowledge that dogs have thoughts or feelings or opinions about anything, those same people hear Mama Pajama. "Look at that dog! It's saying it likes that chair!" Or, "This one seems to be glad to see me!" Or, "That little one seems to be telling me something." Over and over again we've seen it. People who don't know or even like dogs can hear Mama Pajama. And dog people always answer her.

"OK, Sweetheart, not just yet."

Three days ago, I took the dogs to chase the lure at the Kennel Club. Bill was back East at an art show. Terrie was with the Fed Ex man. Just the dogs and me for mother's day. Mama Pajama was WILD! Screaming for her bunny, trying to leap every two seconds. Wagging and smiling broadly. So very full of life. Better than she's been in two years. I had, I was ashamed to realize, forgotten what she was like before she got sick. I bumped the lure the 30 feet for her. She killed the thing and smiled and wagged, smiled and wagged. Huffed and puffed, but smiled and wagged.

I am so glad, that Mama Pajama can tell her stories.

I am so glad, that even with my useless human ears, I heard her say so clearly,

"Not just yet."