4pm the health department on a weekday the little window with a lady behind it sorta smiling but really all she does all day is see the names of dead people

I am sharing this again (unpaid) as a little homage to Perm who left us this week last year. I loved her so. I tell our new dog all about her.

My dad needed a copy of my mom’s death certificate ASAP for a real estate transaction, and we had both lost the ones we had after she passed away. I think I threw mine in some box or creased it sharply and stuck it in a book. I didn’t want to touch it or see it at all. It was a reminder of truth. In black type. They not only hold the names and dates and pertinent life information but also the way someone died. I don’t want to be reminded. He was really hounding me to get him one as she passed away in Columbus and he could not get one in their local health department. I went on Monday and stood in line.

Everyone at 3:59 PM at the Columbus Health Department looks like they do not want to be at the Columbus Health Department. Little crying babies. Tiny ones. Old men. Women with paperwork in their arms. Cops. Men who slump in chairs.

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My dog had been dying. For several weeks. I tried to pretend she was not dying, but I knew it, and the vet knew it, and it was terrible. There was much stress and fear. There were so many tears.

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I have spent so much money on cleaners for the house. I feel like it still smells, and I may have to burn candles for a month or possibly replace some carpet. It was so awful to see our baby unable to go outside in time. It was so frustrating and sad.

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The lady behind the glass at the Health Department is a great typist. I focused on her hands. Probably in her late 60s. Beautifully soft and veiny like ropes. They flew across the keyboard. They typed my mother’s name.

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There is this cookie chain here that is so decadent that it is almost gross but so good. Do you know what I mean? Like if you were to eat a whole cookie, you would probably feel sick. They gave us a chocolate and peanut butter cookie to feed Prem before they injected her with the stuff that puts them down. She was not really eating much the last week, but she sure ate that cookie. It was like she couldn’t believe it. It made me cry more than anything. I cried into the phone in the parking lot to Joe. We both felt sick. Sad. Undone.

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Maybe there is a strangeness in the closure of circles of life. Our dog and maybe this house I live in is the last historical relic of a marriage that ended. What tethers us together anymore? I mean, I know my children are this universal glue, this cosmic stuff between us, but our dog died, and maybe I want a new house someday. Most of it is just stardust. All of it tiny closing circles.

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As I open the front door for the last several days, the absence of her bark is deafening. So is lately the sound of boy chaos too. My three boys are very out in the world being alive and adventurous, and two of them are in love with other humans. The house is a pit stop for food and sleep. I am a breezeway. I am a pocketbook. I am an annoying oracle of truth. I am lucky when they tell me their pain and fortunes. When did everyone grow up?

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My mom was very clear about life being precious and how we should all be in harmony together because you just never know. She was a walking Mary Oliver poem with some Bible verses thrown in for good measure. But she knew. She had mastered the lesson of living in the moment. Of being unafraid of change. I miss her telling me all the holy things in the universe. I miss her reminding me that I just need to let things come and let things go.

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After we left the vet, we went to a restaurant to avoid going back home. Keith took us, and we all looked red-faced and wrecked. My kids acknowledged that they wished Joe could have been there, but it happened too fast for him to drive up. They also agreed that they were happy Keith was there. They almost hazed him in with the “you’re a part of the family now—I guess” talk. They meant it, though, even if they acted tough. It made all of us softer like the booth we sank into.

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We all talked a lot that dinner and told stories and cried. I let them order anything. I ordered bourbon. I let go of being strong. I leaned into Finn and his big shoulder. I looked at Keith and felt secure. Everything is always changing and starting and ending. Lots of things can be true at the same time. This is one of the lessons of the world I am trying to learn. But I am aware that I am busy out here in the weird world making new circles where people feel loved, and creativity and magic are forming, and I need to be more mary-oliver-shelia-turn about it more. Here I go.

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What a wild little rascal of a dog we had and raised. May she be somewhere in the universe, a collection of sweet atoms and husky barks. She was quirky and perfect. So were we and continue to be. The circles keep forming. We are doing OK. We are not only thinking of death. How could we with all this love?

ilysm.

xo,

Amy