Grace, (Gracie's) Eulogy

Originally Posted: Monday, March 09, 2009
Written: aprox 6 days after my Doggie Daughter Gracie died.
Current mood:Somber/sad
Category: Writing and Poetry
So it's been 6 days, almost one full week. I still don't know whether
I'm coming or going. My Doggie daughter (Gracie Marie) is gone, and I
still don't know. I can listen to "Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces"
even though I played it while my sister and I washed her off and
brushed out her fur and cut the mats out. I can hear it and usually be
okay while hearing it. I can't decide what to eat though. I can't
decide if I'm hungry or not hungry. Sick or not sick. I can't stand at
the sink brushing my teeth without having someone to talk to and not
remember the way her paws clutched at me in the throws of death. I
can't stand to be alone to long but I can't stand to be around most
people either. I can't stand being in this house without her in it,
but I can't stand leaving this house because she's buried outside and
I don't want to leave her alone. She's not alone since her body is all
that remains and her spirit is at home on the other side, but I still
can't stand to leave her alone. I can't remember anything but I can't
forget her last 40 minutes of life, some of it spent arguing with Dad
over stupid money I couldn't find to take her to the vet that seems so
irrelevant now and was such a waste of time! I was going to get her to
the vet, going to help her but she died before I could. I hear her
panting, feel her heart racing beneath my palm. I remember patting her
and feel her fur and hear her struggling to breathe. She tried to go
potty but couldn't. Dad tried to get her to drink water but she
couldn't. I tried to save her but I couldn't. It was just like that. I
was watching L&O SVU: "Rage" & then my sister is saying:
"We think Grace's dying!" She's crying & I'm asking
"Why? Where is she?"
When I get out there, their all sitting around her on the flor, on the
couches & their crying or alternately acting calm. They aren't even
doing anything! Their just sitting there, so I sit and reach out for
her. My mother nudges her forward and I take hold of her, start
patting her and trying to calm her down. I say
"Call the vet."
They ask for the number and I give it. They call, ask me how old she
is and for once, I hear myself giving the correct answer:
"Thirteen."
Usually I screw up and say she's five. In my mind, Gracie is five, was
always five. She never grew older, never changed. She just didn't,
couldn't, wouldn't. But she did. I was worried about what it would be
like for her to go blind since she was a Cocker Spaniel. Little did I
realize that her heart murmur would take her first.
I feel her spirit pushing me forward, hear that long breath. The one
that seemed to take almost a full minute, and then there was no more
panting. I thought that was it, but she kept fighting. She kept taking
small breaths, inhale stop. Exhale stop. Inhale stop. Exhale stop. She
should have died at 4:15 but fought like hell for another 20 minutes.
It was 4:35 when she finally gave up. I can feel the couple of times
her head seemed to spin completely around. It jerked and brushed the
side of my face as I held her tight. I can feel her front paws
clutching at me and remember that sound her head made as it moved like
that. I can feel the jerking and hear the breathing. I was doing
things before for the most part, but now I'm home and we went shopping
but couldn't stay gone. It's 2AM and I'm sitting here typing now. I'm
sick and trying to hold in all my tears. It seems like their endless.
I remember wanting to hit Mom because she new Grace was gone but she
said:
"Lisa, c'mon. Maybe it's just the flu and she's really sick and we'll
take her to the vet and she'll be alright! They'll help her!"
Then she started crying. I was stuck with her and Becca & Eddie and
Dad, Bella and Cymmy kept coming into the living room to investigate.
It was like a fucking circus and I just wanted to hit them all! I
wanted to run into my room and lay on the bed with her in my arms and
never let go. I wanted to take her away where I could keep her all to
myself, didn't have to let anyone else see or touch or take care of
her. I wanted it just to be us! Her and I and noone else! I remember
Dad saying we should take her outside. He opened the door and I set
her down on the porch. He walked out and closed the door and I put on
my shoes and coat and was gone out to the porch to. He said she didn't
look well at all and I picked her up and held her. I kept saying
everything would be okay. We went back in and she had had her first
spasm outside. I knew she was leaving but I couldn't let her. I wanted
her to stay with me! I wanted her here but I did finally tell her to
let go. She still kept fighting and I had to say it again. I could
bearly get the words out. It was like my entire throat closed up and I
couldn't breathe let alone speak. Then there was mom calling her
sister and me phoning Holly and the other mother. There was brushing
and petting and holding. I asked Becca if she thought Mom would make
our BLTs we'd been planning for dinner, I just felt like we were
supposed to keep moving. 6 days later, I'm still trying to move. It's
like everything is still in slow motion. I eat because I'm "supposed
to". I talk to slow and swallow to fast and don't chew at all.
Nothing's real but everything's to real and I feel nothing and
everything. I cry and then I'm "fine" but not really. Fine just means
not crying. Crying means not fine. Food is ok or bad. Ok means "good"
and bad means "not tasting, not feeling textures". I'm either
comfortable "not cold" or uncomfortable "freezing from the inside
out." Music doesn't even help any more. I sing and I talk to people
and I type (some) and I check my youtube account, but I don't really
do anything. I'm watching myself do everything. My brain is overloaded
with images of Grace. Like a friend said,
"You want to focus not on the bad memories that make you cry, but on
the good memories that make you cry."
She's right, everything makes me cry. Seeing Duke and Snowball and
Tigger and KittyKitty and Belle and Carmel makes me cry. If I'm not
near them, that makes me cry to.
I keep thinking I should have made it to the vet, should have saved
her. She lived a good life but I still should have helped. I can feel
her body in my arms, she was warm because I kept her that way. I held
her almost every second that we weren't brushing her. If I wasn't
holding her I was lying curled up around her. No reason to protect her
in death but that's what I was doing. My arms don't ache anymore ,
neither to my legs from standing with her so long. Now the only things
that ache are my heart and soul, both things that are intangible. I
can hear my sister saying ew and cringing when I moved her body and
blood came out of her mouth and nose. I can see her lying on the floor
and hear her boyfriend telling her to get up and hear her saying that
she doesn't want to. It should have been me on the floor but it
couldn't be me because I had to take care of Gracie. She needed me and
I couldn't fumble the ball, I had to help her, but I did fumble the
ball because she isn't here. All I have left of my baby daughter is a
collar! A collar and to many memories that I can't live with or
without! A collar that smells like her and animals all around me who
belong to others, to remind me that I'm not owned anymore, that I
don't belong to a pet anymore. Animals that simultaneously comfort and
discomfort me. Animals that simultaneously love me and torment me just
by their existence.
It was suggested that maybe if I could figure out why Grace was put
here I could figure out why I was here. In other words, why I was
supposed to go on without her. I think she was here to teach me
independence. I remember my parents saying that I could take her for
walks. There was my incentive to gain more independence and stop being
such a chicken shit! My words not theirs. But I didn't take her for
walks, I didn't hold her as much as I should have or play with her as
much as I should have or value her as much as I should have or even
realize just how much I loved her! I didn't brush her as much as I
should have or cut out the mats from her fur as much as I should have,
and although none of those things would have stopped her from dying
when it was her time they still plague me. Their glaring inadequacies
on my part and now I have no way to remedy them because she's gone.
She loves me unconditionally still, I feel her here, but I don't love
me unconditionally and now everything I should have done or didn't do
haunts me. I shouldn't have let her drink out of the toilet even
though Dad thought it was a great idea. I shouldn't have spanked her
so hard that she cried out the day she bit Bella's ear and I shouldn't
have tossed her away from me the day she bit me after I spanked her
for biting Becca. All these things I shouldn't have done and even
though I apologized for them and she forgave me I can't forgive me now
that she's gone and I feel like I have to apologize for them over and
over again. I feel like I have to make her understand just how sorry I
really am and that I didn't mean to treat her the way she was treated
before she came to me. She was abused before, we got her from the
animal shelter and I never meant to do that to her again. I wanted to
make her life better and pamper and protect her and keep her in the
lap of luxury like she deserved. I feel her pushing me to move on but
I don't want to. I want to go outside and lay on her grave forever, to
just freeze to death and feel nothing. I want to crawl out of my skin
and run and run and run until this is all over and I can't feel or
remember any of it anymore. I want to forget everything and remember
everything and keep busy and not move at all. I want to go back to
Friday and apologize for sitting on her paws accidentally when I went
to check the answering machine and she was laying in her usual spot at
the end of the couch. I want to hold her all day long and give her the
bath I was supposed to give her and let her know how much I love her!
I want her back!!
Please stay my Gracie, my baby, please stay!!!
---
Gracie Marie Medina
Best Doggie Daughter of them all!
Original birthdate unnone.
First birthday with us 4/11/02.
Died Friday 1/23/09 4:35PM.
Mommy misses you baby!

9:04 AM

To My Daughter

If you aren't interested in 'woo woo' SKIP THIS POST!
Dearest Olivia,
I have no idea where to begin with this. I've had an urge for quite some time to write this but have pushed it away. As much as I've learned about myself the past few years, about the power of positive thinking, affirmations etc, some things just still seem 'over the top.'
On Monday March 5th 2012 though, something happened that I COULDN'T ignore.
I was diagnosed as having polycystic ovarian syndrome *PCOS* back in my late teens. Radical hair growth on my face and rearend and weight gain suggested this. I could also say my flaming temper suggested it, but truth be told, I come from a long line of hot tempers so the truth is that probably didn't play as much of a role as I would like it to sometimes. In other words, I won't ever say: "The PCOS made me do it!" It's just not a defense. And as for the weight gain, your grandmother and great grandmother have had gastric bypass and stomach stapling respectively. Your great aunt and second cousins either are or have been overweight and so on it goes. So the truth is, I was given this diagnosis after two separate ultrasounds found NO cysts and because hormone tests revealed an elevated level of testosterone. I guess if it walks like a duck but doesn't quack like a duck *no cysts on ovaries* it's still a duck. Hopefully by the time you read this letter that won't be the case anymore.
This diagnosis also came on the heels of my missing period. I started on my 11th birthday, what a present!! and then just stopped abruptly. I was put on birth control but was so sick of taking pills I eventually quit them.
Aside from being told I had PCOS I wasn't told much of anything else other than: "You probably won't get Pregnant."
Add to this something entirely different. As a young teen I was also told that I had a 25% chance of having a baby with a Tessier Cleft, only not only would it be more severe than mine, it would also leave my Baby deaf on top of being blind and mentally disabled. That 25% chance was translated into a 1 in 4 chance, meaning if I had 4 Babies, it was likely that one of them would be born with my birth defect. I fought to hold onto hope as I ONLY DESIRED ONE Baby, just ONE!
So fast forward all these years later. It's March 5th 2012 around 3:20 in the afternoon and we're heading to my doctors appointment. I was having a recurring ear infection at the time and no matter what they did it just wouldn't go away! So we're on our way there when my Body just starts doing Her thing! I leaned up front and asked Rebecca if anything besides blood would come out of me at such a high volume. She suggested discharge but I intuitively new that wasn't it! Sure enough, when I got out of the car your Grandfather said I'd left a stain on his backseat! Lol. He also yelled: "Your pants are dark! Noone will know!"
Truth be told, that wasn't my first thought. My first thought was: "I can get Pregnant!!! I! CAN! GET! PREGNAAAAANT!!" I had no partner at the time nor even any prospects for one but I didn't care!
Whereas most women back then dreaded their periods I was ecstatic!! I wanted to run into the office shouting at the top of my lungs! Lol! I didn't do that of course, but I wanted to!
Ever since I was young I had Desired a Baby so desperately that I had a doll Melissa whom I attempted to breastfeed! After that I would tell anyone who listened I was going to name my daughter Aleata! I'm still not sure where the name came from, but it stuck for a long time. I volunteered at a daycare center in high school, hated that my best friend, your Aunt Holly could get babysitting gigs and I couldn't, and even felt flutters in my stomach. My stomach would flutter and flip like you were already in there!
That day when I got my period for the first time in to many years to count, the fluttering came back! I was so excited to think my Body had come back of Her own accord! I hadn't taken any pills *I DO NOT begrudge those who do and signed petitions often when birth control and the right to it was under threat* but I myself had rejected it in favor of Goddess and Universe and it had worked in my favor!
Today is Saturday March 10th, and I'm excitedly awaiting my next chapter.
I started reading a book called "Calling in the One" by Catherine Woodward Thomas a couple months ago and it is designed to 'call in your soulmate.' I had no idea whether or not it would really work, especially considering my living conditions at the time, severely strapped finances and relying on your Grandfather for transportation, which meant I was never alone, nor did I frequent trendy cafes or other places where I might have met a partner, but the other Women in my study group predicted changes for me anyway, and I have to confess I'm now wondering if this wasn't one of those changes.
I also let go of your grandmother in love around this time *thanks to the book* and wrote letters to Congress members, rockstars, movie stars, journalists and anyone I thought could or would help. I started making lifestyle changes, one of which involved  getting on the treadmill for at least an hour each day. You would have had to know the old me to know that this WAS NOT something I would have done back in the day! I called it exercise instead of a lifestyle change and complained bitterly that I HATED exercise! It was 'the E word' and off limits the way other people make words like damn and shit off limits! Lol. But reading that book changed me in subtle ways and getting my period again changed me in bigger ways. I was ELATED! ECSTATIC! IN ABSOLUTE ECSTASY over it all!! I wanted to roll around like our family Cat Tigger did after we gave him catnip!
Anyway, I suppose there is no real closing to this letter, I just had to put this all down in hopes that you will someday read it and know just how much you were Desired and loved. I talk to you often when I'm on the treadmill and feel like quitting. I talk to you when I'm drinking a half cup of chocolate milk instead of a giant glass that holds 2 and a half cups. I talk to you when I'm contemplating the 6 pack of Reese Peanut Buttercup Eggs they have out for Easter and when I'm longing for an ice cold can of Coke! And believe me, I do long occasionally. I talk to you when I'm foregoing McDonalds and Tony's and Panda Express and I talk to you when I'm reading about preparing for a Pregnancy and having a preconception visit with a doctor. I haven't even found the right provider yet, but I know I will!
Finally, I talk to you when I'm reading about the oldest sperm bank in America and considering picking a donor. Part of me wonders if this is selfish and thinks of what it would have been like without your Grandfather around. Another part of me aches for you so badly and fears I won't conceive you until I'm 'old' and old to me is 30! It's 30 because at 35 chances of birthdefects begin to increase and with my PCOS and no prospective partners I fear that by the time Goddess provides for me my chances will be gone! It is at that precise moment when I realize I'm coming from a place of fear and close down the sperm donor website. I have bookmarked it but won't be back until I can say I'm there because I Desire to be and not because I'm afraid. I'm there out of love and not out of fear.
With All My Love,
Mom