Letter From The Desert: 18 years on

I wrote the below-quoted 11 years ago today.

Zeke has a squirrel treed on the power pole behind the photographer.

Once upon a time there was a six-legged beast with two heads that ambled around the hills. One head was arguably smarter. The other head, as all who knew the beast agreed, was wiser and far kinder.

One day the beast split in two. Only a lesser part was left, and it tried to wander the hills as before. Eventually, after a few months of practice, it no longer seemed completely wrong to stagger around on two feet instead of six. It wasn’t the same, though, and the two-legged fragment knew it never would be.

Seven years on, the lesser portion of the beast that had been went out at night to walk in the desert. Its too-clever, too-stupid head tried to imagine how the wiser, kinder head lost seven years earlier would see the night, moon two days new behind a distant cloud, patches of stars shining faintly. Orion and Canis Major showed to the south.

The half-beast had never expected to live so long after the amputation. A mile into the desert it turned off its light, made its way home by scent and starlight the way it thought its lost better half would have done.

And now that that amputation happened so much longer ago, longer in fact than the six-legged beast had lived, that first sentence of the last paragraph is ever more true.

My life seems these days to have been divided into two parts: Everything before 12:30 pm Pacific Time on February 3, 2007, when the veterinarian came to Zeke’s house to end his suffering, and everything after.

Zeke and a younger version of yours truly at McKee Springs, Dinosaur National Monument, July 1996

For the last 18 years, each late January, I have been beset by unfamiliar feelings of hopelessness and despair. It takes me a few days to make the connection between my mood and the looming anniversary. Last year I thought I had it figured out: I’d head a little south from Tucson (where I was at the time) to Tubac, and spend that fateful hour between 12 and 1 sitting underneath some cottonwoods. I did that, and it seemed to help, and then I went to Saguaro National Park for a walk. Along the trail I encountered a nice looking family; Mom, Dad, a young daughter, and an aged dog with a bit of a limp. Dad warned the daughter not to let the dog bother me, but without effect (and he needn’t have worried). Dog came limping up to me happily and leaned on my legs.

“Looks like you’ve been hiking a lot!” I said to the dog. The Dad corrected me gently. “She’s been fighting cancer for a while, and she doesn’t have much time left. We’re trying to make sure the rest of her life is full of good things.”

That did it. I dissolved. “That’s wonderful of you to do that for her,” I said. “I lost my, um, well, the dog of my life 17 years ago today. seventeen years from now you’ll remember that you did this for her and that memory will bring you comfort.”

I swallowed hard.

“And I remember when Zeke was on his way out that people would come up to me and say compassionate things that didn’t help. I apologize if that’s what I’m doing. But I’m just really grateful to you for doing this.” The dog looked up at me, a flicker of concern crossing her face, and began to lick my hand.

I wrote a book about my life with Zeke, which you can buy at the link below.

Buy Walking with Zeke from Bookshop.org.