I was lying on the floor with the old dog Maisie tonight. It was because when I went by her, she laid down funny, like she couldn’t get up. You never know when the last night is going to be, and it’s been 113 degrees, so hot we literally cooked a live chicken in the backyard yesterday. One of the chickens just didn’t look right and then this morning, there she is, fallen over by the water cooler. The pretty white and black chicken. She wasn’t all that intelligent. She looked pretty, but wasn’t ever good at figuring out how to get back through the fence once she got out, even if it was open pretty wide. So because she was pretty but not smart, we called her Barbie chicken. She probably died of thirst, right next to the waterer, but had forgotten how to drink.
But Maise, she’s been with me 16 years. An old yellow lab mix, we picked her out at the pound when she was 6 months old. Leaning against the chain link fence in Annapolis, Will and I took her out to test her out in the outdoor pen and all she did was run around madly. We took her home. She was best friends for years to big black Jed. Then Jed died. Then Will died, then Maisie came to live with me in California.
Then we had millions of kids, and Maisie patiently took up as little space as possible. Then we got crazy black dog Owen, and huge dog Hank. Maisie was the girl scout leader.
Then we moved to the house with the pool and every summer, Maisie swam until her skin stunk from chlorine and drove Barry up the wall, ‘cause she always wanted to lay her stinky self right by him, at the computer.
But this year she hasn’t been swimming. Hard to get out of the pool when your fur is weighted down with water. She barely knows where she is anymore. Wanders around. She still will go out and roll in the grass and sneeze happily.
Today was 113 so I lifted her carefully into the pool to swim with me. The kids would rather watch tv than swim, and the Maise used to love to swim. And the chicken had died. And it was the end of summer, almost all the apples off the big tree by the pool. A few weeks ago, I had said to my friend Nigel as we swam blissfully still weeks away from school, still believing summer would last forever – I said, “how many pies do you think are left on the tree?”
We’d been making pies all summer with the apples that are pretty bitter to eat plain, but really great once you dump a bunch of sugar on them and bake it all into syrupy crusty goodness. Nigel looked at the tree with me as we swam. We thought maybe six more pies.
Is it beautiful that things die, or only tragic?
Petting Maisie’s bony back with her strong ribcage, the cage of Maise that has held her up all those years… I told her about all the parts of my life that she keeps with her. Threaded through dog. I told her Will is up there waiting for her. With Jed. They’ll go on plenty of walks. Will’s got the sky covered for me. He’s holding the leash.
I did get Maisie up and outside to where it was cooler. She sleeps outside these days. Went back in my room and there was only a space where she was.
It’s been so hot, the apples are sort of just cooked on the tree. I’m not even sure there’s one good pie left up there. But the summer, swimming laps, kids screaming, friends over, dogs laying around, watching that tree and hoping for more pies…I guess that’s the thing.
