Indiana Bones

I’ve been laying on my back in the dirt and grass a lot lately. Each time I’m down there the sky looks different; sometimes obscured by tree leaves or sometimes with clouds or sometimes there’s birds starting their migration south, but almost always there’s that dang fly that keeps flying across my line of sight. It’s the sound of Indiana Bones trying to catch the fly in her mouth that snaps me back to the reality of why I’m laying in the dirt in the first place. Chomp. Chomp. Chomp. I’m spending all this time on my back because she is struggling to walk. I’ve taken to laying wherever she decides to stop. We just lay there thinking, “How in the hell did we get here?” The answer follows without pause: nine years of unconditional love that is coming to an end. Soon she’ll be gone, so I’m trying to soak up every last minute, every last detail. The way she lays her head on my knee, the smell of her fur, the way she lets loose a long breath when she’s finally comfortable.

I haven’t stopped and laid in the dirt perhaps ever in my life. I let her choose the spot. The other day we laid on the grassy knoll overlooking the river. It was before sunset and the sky turned light yellow behind the tree line, not quite yet pink. It reflected in her eyes and they glittered when she looked up at me. There it was: beauty amidst all the heartache.

The next day she chose the pine tree next to the gym overlooking the field that the campers call the center of the universe. It’s one of those old pines that’s 80 feet tall with branches all the way to the ground. She shoved her body between the last branch and the pine covered dirt because even in October the sun is too hot for all that Berner fluff. As I crawled in after her, I thought about how I was also sure that I’ve never done this in my entire life either. We laid there engulfed in the aroma of pine until it was time to go to her first chemo.

Today I didn’t let her pick the spot. Instead I made us a campfire. We’re both in the dirt that she dug by the benches that are usually filled with campers. This is her favorite spot in the summer where the air is full of stories and songs, but today it’s silent except for the crackling of the embers and the crinkle of paper as I turn the pages on a book my Aunt sent me. It was accompanied by a note that said something along the lines of: This book reminds me of you, and not because the author had cancer. It only took a few pages for me to understand what she meant.

It’s a book about how writing helped the author survive. I saw myself immediately. For as long as I can remember I wrote whenever I faced hardship. It starts out as a way to process the things that happen to me and ends in finding beauty in it. Pain and beauty masquerade as one another. Beauty is right there if you dig deep enough.

This book that my Aunt gifted (Book of Alchemy) provides short stories and then a prompt to aid in writing when you feel stuck and alone and lost in your thoughts.

And that’s how I came to tell you about how I’m laying in the dirt day after day after day. I’m going through this journey of losing my first dog. When I brought her home, my husband said, “Do you know what you did? You brought us unfathomable pain in 10 years.”

He was right, but I am also experiencing a lot of joy laying in the dirt with my dog, reading other people’s stories that inspired me to write about my long goodbye to my Indiana Bones.

When I peel back the onion on why I’m spending an enormous amount of money on her chemotherapy for the potential of a little more time to lay in the dirt, I find it’s for selfish reasons. She is the first time that I’ve experienced unconditional love. The kind without any strings. The kind where you’ve left for five minutes and she spins around again and again and again and I’m afraid of not having that kind of love day after day after day.

The prompt for today was what would you write if you weren’t afraid.