Jake

Jake. He wasn’t actually my dog— but he was. And you have to know that was a lot for me to admit at the time. After losing a dearly beloved pooch at a tender age, in a dismal way I’d unknowingly shut off my heart to loving a dog. Especially this one.

Jake was my Aunt and Uncle’s family dog. And to say I found him annoying is an understatement— this creature was unbearable! With his always too long nails attached to a spring loaded constant readiness to jump up and scratch you. With his vine like whip like lashing crop of a tail wagging like mad anytime anybody would come to visit... quite literally his anxiety gave me anxiety.

Whenever my aunt and uncle would go on their annual tri-family camping trip I’d be invited to stay at their place and watch Jake. It was awesome that they’d leave me money for food and access to any of the cars they hadn’t taken with them on their trip. But even those perks couldn’t make up for the whining days and barking nights I endured with that dog; he missed his family and nothing I did could console or distract him.

So disgusted I was with this dogs personality. He was restless and manic. He was fidgety and ill-attached.

Never had I ever anticipated anything even close to a bond could form between us.. was I ever wrong.

Sometime after watching Jake while my aunt and uncle went on that tri-family annual trip I’d told you about a strong premonition, a intense sense of intuition called on me to ask if I could perhaps move in with my aunt and uncle. I was in school at the time in a city 45 minutes away from them; such a move would require a me to alter my 5 minute walk to campus life style to a hours long public transit commute. But the way my sense to make the choice was pulsing with this-is-right-ness I made it with little fear or worry.

I’d even made that decision knowing being there meant I’d have to live with Jake.

It felt right so I asked my aunt and uncle with nervousness about what they’d say, but assurance that asking was what I needed to do.

They said ‘yes’. And not too long after they did my mental health took one of the sharpest downward spirals I’d ever experienced... getting out of bed felt like sumo wrestling a sumo wrestler off my chest each morning. Getting dressed felt like lassoing lead onto my limbs. Eating felt like consuming nuts and bolts on exposed nerve endings. Everything felt hard. Smiling felt hard, frowning felt hard, neutral felt hard.

So much of who I was was built around my positive nature, people loved to be around me because I helped boost them. Who was I if I I didn’t have that set of jumper cables to loan to emotionally downcast and stranded motorists along the ways of life? If I couldn’t provide what I’d perceived made me valuable did I have value anymore? If that ability could be stripped I began to wonder if I’d ever had value, was all the lifting I’d done for others real if I found myself utterly incapable of doing the same for myself?...

It was a hard time. And more and more I began to hide. More and more isolation. Less and less socializing. Less and less access to the person I thought I was. Shrunken and shrunken I felt. Down down down I went.

It got to the point where going to school, making that commute, was mentally unbearable. The fact (I didn’t identify as fact but rather pure weakness ) that something that seemed so simple was now so incredibly hard further debilitated both my self-esteem and my will to keep trying. I felt too defeated to keep with a full class load— so I dropped a class. That was still too much— so I went to part time. That was also too much so I dropped to one or two. Which I was so ashamed of I didn’t want to be seen so I dropped those, too.

The shame that couldn’t be shaken no matter what I did was crushing me to the point that all I could do was stay in my room rarely leaving for anything, even food or the restroom.

With my aunt and uncle working full time, it was Jake and I at home alone.

With me being there much more he became accustomed, it seemed, to my energy leaving him much more calm when we were alone.

He loved to go outside and sit in the sun, sprawled out anywhere it shown in the house, too. There were days I’d open the door for him to go out.. and he’d look so content out there that I felt to join him. There were times I’d see him lounging in the suns rays in the house and I’d feel to join him. We’d just sit together in the silence. And there were times I could sense him saying ‘ this is nice isn’t it?’ And I’d look down at him as if to say ‘yeah, it really is’.

My aunt would take Jake for walks here and there, and I would go too sometimes. I noticed how much Jake loved to go on walks— how in his element he seemed nails clacking the pavement of the neighborhood. And starting to like him some, starting to care what he liked, I wondered ‘maybe he’d like it if I took him on walks?’ I tried it, and he loved it. His joy was contagious and I started to feel his joy seep into the hard n’ dense apathy that had cankered my once light and free heart. Oh and it felt.. like warmth, like peace, like living.

So we did that often. With Jake by my side I spent less time locked away and numb and became more driven to wake up in the morning and let the light in—both literally and figuratively. Things were changing.

And not in a way that made me want to go back to the ways that I could see were crushing my soul, but seeing life in a slower more intentional and natural way. When Jake stopped to sniff the grass, I’d reach out for the tree’s trunk near by. When he’d squint up at the sun, I’d squint up at it too. And we’d enjoy this silent communion of him saying ‘mmm isn’t this nice?’ And I’d look down at him as if to say ‘yes, it really is.’

This dog was teaching me how to live. This dog was teaching me how to heal. This dog was becoming mine and I was becoming his. And it was deeper than many if not most human relationships I’d ever had.

And we went on flourishing and growing and grounding and walking and silently speaking until one day... news came in that Jake had an aggressive form of Cancer. Ironically the dog that was teaching my how to live was dying.

Did the beauty cease? No, it only deepened. I’ll tell you how.

My aunt had been closest to Jake before I came along. I know it had been hard for her to see him bond so deeply with me— where he used to sit with her every night on the couch after work he was now nearly constantly with me. And when he was diagnosed my aunt couldn’t face it... and in some ways as though to buffer some of the pain she stopped seeking connection with Jake... it was too hard to think this boy she’d come to love so much was dying.

The day I realized what she was doing I walked to the backyard, sat on the sunbathed deck steps, where Jake sat dignified next to me. His presence as present as ever though I knew he knew he was dying. We sat there silent for a moment. Then I said ‘ Jake, I want to tell you how much it meant to me that you were with me while I was sick. You already know how much you’ve helped me. And because of that I swear to you right here and now that no matter how gruesome it becomes to watch you endure this cancer I swear I will never turn my back on your pain— I will be hear for you until the end. I promise.’

And as I promised him then I swear to you now that I know he understood me. He looked at me and I looked at him, and we truly were seeing one another.

The days leading up to Jake’s death were not many from the time of his diagnosis. But oh they were sweet. His ability to produce the proper blood cells to generate enough oxygen was dwindling making walks harder and harder. Sometimes we’d get out there with such vigor only for him to be totally winded and unable to walk minutes later. Where we could go for hours he was now so weak I’d have to carry him home.

I’ll forever be grateful for the tenderness he showed me I had.. the gentle patience and understanding I didn’t know I was capable of— until the power of mutual and pure love between us drew it out. A love originated, ushered and facilitated through him and into me.

Before Jake I had Bo, a Rottweiler who contracted and died of Parvo. I still remember my mom telling me he was dead... my heart broke. And an avoidance grew— ‘I never want to ache like that ever again.’ And the only way my child self could figure to do that was to resist ever loving another dog again. And for a long long time I didn’t.. I was never mean to them, but I wasn’t open to loving them either; I’d shut that capacity down. And it remained off line from Bo’s death in my single digit years all the way until Jake in my early twenties.

I don’t know if I’d loved anyone or anything the way I loved Jake and I know that’s because nobody or nothing had ever made themself so open to being loved by my before Jake. His openness unlocked new levels within me when I was vulnerable enough to meet his openness with my own. He showed me the power of two-sided and deep love. And what a short and beautiful journey it was.

It doesn’t serve to describe every detail of the day Jake died. Let one of our final moment together at the vet suffice?

My aunt couldn’t take him— it hurt too much. So my cousin and I took him. And he knew where we were going. He’d always been afraid of the vet.

We pulled up. I hopped out first to check him in for his final appointment. My cousin was bringing him in and he was in absolute panic—until he saw me. We looked at each other, I took his leash, and led him to a spot for us to sit. And you know what he did? He jumped on the bench and sat so close there was not a centimeter of space between us and sat up with all the dignity a dog or human cab, placed his paw on my leg and looked over at me with this courage that said ‘ I’m so happy you’re here with me, I can die in peace’.

I’ve been to the vet with him before. And never had I ever seen him like this. He knew what was coming, and he was okay with it— because I was there. We did it together. And he remained calm like that from injection until they removed his lifeless tear stained body from my arms.

Now I can’t tell you how we communicated. I can’t tell you how he knew how to tutor me out of my pain. I can’t express how much of impact it made for me. And I can’t say mental illness left me as soon as Jake arrived. But I can say Jake led me to the power of love in its purest form. A power that once I knew I did begin to heal... there were days where I wanted to end it all— but Jake would come to me and remind me love did not die when his body did, that there is more for me to experience and it will come— I just had to keep on moving, keep on fighting, keep on trusting that pure love would be found again and again, deeper and deeper— and that it’s worth all this to experience. To keep on going. So I do. Thanks to Jake, the dog that never was my dog, but will forever be mine.