A couple of days ago I found out about the untimely passing of a friend of mine. Well, a friend of my brother’s, really, but inevitably when my brother made a friend, they’d develop a relationship with me too. This guy was the first friend my brother had ever made, when we’d relocated to upstate NY from MA. His grandmother’s house was just over the hill from the house we moved to, and he’d take the bus there from school most afternoons, so my brother had met him on one of his many walks that first summer exploring the neighborhood, and they’d just really hit it off, as did I when I finally came there too a few months later. We were teenagers at the time, my brother was 14 and I was 12; I think this friend was closer to my age. My brother was, and is, a difficult person to make friends with. He’s awkward at the best of times and combative at his worst. But this friend connected with him easily somehow, and was always so kind and patient with him. That’s difficult to do as adults, so in hindsight, to have that happen as young people feels remarkable to me. While my brother went to a different high school program, this friend and I did go to the same school for high school, but we weren’t ever quite in the same social circle. We had some people in common (which is unavoidable in small towns!), but never really hung out together, outside of the occasional visit with my brother when we crossed paths in the neighborhood. That officially ended when we moved to a different house a couple miles away. I’ll admit that we haven’t seen or spoken to this guy in years and it’s been awhile since I’ve even thought of him. I’ll acknowledge that while I’m very saddened to hear of his passing, this is not a very “present” loss for me. Still, it’s a loss of someone who had an indelible impact on my life, and especially on my brother’s life. I’m sad, but I’m okay.

But who will tell my brother?

~~~

My dog Beauty – in my completely biased opinion, the sweetest dog in the universe – is getting on in years. She’ll be 15 in March. In spite of her old age, she’s in pretty good health overall. Some minor arthritis in her lower back, nothing she takes medication for at the moment, but it’s harder for her to jump up on the bed nowadays. She also has that condition with the eyes where things look a little more shadowy, so in low light, it can be harder for her to see. The biggest tell-tale sign of her age is that she now wakes us up at least once overnight because she has to go out to do some business. (Yes, I’m very grateful that she still has complete continence!) Otherwise, she’s her usual self. She sleeps a lot, which is nothing new; she can still bound around in the yard when she feels like it, and she still loves belly rubs and as many treats as she can get. Her favorite treats include cheese, and broccoli; the only thing she won’t eat is olives, apparently. It’s the only thing I’ve ever seen her spit out. She’s loving and gentle, so sweet with my daughter and all children, and with my in-laws’ cats. When it’s her time to go – which could be soon, or could still be years from now, but these are things we think about with geriatric pets, right? – I will be devastated, for a number of reasons.

I’ve known Beauty literally her entire life – she was born in my parents’ house, on March 1, 2008. I know this, because I was there. Our veterinarian has been skeptical about her age because she’s in such great health overall for being almost 15, and if I hadn’t legit watched her birth back then, I’d agree with him. Beauty was one of six puppies, and while we had intended originally to keep a different pup, my mother had fallen in love with Beauty and couldn’t let her go, so she was the one we kept. Beauty is a gorgeous all-black dog, and my mother had been reminded of Black Beauty, the horse, so that’s how she got her name. She was my mother’s dog, for all intents and purposes.

Now, my parents had several more litters of puppies, and at one point, Beauty was one of like five big dogs in the house; this was not a good situation. The dogs would fight at times, and Beauty had taken to spending most of her time just hiding in my parents’ room under the bed. It only got worse when my mother left my then-stepfather, and couldn’t take Beauty with her to New Jersey. A few weeks after my mother’s departure, I got a desperate call from her that Beauty needed to be taken off my then-stepfather’s hands, it was too much to cope with at the house on his own when his health wasn’t great and there were several other dogs, they’d gotten into another fight and would I please drive down to pick up Beauty at least for the night and she’d figure out what else to do in the meantime.

What was I to do? I knew this dog, I knew her gentle nature, and I also knew that, gentle or not, with a history of getting into fights, she’d have no chance if she were to be brought to a shelter. I told my mother that I would pick up Beauty, and bring her here with me, and here she would stay. My husband (who was still my fiancé at the time, this was a few months before our wedding) and I drove down to pick her up when we got out of work, and turned right back around and drove home, with me riding in the backseat with her the whole way (girl doesn’t enjoy car rides). Beauty was not well at the time, very sluggish and over 25 pounds overweight; she’s since slimmed down and, as I’ve mentioned, is in the best shape of her life. She has been our dog ever since, for over five years now. She has thrived as the only dog in the house here, with lots of love and care from us.

I hate that Beauty was just one more layer of collateral damage I’ve had to manage from my mother’s selfish behavior and decision-making. Beauty is a survivor just like me, who’s undoubtedly been better off without my mother and her drama. I’m at a point now where I find myself wondering who will die first, my mother or Beauty? Sounds grim, I know, but hey, that’s what happens at 5AM when I’m awoken by both my three-year-old and a barking dog at literally the same time! Still, in spite of the weariness, I can’t imagine my life without this dog. I will be crushed when she’s gone, but I know that I’ve given her the best chance at happiness and peace here.

But who will tell my mother?

~~~

My thoughts are spinning a little toward the macabre today, but that’s actually par for the course during the High Holidays – it’s a time to think about endings, and see what you can make of new beginnings. I am relying on my default outlet – writing – to process these feelings, because to answer the questions I’ve posed above, I can neither connect with my brother nor my mother to address any of it head-on. So I’m screaming it into the void here instead. I don’t have school today (working for a small Jewish private school, when more observant Jews than myself celebrate not one but two days of Rosh Hashanah, means I get two days off for the holiday), so, following the publication of this post, I’m going to go remember a friend and love on my dog.

What else can you do with an ending, or an anticipated one, except take each moment as it comes, and find appreciation for it all?