Buffy - Crossing Over, Part 5: The Rose Garden

The Merrick Rose Garden in Evanston, Illinois, features over 200 varieties of roses. It was only a couple blocks away from the condo we lived in for the first four years of Buffy's life. We would regularly take her to this garden during our walks. 

Buffy loved this garden. In the grass clearing in the center, she would run around and play and walk around the garden, stopping to smell the roses.

On her last evening, we took her back to her garden.

We had time. 

It was Thursday, and she was going to transition on Friday. We planned to take her to the garden after dinner. I decided to make her one of her favorite foods, steak. After a week of trying to get her to eat anything, I wasn't expecting her to eat, but I figured, why not try?

I went through the routine, and after getting plating dinner for my boys, I chopped up the steak into small pieces and put them in a bowl. I put the bowl on the floor in front of Buffy's bed, where she was napping, and walked back to the table. As we started eating dinner, I heard a rustling and an odd sound. I stood up and looked over, and there was Buffy eating steak out of the bowl and inadvertently pushing the bowl across the hardwood floor.

"Diana, look!"

We stood for a minute watching Buffy for the first time in almost a week. I felt relieved, excited, and happy to see her enjoy one last meal.

*****

 

Diana carefully carried Buffy into the rose garden and put her down on the path. She slowly walked around as our sons ran around the path and the grassy clearing in the center. A family with small children was in the clearing playing with soap bubbles. Like many times before, the children got so excited when they saw Buffy. One of them asked politely if they could pet Buffy and said okay, directing them to pet Buffy as she liked on her back. The other children followed and waved at Buffy as they waved thank you and commented how Buffy was so pretty.

Buffy stood there proud and patient during this exchange as she always had when children approached, enjoying the attention and her power to bring joy into other people's lives with her presence.

I couldn't help but cry as we held Buffy and posed for some pictures with Buffy. 

Then the time felt right for us to go. Buffy wasn't walking much, so I picked her up and carried her across the street to our parked car.

Before getting into the car, I paused and looked back at the rose garden. Holding Buffy looking up at that unbelievably blue sky above the garden, it felt like I was holding our past, this moment, and our last day together.

"Holding you, I held everything…"

Buffy - Crossing Over, Part 4: “I Can’t..”

I tried, but I couldn’t get the words out. Instead, all I could do was cry as my breath grew faster. The emotion of my moment was fighting the words I didn’t want to say out loud, but I needed to tell Diana about Buffy. 

As we sat on the floor, Diana tenderly held Buffy. I finally was able to catch my breath and quietly mournfully said, “I can’t get her to eat.” 

Food is one of the ways I show love to people in my life. I love making food for people, serving it to them, and seeing them have a physical, cultural, and emotional experience with my food. I have no problem spending an entire day in the kitchen cooking meals for people, and I love the challenge of figuring out new recipes and cooking techniques. I probably get this from my mom. I loved watching her in the kitchen growing up and felt her love and care for me through the food she cooked.

Buffy was never a food-motivated dog. She was a dainty and picker eater. We got her high-quality Fromm kibble when she was a puppy, and sometimes she wouldn’t eat or skip meals. We would make her food tastier by mixing in some wet food. While it seemed she wasn’t eating her full meals at times, she did and grew up strong and healthy.

I made food for her when Buffy had some digestive issues a couple of years ago, and we weren’t sure what to feed her. I’d cook batches of chicken and rice and cook them down into a soup, which she seemed to enjoy. I was willing to do that for her for the long haul, but we found Farmer’s Dog, which provides a more balanced meal, so we went with this service.

Then about a year ago, she lost interest in this food. I would mix in some dog-safe food from our meals, like chicken breasts, or crunch some treats into her food, which seemed to work.

I noticed that she wasn’t coming over to eat when I called her, which may have been due to some hearing loss. So I got into the routine of picking her up and placing her in front of her dog bowl during meal times. Buffy would eat pretty consistently this way, though she left a mess, picking through the food and only selecting the morsels she wanted to eat, leaving the rest of the food spread out in the front of the dish.

In the past couple of months started noticing that Buffy started eating less and less food. I would put her in front of her bowl; she would pick at it and then walk away. I didn’t overthink it. I figured she would come back later and eat some more, but then dinner would come, and her food from breakfast had not been touched. I tried mixing other food into her meals, but nothing seemed to help.

Then came the day I broke down with Diana. This was after four days of her not eating her meals at all, which was probably part of a trend I didn’t admit; I got desperate. I had made Buffy breakfast and carried her over to her bowl. She drank some water and then walked away.

I added some chicken meat to her food and tried, and she just walked away again. I grabbed a piece of chicken from her food bowl, walked over to her lying in her bed, and put it right in front of her nose, and she just turned her head away from the food.

I took a piece of salmon that was leftover from dinner the night before, put it in my palm, and held it in front of her nose. She shifted her weight and turned her head away. I ran back to the kitchen, stuck a spoon in a jar of peanut butter, and pushed that toward Buffy’s nose, and she just lay motionless, not reacting at all to one of her favorite treats.

I sat back on the floor next to Buffy and lay in her bed, feeling defeated. I reached down and held her, looked into her eyes, and pleaded, “Buffy, you have to eat something.” She looked at me calmly, with a knowing look, and I felt the weight of her head as she relaxed into my hands. I sat back to look at her silently, scared and unsure of what to do.

That’s how Diana found me when she came down the stairs. When I could finally tell her what was going on, the path before us became apparent. This was Buffy’s way of telling us that she was ready.

Buffy’s entire life, I had shown her love through food, and her rejection of my food was not her saying she didn't need my love. It was saying she needed me to show her love another way.

This was Wednesday afternoon, and that night we scheduled her transition for Friday.

Buffy - Crossing Over, Part 3: Quality of Life

What makes a "quality life"? A life full of joy and meaning? Free of pain? Or is it something different?

One of the questions our veterinarian had us consider was Buffy's quality of life. During the final months of her life, I felt that her life was a good life. She had good food, access to a fenced-in backyard, and a caring family. Once a day, we would take her out for a walk. Sometimes she would make it around our neighborhood; other times, she went a couple of houses down and turned around. We'd take to the park with the boys or other outings. She'd perk up when we'd be outside in other places and was eager to explore forest preserves and other areas.

Buffy slept a lot, though. She wasn't the younger dog who would bark at the boys when they would run around the house or would move from room to room to be near us. More often, she would be resting on her bed or on a sweatshirt one of my sons left on the ground.

Buffy still showed purpose and engagement in life. When certain people came into our house, she would get up and try to greet them. Whenever the boys went to play in the backyard, she wanted to join them. And Buffy continued to be part of therapy.

Ethan started therapy to address his hearing disability early in his life before he was a year old. Buffy was always present, watching, and nearby during these sessions. This continued as Lucas now has speech therapy in our house.

At a certain point in the evening, after the boys were put to bed, Buffy would decide to go up and join them. If the bedroom door were closed, we would hear her bark in protest. Sometimes this would happen before I brushed her teeth and her mane, our pre-bedtime routine. I would go to Ollie and Ethan's room and carry her out. Buffy would protest at me through disgruntled groans. After we were done, I would put her back in the room.

Every night right before I go to bed, I check on everybody. The kids are asleep, usually having gone to bed several hours earlier. First, I check on Lucas. I kiss him goodnight and reposition his blanket and pillow, as he usually lies on the bed sideways. Then I go into Ollie and Ethan's room. I kiss Ollie and Ethan goodnight and then say goodnight to Bufy.

Some nights Buffy would be lying on her bed, wedged in a small space at the foot of Ethan's bed and his dresser. It's only about a foot wide, but it's the perfect space for Buffy to have a cave. I would kiss her on her forehead and pet her on her mane, smoothing out the hair on her neck and back.

Some nights, when I entered that room, Buffy would be sitting in the middle of the room, and she would raise her head and look at me. It was like she was telling me, "It's okay; I got this."

If this was her life, did she have a good quality of life? It felt like it was, but her diagnosis made me wonder. I didn't know how I would know if her quality of life had changed, but sooner than I expected, I would know.

Next: Part 4: “I Can’t..”

Buffy - Crossing Over, Part 2: The Diagnosis

“Congenital Heart Faliure”

When Diana told me about Buffy's diagnosis, I was stunned. I knew she wasn't doing well, but I wasn't prepared for this.

In the past year, Buffy had some health issues. She started coughing more, there would be a period when she needed to go out to potty in the middle of the night, and her appetite was inconsistent. It was hard to know what was "she's just getting old" and what were issues that needed to be addressed.

We took Buffy in about a year ago to check on her coughing. It sounded like she was choking on her saliva as she coughed, and it would get her up at night, and she would seem uncomfortable. After it not going away on its own, we learned that she was experiencing tracheal collapse, which is precisely what it sounds like.

When we got her looked at for needing to go out in the middle of the night, the veterinarian found that she had heart issues. So we got her on some medications, and it seemed to help. She no longer needed to go out in the middle of the night, and her coughing improved.

We had a couple of months when things were going well. Then there was the concern we had was that she was underweight. 

Buffy had always been a picky eater. We had to doctor up her kibble with wet food to get her to eat as a puppy. In the past couple of years, we switched to Farmer's Dog, which sends over frozen food, which for a while, she liked so much we had concerns that she was getting overweight. 

That wasn't the case for the past couple of months.

I would heat up her food, and sometimes she would eat it. Sometimes she would not. I would mixed dog-safe food from our dinner, like salmon or chicken breast. This led to her making a mess on her food mat, digging around for the pieces of meat and leaving parts of the meal she didn't want around her bowl. While it was annoying that the area around her food bowl was a complete mess, I was glad she was eating.

Then we had a follow-up appointment in early June, and the news wasn't good. Some dogs live with congenital heart failure, and some don't. Treatment for this condition has improved dramatically over the years, but it's still a serious prognosis. We got her on another medication, and hoped for the best.

Buffy seemed to respond well to the medication, but as her appetite declined, we began to worry. The veterinarian had asked us to consider Buffy's quality of life, and I began to wonder.

Coming up in Part 3: Quality Of Life. 

Parenthood - 6/29/23: My Little Mermaid

"Mermaid? Angry mermaid?"

For the past two weeks, every single time we get in the car, Lucas requests to listen to the soundtrack from the recent remake of The Little Mermaid. Since I showed my sons the trailer for this film months ago, they have all been excited about watching it. Seeing Lucas' eyes light up every time Ariel appeared in the trailer was especially cute.

The original Disney animated movie The Little Mermaid is one of my life's most important cultural influences. When it came out, I was about seven years old, and I immediately became obsessed with this film as soon as I watched it. After watching it, we got the soundtrack CD, which we listened to repeatedly in my house.

I remember going to a book store and seeing the piano/vocal songbook on the endcap of an aisle and being so excited. More than the notes, I noticed this book also had the lyrics. I wanted to get this book so badly, but my mom hesitated because it was in bad shape. There was only one copy, so my mom eventually agreed to get it for me. I have fond memories of my brother and I singing the songs from the film and watching this film over and over when it finally came out on VHS.

I've watched many Disney movies with my three sons, and The Little Mermaid never really appealed to them. I don't think we even go to the end of it. They enjoyed most of the other Disney films from that era, but something about The Little Mermaid didn't click with them. That's why I was surprised and excited when they got so into to see the new version of this film.

I love analyzing movies. I wanted to be a film critic at one point in my life, so part of my brain looked at The Little Mermaid through this lens when I watched it. Halle Bailey and Mellisa McCarthy were wonderful. The film was too long, and the special effects were inconsistent. The animal friends didn't work, and much of the added dialogue and songs didn't enrich the narrative. The updated musical arrangements of the scores and the songs were lush and vibrant. The original soundtrack had a lot of synthesized instruments, and replacing those with acoustic ones really made the music shine.

What matters isn't what I think, but that my children loved the film and continued to engage with it weeks after watching it. My oldest son, Ollie, got so excited when I printed out the lyrics so he could learn them, and my youngest, constantly listening to the songs and singing along, is wonderful. There is so much joy when he hears the music, and watching him move and sing along to the music is pure joy.

I'm not thinking too hard about the fact that Lucas' favorite song is "Pour Unfortunate Souls," and he loves the line "Go back to your DADDY." I just feel good that he is engaged with music with such interest and joy.

One of the points of discussion about this film is that Ariel is no longer white in this new film. Watching this film critically, it's clear that Halle Bailey is an excellent actor and singer. And I'm so glad that our children are seeing an outstanding, talented Black woman in this role.

When Dr. Clark did his doll test as part of the Brown v Board of Education Supreme Court case, he showed that Black children did have racial awareness and how messages about racism affected the way they saw race and themselves. This study clearly showed that separate was not equal. This was dramatized in this scene from the mini-series Separate but Equal.

I've been thinking about those children and the way they saw Black identity, as I've seen Lucas experience a Black mermaid. I'll never forget when, one of the first times Lucas watched the trailer, he pointed to Halle Bailey as Ariel and exclaimed, "Pretty mermaid!" If you ask Lucas about her, he will describe her also as beautiful. It means something that Lucas sees beauty in a Black character. So as tired as I am of listening to the soundtrack, I'll keep playing it as my parents did for me and share in part of his world.

Buffy - Crossing Over, Part 1: The Facts

Let’s start by laying down some facts. 

Buffy Tang, our wonderful puppy, was put to sleep (euthanized) on Friday, June 23rd, 2023, at around 3:30 pm. A veterinarian from Lap Of Love came to our house to do the procedure. My three sons had said goodbye to Buffy earlier in the day, and we were with my mother-in-law during the afternoon.

Buffy was diagnosed with congenital heart failure on June 10th. She had an enlarged heart, and fluid was collecting in different organs. A couple of months earlier, Buffy was put on another drug to address fluid in her lungs, and at that point, it was clear that her heart was having issues. While we treated Buffy with drugs, her coughing improved, but her health deteriorated after her CHF diagnosis.

Buffy was never in great pain; however, her appetite had declined, and the week before her transition, she barely ate any food though she still drank water. She spent most of her final days on her bed in front of our coat closet, observing her family. In the last couple of months, Buffy had taken to cuddling on the floor with any sweatshirts or jackets we left on the ground. So we ensured that for her last couple of weeks, she had our clothing on her beds we kept around the house.

In the final week, Buffy struggled to walk, and we carried her around as she needed. Buffy had a few accidents during this time in the house, which was rare for her.

Buffy was 14 years old and was a pure-bred Shetland Sheepdog. She was born on May 23rd, 2009. Her full name is Buffy Lynnlea’s Sparker Tang. We got Buffy from Dorothy Christiansen, a wonderful breeder who passed away in 2021. Here is her obituary.

Buffy was the smallest in the litter, which meant that Dorothy probably wasn’t going to show her, which was the perfect opportunity for us to get Buffy. We chose to get Buffy from a Dorothy after doing extensive research to ensure that the breeder we chose was not running a puppy mill and was a responsible and respected breeder. Buffy was always a small dog. At the most, she weighed around 16 pounds and, as an adult, was about two feet long. Her fluffy coat always made her seem bigger.

Buffy was our first wedding anniversary present to each other. While Diana had grown up with a dog, and she was my first dog.

Diana and I have no doubts that we had made the right decision about how and when to help Buffy transition. It was an act of love and gratitude. We are proud that we did right by our puppy throughout her entire life. Raising a puppy and caring for a dog over 14 years is an accomplishment. It took a lot of time, energy, and effort. Through all of the ups and downs in our lives, we were always there for Buffy as she was there for us.

I am proud and thankful but more than anything I miss my puppy. 

As I've told her story on this blog, I feel I need to finish her story. I know this will help me process, and I want to honor her by making sure that I don't forget this last part of her life. Coming up is Part 2: The Diagnosis. 

Parenthood - Week 522: "Communication, a telephonic invasion"

"The water in my bottle bottles isn't cold!" 

"Go fill up your water bottle with cold water," Diana yelled to Ethan.

"[pause] THE WATER IN MY BOTTLE ISN'T COLD!!!"

"FINE! I'll get you some water. Stop yelling"!"

I rolled over and looked at the clock. It was 6:08 AM. What a way to start a Friday. I pulled myself out of bed and went downstairs to fix him a water bottle with plenty of ice. I brought the bottle up to his room and handed it to him. He reached for the bottle, drank it, handed it back to me, and flopped back to bed. I went back to my bed for another twenty minutes of sleep before I needed to get up in the morning.

Maybe I should have made him get up and make the water bottle himself. However, sometimes getting my kid to stop screaming takes priority over teaching my child to be independent.

*****

Lucas has learned how to say "please…pretty please?" when he asks for something he wants.

Lucas has always had a warm disposition and a gentle way about him. He wasn't a demanding baby and learned early that he could get what he wanted by being sweet and smiling more effectively than by screaming. Lucas doesn't quite understand that adding "pretty" to "please" changes a "no" into a "yes" but we appreciate the effort and, of course, his cuteness.

Lucas is a resourceful kid. He learned early how to carry footstools around the house to get what he wanted from tall shelves around the house and in the pantry. So it's common for me to make dinner and see Lucas sitting at the table eating a snack he somehow got all by himself.

It's wonderful to see Lucas find success in communication. It's satisfying to see language work for him, and he is so proud of himself when a "pretty please" gives him access to something through positive interaction with one of us.

*****

When Ollie gets going, it's fascinating to hear him talk. Sometimes, Ollie needs a minute to think about what he wants to say or respond to a question. Then there are moments when he expresses something that he has thought deeply about, and I can see the words flow out of him freely.

Sometimes it's about a video game, a speed cube, or something else he has considered. And once he gets going, it's almost like he can't stop. The words come and come, and it's like he's downloading out loud something his mind has been trying to figure out and now is finally ready to make real through words what he has been feeling and thinking about. Once Ollie becomes better at typing, I'm excited to see how his thoughts look as the speed he can put words on a page catch up to the speed of his thoughts.