who carried who

A couple weeks ago, we said a final farewell to Henry. The kids  and close family came over.  There was a simple ceremony and we interred his ashes in the cactus garden in front of the house. What’s left of Henry’s now lies buried beneath the great Ammak tree…the one grandpa planted so many moons ago. A statue of Francis of Assisi (patron saint of the animals, which has been in that garden for as long as I’ve had a memory) stands sentry over his headstone.

H3NRY.

He was a good boy.

Someone asked me a couple days before how I felt about doing it. Truth is, I said, it felt “right” to have Max and his sister Sophies there. It would be healing for me, instruct them about loss and be a chance for what remains of my ever-shrinking blood family (of which Henry was a part) to bid a final farewell. During times of loss, it’s important to learn from children—to undo the anathema “growing up” instills. The conventional adage is that with age comes wisdom. Goethe said, “I do not know everything; still many things I understand.” And what I’ve come to realize is that repeating the same patterns yields the same wounds–born of a refusal or inability to mourn a loss. That loss could be of innocence, a parent, safety, security, a sense of self and so on. The wounds become wounded—and rear their snake heads up time and again. Having the kids there was an insurance policy against me acting like I know too much. I wanted to learn from them because my ways are so muddled and mislead.

Some of you know the details of Henry’s sudden, unexpected death. If you don’t, suffice it to say that my last hour with him has kept me awake some nights, flinching in flashback horror during others and feeling darker than the sardonic curmudgeon nihilist baseline that is me most days. It felt like the universe really had it in for me; like whatever I’d done in the world before this one I must have really pissed the gods off. This wasn’t the usual alcoholic melodrama, though. His death was exacerbated and crystallized in high def shit storm TV by another fact: His custom-made wheelchair arrived 4 days after his death. It was in transit while I cooed my love into his flipped back ear as the death juice took him to the rainbow bridge forever.

I had put the chair off for a long time. Perhaps it was my own undoing; anthropomorphizing him like a cartoon character. He was the Hobbes to my surly petulant Calvin; Snoopy to my depressive fretful Charley Brown with his perpetual lack of physical prowess and attempts at getting The Red Haired Girl’s attention. He was my cartoon character savior, guru, a hound oracle, spiritual touchstone and eye bleach every day after I came home from running around the muck and mire of mental illness.

Looking back on it, I all but thought he was just going to wake up one day and say: “Hey master, I can’t walk too well anymore. Slowing down on those walks and you’re carrying me more when I tap out.  It’s time, man. Let’s order that custom contraption you keep threatening me with so we can hang a Jolly Roger flag and bluetoof speaker on it. You can even put me in that ridiculous H.S. Thompson GONZO shweater you got me. You can rock your matching battle vest. We’ll be all “KICK OUT THE JAMS” and “BY THE GRACE OF GOD”  in the ‘hood pissing off the OG’s as we make our rounds on Heidleman Hill. Me and you. We’re a team.”

He was slowing down, so several months ago I began the laborious process (with a little help from my friends) of getting the detailed measurements for the builders at Eddie’s Wheels on the East Coast. I am grateful to those who helped me do that. After some back and forth and re-measuring, the engineers gave the order a stamp of approval. I gave them the final go-ahead. There was no turning back, no refunds and no returns. His unique one -of- a -kind custom made front wheel cart was in transit the day he died. It was exactly one day before his demise that I spotted him characteristically lying in the sunshine near the front door.  I made what would be the last picture of him and quipped that he was awaiting the FedEx guy.

The joke was on me.  Isn’t it always?

(Cue circus music. A montage of the “almosts” of my life in one elongated pitiful loop. Melodrama. I’m so special.)

Our little ritual for him was simple, straightforward and ceremoniously un-ceremonious. Max, as some of you know, lost his daddy (my cousin) to cancer when he was a toddler. He doesn’t remember his father, not in the way adults remember people who died. What he does know is that I am the connection to him. Max is just like his daddy—of this we are sure. At 10 years old, he’s a patient, stoic, gentle soul with an eidetic memory…when he wants to have one. He’s painfully normal in other respects: “forgets” his homework, to clean up after himself, to eat vegetables, to say ‘thank you’ and to brush his teeth or put the iThing down and answer questions about his day.

When his sister Sophies lost her dog a few years back, his mom relayed that he was nonplussed and matter of fact as she lie sobbing in the next room. “Why can’t she just get another?” His mother tried to explain what couldn’t be explained: the emotional attachment Sophies had to that particular animal…her pet, best friend, confidante, cuddle-buddy. Indeed, her first true experience with a living breathing dependent being and the responsibility of caring for it and the unconditional love the bond yielded. Max listened to his mother, but didn’t seem to understand why Sophies was so sad.

On August 4^th, his momma had to give him the news about Henry. She said she was prepared for the same reaction,  i.e., “Why can’t Nino just get another dog?”

But that’s not what happened. She said Max tried to “keep it together” at first, then fell apart and bawled something fierce.

Henry was older than Max; he witnessed Max grow up same as me. While cancer was slowly robbing the world of a good man and a boy of his father, Henry was my service animal to make sense of a world that just doesn’t. December 14, 2012 was one of those days when you really needed a Henry, and the warmth and hope of a man like Max’s daddy, Tony. That was the day we sat with him at the cancer hospital as he crossed over; it was also the day horror visited a town called Newtown, CT and embodied an incomprehensible evil that only humans are capable of producing.  

When I came home from a draining, surreal and very sad day, it was clear that Henry knew. Trained Furrapy Pet that he was, there was one other time he knew I was afloat in the world anchorless. That was in 2011 when Mom was in CCU for a week. (Believe you me there were times when I was in pain and that fucker didn’t budge from his bed or bat an eye, so I knew what his baseline was and what it wasn’t. Like I fainted in the middle of the night once while puking blood—I didn’t come to with him standing over me howling and licking me. Nope. That fucker was asleep. And on more than a few occasions he bore witness to the myriad of falls, household burns, cuts and OH FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!! finger/toe/elbow/skull/knee slams on the edge of the ceramic tile counter/bathtub/showerhead/corner kitchen cupboard. Every time he would just lie there. Or look at me. There was Snoopy, Hobbes, and Guru: “Quit you’re crying. Look at me. They took my balls AND my fuckin leg with the same knife. You see me whining?”

But I digress.  The point is that when it mattered, Henry knew.

On Henry’s 11th birthday, I didn’t get him a burger, as was custom. I dug his grave. Then I swam and ran because the pain from that takes my mind off the aches that run deeper. I picked up his headstone and then went to mom’s for dinner. We sat and watched baseball, my least favorite sport but something that’s become important to Mom. I felt like I was doing my good son duties, but still felt seriously lacking. I know no one relates to that; I’m unique.

The day we lie him to rest, we said a little prayer, blessed each other and his ashes. Then Max and I poured his ashes into the hole; him and Sophies finished the burial process. There was peace in there, somewhere. Sophies cried. Max was stoic. I caught him just studying Henry’s grave when we were done and I’m guilty of capturing that moment because most of what you just read was going through my mind. 

I probably haven’t said enough about Henry. He kept giving until the last day. And what he gave me, was a final belly laugh. He finally got me back for the life time of three legged jokes and teasing I was positive he never understood. “Get out of here,” (I would tell him when he was crowding me) “Go find your leg!” Other times I would scratch his phantom limb and ask him if he felt it; I’d tell him he was missing a wheel and that we would have to call AAA in order to get home; I would torture him with a strict diet regimen because he couldn’t afford to become obese; I’d berate him about why he got all the attention in the world—I was the one they should be asking about. I mean claro que what the fuck talk about handicapped—if anyone was in that equation, it most def was me.

Alas, Henry wasn’t going out like that—in some weird ass contraption foisted upon him and paraded around the neighborhood with his so-called disability on display. He came to me with that goofy stumbling, lopsided, curious gait and that’s the way he left me. I carried him into the vet for the last time just the way he carried me.    

I finalized his resting spot with some gardening handiwork, you can see the picture there. And since it’s close to Halloween, I couldn’t help but get the last laugh by throwing the sawed-off ghost leg astride his headstone.

I sent my Mom the picture and she wrote, “Aww that is precious. It made me cry.”

I pointed out my never-ending cruelty with the legbone on his grave.

“Maybe he will get a new one in Heaven.”  

And the Owen Meany in me replied, “HE DOESN’T NEED IT. GOD MADE HIM PERFECT THE WAY HE WAS.”