Clouds of pollen drift through the air like a thick, stormy morning mist, coating the tables and cars. It’s that time of year when everything is blooming. In the garden, an explosion of growth happens seemingly within hours. It is a pretty wondrous and exciting time – especially if you’re a gardener.

I tend my plants in a somewhat haphazard way. I love to create interesting borders, exciting pots exploding with unusual color combinations. I love to plant, to cultivate. Somewhere in mid to late summer, when things get more out of control I enjoy some help with the weeding, the digging out of plants that have overgrown their homes. I used to love the sweaty work of digging things out, the satisfaction of pulling up those stubborn roots of an invasive plant. You have to both pull and release at the same time, because if you pull too hard, they break at the roots and your effort produces a different result (sort of like life, ay?) But, as I get older, I find that work less fulfilling, more difficult on my back! And I have so many other things to do!

But there are some plants that need virtually no work and produce so much joy each spring, and that is the peony. I must have 30 plants. I’ve split them and moved them and even dug them up some very special ones before I left my old house. It occurred to me as I was walking around the garden yesterday that very big things happen when the peonies are out.

Graduations – and all the emotions that go along with watching your children grow up, succeed and become adults. Marriages – I used my peonies (and many other of my flowers) at my wedding. I remember that year, though, they came very early, so I had to cut them and store them as tight buds without the leaves (taught to me by an older woman who owns the local farm stand. In fact, I kept them in her walk-in refrigerator) so that they would be perfect. I was worried they’d never open, but they did and they were gorgeous.

Another event is happening this year while the peonies are blooming. My sweet and noble 4-legged girl, my confidante and unconditional friend of 10 years, my dog Bella, is dying.  I am with her in our country home where I lived for years with my girls as they were going through middle and high school. She grew up here, too, and loves it among the gardens, the open lawn.  She knows it well. Our vet is 5 minutes up the road so it is comforting to me to be here.

We came home from our month long trip to a pup who has metastatic cancer. It came on so quickly, we were shocked.  There is nothing we can do but juggle modern medicine and some homeopathics to keep her comfortable until she decides to take her last breath. My husband, Jerry, who loves her as much as I, absolutely had to go on a business trip to Hawaii. Watching him say goodbye to her was heart-breaking. (He cooked her a plain osso bucco before he left, because it would be easier for her to digest!) So for 2 days, until my girls can get away from obligations for parts of the weekend I will be alone with Bella. So we sit together, side by side. Sometimes on the floor, eye to eye (she’s going blind), sometimes I’m on the couch, like now, and she’s on the floor next to me. If I go to another room, she seeks me out, unless she doesn’t have the energy.

It’s interesting how things happen in life. We brought Bella home the day after we moved to our upstate house. My first marriage was falling apart. The girls and I moved upstate, to what was then a weekend place (they didn’t know yet what was going on). Bella was my confidante, my comforting comrad in my silence. When the girls were with their father, which was so hard for me, on occasion I would crawl into her huge kennel and lay down with her, her paw on my arm. She gave me such comfort during many difficult and lonely times.

So here we are, the situation reversed. I guide her throughout the house when she gets confused, take her out 2-3 or 4 times a night, on a leash now, because she gets lost in the dark. I give her her pills several times a day with peanut butter or osso bucco! (her appetite is serving her well now!) I get up with her very early in morning when she is at her best. We take a little stroll around the gardens and just be.

Today though, I’m watching her breathing change, and think, “oh, this is it” and then an hour goes by and she hobbles up to get a drink of water. Then I see her heart beat out of her chest. I reach down to take her heart rate. 180. Call the doctor. She calms down, and just wants pets on the chest. The vet is a country vet – comes to the house during such times. He came today , took some fluid out of her abdomen and said it was ok in there, but it was her compromised lungs. Her breathing is efforted, but I don’t think she’s in pain. She just seems very very tired. And she wants me by her side constantly. If I begin to pet her in another place, she raises her paw so I can rub her chest. She is waiting for her sisters to come say goodbye. I can feel it.

I’ve witnessed two people I love die: my father and my grandmother. It is an honor to help usher someone to the other side; in fact, almost beautiful. Heart-wrenchingly sad though it is to say good bye, there is a peace about it. I am praying for such an experience with her. I hope I don’t have to make the decision to release her from her pain, and that she can choose when to take that last breath. I hope the peonies are long gone by that time, but it is unlikely.

I am most grateful this soul came into my life at a time when I needed just her, though didn’t know it at the time. She was my companion, my familiar, my sidekick and my angel.  We’ve been through a lot together. I realize that she knows my secrets in a way no one else does, of a time that feels so long ago, before my entire life transformed.

She taught me the meaning of unconditional love – a love that doesn’t change when you yell at her, no matter what you look like, or what you do. She always loves you when you walk in the door, no matter how long you have left her.  She is now teaching me the meaning of the slow goodbye. Respect. Quiet. Candles. Unconditional love right back at her.

I hope I can live up to what she thinks of me.

I will think of her always, but especially next year when the peonies bloom. For now, I enjoy her last days, holding space for what is next for her.

AFFIRMATION OF THE DAY

No affirmation this week. Just hug those special ones you love so much, and relish your time together. Find some time to be slow with them, before you have to say goodbye.

My wise vet said, “It’s no different than human life. You think you have forever with them, and then things change. It makes you appreciate all the moments you have.”