Lessons from Doggy Hospice
Content warnings: animal medical details, death, brief mention of addiction/childhood trauma
My companion emotional support dog child Ozymandias (Oz) passed away this past Friday. It was a very short time from when I found out he likely had cancer on October 11th to when he left his physical form on November 1st. Over the last few years, I have connected more deeply with the cycle of Jewish time and with grief work—I learned and healed so much along the way.
Oz and I three days before he passed away; photo credit: Bronte Grimm
Oz’s hospice time spanned the second half of the Jewish month of Tishrei, the first month of the year that begins with Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year. Tishrei is the second month in a two-month period of deep reflection; it is chock full of Jewish holidays, making amends, and re-starting the annual cycle of Jewish time. The following month, Cheshvan, which started on November 2nd, is all about rest and integration. I set intentions for each month, and for Tishrei, my intentions were: prioritizing, surrender, and full presence. Little did I know when the month started that these three items would embody how I needed to show up for Oz’s end-of-life.
Oz was a very sensitive dog; he held me through so many tears over his eleven years: the loss of my father nine years ago, separating from his dad three years ago, sadness/anger about the state of the world, and deep trauma healing work. As an instinctive being, Oz was skilled at holding space for me when I needed while always prioritizing his own needs, something I strive to embody myself.
Oz’s Hospice—Joy and Grief
The week following Rosh Hashana, about three weeks ago, Oz stopped eating or being interested in going for walks, both of which were favorite daily activities of his. On October 15th, x-rays of his belly and chest showed one large and many small tumors. Oz was an eleven-year-old, 94lb, ½ Rottweiler, ¼ American Pitbull, ¼ English Mastiff mix. He was the perfect mix of old man and toddler, and he had a tough year that included cycling through a variety of housemates, a few incidents of biting people (likely because of pain), moving, knee surgery, and dental surgery. There were expensive options I could have pursued to learn more details about his tumors and potentially have surgery, but I opted instead to shift into hospice mode with an expectation of having 4-6 weeks with him. I immediately committed to prioritizing time with him, surrendering to the reality that he was dying, and being fully present in my time with him. I took as much off my plate/calendar as possible and reached out to our community for support.
A few days later, he started taking steroids, which immediately boosted his energy and appetite. We were able to go on a last adventure to the Oregon coast, on long walks around the neighborhood, and to the local dog park. Oz always loved humans more than dogs, so I invited everyone to come spend time with him. He had over twenty visitors; his food became rotisserie chicken, cheese, challah (Jewish bread – more on that later), and whatever the people around him were eating; he got ALL the dog treats and bones he wanted—it was heaven on earth for him!
Oz and my final trip together to the Oregon Coast; photo credit: Julia Urow-Hamell
I set up an altar for Oz in our living room that included photos, a Jewish prayer for pets, and daily tracking of Oz’s quality of life. I arranged for a vet to come to the house when it was time. I knew that I wanted him to go before he was in a lot of pain while he was still experiencing joy, and when that moment became clear to me, it was a surprisingly easy decision to make, though one full of deep grief and tears. I believe the decision itself was easy because of the healing journey I have been on the last few years, one that has supported me to more fully embrace the depth of my emotional experience and trust my inner knowing.
During these two weeks, every day felt like three days, and every day was full of intense moments of joy and grief. I have learned from ancestral wisdom and experientially that joy and grief are intertwined, often captured by the phrase “it’s better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.” It was beautiful to see Oz being loved on and loving life running through the waves of the ocean, chasing his ball, receiving SO MANY pets/cuddles, and successfully begging everyone for food with his big puppy eyes. My friend who moved into our house last Saturday became his “food friend” feeding him French fries, crab Rangoon, and Thai noodles after I told them that “there are no rules” about feeding Oz anymore. In the moments when thoughts arose that he was dying, I allowed my tears to flow, my body to shake, and my nose to run; I held Oz close as I grieved my awareness that he wouldn’t be around much longer; I went through many handkerchiefs, always keeping one on hand. I got in as many pets and cuddles as I could, and I journaled and talked to friends about how I always knew this day would come, and I wasn’t quite ready to say goodbye. I leaned on my self-care practices that often get tossed out the window during times like these—I meditated and did yoga regularly, drank a lot of tea, listened to music, danced, went for a massage/spa time, and wrote in my daily gratitude journal.
Oz’s cycle of life baby Halloween costume the night before he passed
Oz’s last full day was Halloween, so I had some fun with the fact that he had needed to wear diapers for incontinence reasons and dressed him up as a baby in recognition of the cycle of life and death. (I don’t think he enjoyed the costume much, but I thought it was hilarious and spent twenty minutes laughing when I first put the oversized binky on him.)
That night, I sat with a friend and Oz; with tears rolling down my face, I expressed aloud that it was time to say goodbye. As soon as I said this, a leaf fell off a plant in front of us and slowly floated to the ground—a clear sign from the universe.
Oz’s last day was full of virtual and in-person visitors including a virtual Jewish service of people who wished Oz well on his journey, a dog friend, a 13-month-old baby friend, four video call goodbyes, and a final walk that Oz decided he wanted to take an hour before the vet arrived. I dropped my ballot in the mail on our final walk and told Oz he wouldn’t have to be around for whatever emotions arose the following week. Oz passed surrounded by love with myself and three dear friends holding space as he drifted off and crossed the rainbow bridge.
My Healing Journey
About four months before all of this happened, it had become clear to me that the second half of this Gregorian year of 2024 is the closing of a chapter of my lifelong journey of healing and growth. This chapter started in 2019 following my first participation in Burning Man and involved largely shifting my entire social world and gaining clarity on who I am—a life coach, facilitator, ritual leader, and space holder; an activist, wealth redistributor, and liberatory singer. During this five-year period, with a lot of pain and tears, I spent my early thirties dismantling the life I had planned since childhood—living in the suburbs, married to my best friend who I met in college, working a high-paying corporate tech job. I came out as nonbinary and polyamorous; I got divorced from my partner of thirteen years; I went from being a homeowner to a renter; I got certified as a coach; I left my corporate job; I spent a year “funemployed;” I went on a three-month solo road trip; and I engaged in multiple healing communities to process my grief and my childhood trauma. About six months ago, I became single for the first time since I was eighteen (and a week prior to Oz’s passing became single again when I realized I had entered another partnership before I was ready.) Within the last few months, I began to identify myself as Autistic—I am very early in unpacking my experience of Autism.
Oz’s Companionship on My Journey
Oz was the one constant in my life throughout this journey, always reminding me about joy and presence. He had the most expressive face and range of sounds of any dog I’ve ever met. He loved all things outdoors (except rain)—hiking, swimming, camping, fetching, rolling in the snow, and dog parks. He loved his toys, always bringing a different one to the door when someone arrived and pulling only bits of the stuffing out over time so they would last longer. His tail was docked before we met him at two weeks old (pics below) and seeing him wag his nub and then his whole butt when he was excited always made me smile. When Oz wasn’t getting his needs met, he would make that clear by shredding pieces of trash into pieces or most recently by eating all of my snacks when I accidentally left the snack cabinet open—a mess to clean up AND no comfort snacks!
Oz was obsessed with challah, the Jewish bread that we eat on Shabbat, the day of rest. When he was a puppy, I decided challah would be the one human food I would feed him directly as part of Shabbat, and he quickly learned to associate the blessings sang before with receiving a piece of challah. I later regretted this decision when he started demand-barking for challah while we were singing the blessings, a very jarring disruption to our ritual song.
Oz eyeing the challah; photo credit: Julia Urow-Hamell
Shortly after my former husband and I separated, right before I moved, I had the Hebrew word “Hineni” tattooed on my forearm. “Hineni” translates to “Here I Am,” and represents my finding of a more authentic version of myself and committing to unapologetically show that authentic emotional self to the world. The day that Oz passed, I was with people virtually or in-person from 8:30am to 8:30pm. After everyone left, with my housemates both sleeping elsewhere, I was fully alone in the house, perhaps for the first time. As I sat with myself, I reflected on the reality that I spent the last five years learning to be fully with myself, and I said aloud “Hineni, here I am!”
Hineni Tattoo – March 11th, 2022
Grieving
Grief work has been a big part of my journey. In January of 2023, I attended a weekend-long grief gathering specifically focused on the loss of loved ones too soon, which for me included my dear friend Paige being suddenly killed while cycling at age 21 and my father dying of cancer at age 58. I have spent many years grieving the impacts of addiction on my childhood, and in more recent years, I have been in grief for all of the ongoing tragedies in the world—oppression, genocide, ableism, racism, transphobia, and climate change to name a few.
About three weeks prior to Oz’s diagnosis, I attended an album release gathering for a grief album called “Wails” by song catcher, community organizer, and grief tender Alexandra “ahlay” Blakely. I was deeply moved by this gathering and left with a commitment to grief ritual, both individually and collectively. In western society, we are taught to avoid grief, most explicitly represented by bereavement policies which typically give people at most a few days to grieve a death before returning to work. The Wails album is based on Francis Weller’s concept of the five gates of grief as explained in his book The Wild Edge of Sorrow. The first and most familiar gate is “everything we love, we will lose.” Francis states in his book that “each of these doorways leads to the communal hall of grief, and each helps us to understand the many ways that loss touches our hearts and souls in this life.” I listened to the entire Wails album after learning Oz’s prognosis while sitting with him and crying. I listened again the night before he passed, and I listened again the night after he passed. Grief is non-linear, it comes in waves, and I’m deeply grateful this gathering and this album enabling me to access my grief at a deeper level.
Parting Gifts and Lessons Learned
I miss Oz so much, and I know that he will be with me, watching over me for the rest of my life. I envision that he is now running pain-free and hanging out with Paige, my dad, and all the pet and human ancestors. I will cherish the eleven years of memories, and the grief will continue to hit me in waves; as it does, I will embrace whatever feelings arise and ask for support when needed.
Oz left me a few parting gifts at the end of Tishrei—a reminder that I have a large community of loving, supportive humans who I can ask for help; a reminder to live in the moment as much as possible; a reminder that prioritizing my needs enables me to show up more fully for those around me. Now it is Cheshvan, time to rest and integrate, to allow everything that has evolved in me over these last five years, everything I learned more acutely in the last few weeks, to settle in my system. This time of healing and growth has been so intense, and I am now much more equipped to care for myself in order to show up for others and support the work of collective healing and collective liberation.
Today, as I mark the end of my first week of grief, I am ritually removing a piece of string from my wrist that was part of the closing of that grief gathering back in January of 2023. I’m surprised it has stayed with me this entire time; it has been a continuous reminder that grief is ever-present and not meant to be experienced alone. I know I have internalized these messages and no longer need the physical reminder on my wrist.
I hope that we can all embrace our grief and heal so that we can collectively create a world a love, care, and connection.
