Friday, 07 January 2005 | Conclusion

I'd acknowledged that she wouldn't always be around (her life span is, hopefully, shorter than mine), but I hadn't expected her to die anytime soon. It was always in the future, always pushing itself back as the days move forward; it was maintaining a safe and comfortable distance, hovering out there along with the day I decide to get married and have kids. It hadn't gotten to the point where I had to trick myself, though; she was healthy.

It helped to see her body, even though it had grown a little stiff and was no longer the recognizable furry flab that spent a lot of time curled up on my bed. Her ear felt the same as it had before. Her paws were crossed politely in front of her, like an X. Eyes slightly open, tongue barely sticking out of her parted jaw. I said something about maybe taking a picture, but everyone discouraged it, telling me, That's not how you want to remember her. (But if I take a picture, I can always ignore it or delete it. If I don't take a picture, I've got no options.) I didn't take a picture, though I wanted to.

The person who'd discovered her body was the one who'd generously brought her there a day earlier, to a vet on the Upper East Side. Jane wasn't a patient, but even so, the people were warm and consoling, as if we'd been regulars. They gave me options, set her on an examination table in a private room for viewing, and wrapped her up in a box when I asked to take her home with me, all at no charge. (A week later, I'd call back about a bag I'd left, and they would remember me and offer me more sad animal stories, in a gesture to relate.)

Rather than dropping me off New Jersey (from where I'd planned to take the train), my parents had driven me all the way there, and when they left, they took the box of Jane with them. They planted her under the holly tree in my grandparents' yard (alongside of generations of my grandfather’s hunting dogs), and placed a small piece of turkey near her mouth, and a headstone on top of the dirt that covered her. A few days later, friends of mine who'd known her came to my place for a small party, at which we all wore gray and ate food, in an effort to emulate her most polished skill. We also drank wine and played Taboo, which had nothing to do with the Jane theme, but was nicely distracting anyway. It's all starting to feel rather normal by now.