How to Be a Good Creature Read online

  My mother had died of pancreatic cancer earlier that year. In the hospital in Virginia, I held her hand as she fearlessly breathed her last. Since the doctors at Fort Belvoir had diagnosed her with this painful terminal disease, she had not once whined or wept. As I looked into the piercing black eyes of that white weasel, I realized how much I had admired my mother, and how much I missed her.

  ✧

  The ermine held my gaze for perhaps thirty seconds. Then it popped back into the hole. I desperately wanted to run to the house to get Howard so he could see it. What were the chances the tiny animal would still be there, much less show itself again, when I came back? I put down the hen where I had found her, ran the hundred feet to the house, and alerted Howard. Together we returned to the coop. Again I picked up the hen. And again the ermine shot its head from the hole, its black eyes blazing from that luminous white face as its laser stare fearlessly met ours.

  Even in the wake of tragedy, we could not have felt more amazed had we been visited by an angel that Christmas morning. When the angel met the shepherds in Bethlehem, the shepherds “were sore afraid.” When I was a child, that phrase had always seemed odd to me. In my illustrated Bible, the angels looked like pretty ladies in nightgowns with wings, and on our Christmas tree, they were always playing harps or blowing trumpets. Though the flying was impressive, nothing about those angels would have scared me, even as a little girl. But now that I have thought more deeply about these words of scripture, it seems to me that the angels must have been more like our Christmas weasel: glorious in purity, strength, and holy perfection.

  In our barn we beheld a great wonder, as did the shepherds who flocked to a different barn so long ago. Our Christmas blessing came down not from heaven but up from a burrow in the earth. With dazzlingly white fur, a hammering pulse, and a bottomless appetite, the ermine was ablaze with life. Like a struck match chases away darkness, this creature’s incandescent presence left no room for anger in my heart—for it had been stretched wide with awe, and flooded with the balm of forgiveness.

  For most of our lives together, Tess interrupted our work constantly to lay joy in our laps.

  After our morning outing, when we’d feed Christopher and the Ladies, Tess would sit quietly in my office or in Howard’s for about an hour. Then she’d have had enough. As we were writing, suddenly a ball or a Frisbee would appear on one of our laps. We’d have to go outside together to play.

  There were times—in the middle of writing a crucial transition, for instance, or during the birth of a new idea—that the intrusion of a toy, wet with a dog’s drool, was unwelcome. But not for long. For many reasons, nothing could be more fun, more life-affirming, or more meaningful, than playing with our joyous, athletic border collie.

  Playing with Tess meant multitasking love. Whenever Tess went out, the person with her always interacted with the other animals too. Christopher would sense our presence and call, “Unh. Unh! UNH!” He demanded that we pet him, feed him a scoop of grain, an apple, or some slops, or let him out to be hooked up on his tether. The Ladies would mob us, squatting to be petted, picked up, and kissed.

  Happily, if we worked quickly, there was time to do all this between tosses, because Tess liked you to throw the ball or fling the Frisbee a L-O-N-G way. Howard could send the disk flying hundreds of feet. I couldn’t. Plus I had bad aim. But still, Tess caught anything that was tossed without fail, no matter who threw it. Howard called her “a real Golden Glover.” She never played favorites. If we were out together, or with visitors, she would always alternate between people, handing the toy back to first one person, then the next. She loved the game so much, I think, that she assumed we must too, so she kept track out of a sense of fairness. Nobody should be left out. If she had summoned Howard to play earlier, while we were working, she would pick me an hour later.

  The sight of our spirited young dog racing over our field, leaping up to catch the toy, always lifted me, like singing the first notes of “Amazing Grace.” Her movements matched the song’s first words, too. She was not only powerful, but refined and elegant—the very definition of grace. And particularly considering the injuries Tess had sustained from the terrible snowplow accident, and before that, the sorrow of her early life as an unwanted puppy, her grace and her happiness with us was nothing short of amazing.

  The joy Tess brought continued into the night. The last thing we’d do before going to bed was play one more round of Frisbee. Her black-and-white form was gorgeous gilded in moonlight. But I think Tess was even more beautiful on inky black moonless nights, when I couldn’t see her at all.

  On our country road, no streetlights pollute the night skies. Some nights are almost cave dark, and we humans can see nothing on these moonless nights. But Tess could see perfectly in the dark.

  Dogs possess a tapedum lucedum, a light-gathering reflector in the eye—the reason dogs’ and cats’ eyes glow in the headlights of a car. So, on those darkest of nights, I would follow her into the blackness, listening for the jingle of her dog tags. She would lead me down the gentle slope of the backyard to where the lawn leveled out at the edge of the field. Then I would whisper to her. “Tess . . . Go!”

  I’d wait some seconds and then toss the Frisbee into the blackness. Where it went, I had no idea. But a second or two later, I’d hear the beautiful click of her teeth on the plastic—and know that she had leapt into the air and caught it.

  I’d squat down and hold my hands out in the dark. She always put the Frisbee directly in my outstretched palms—Tess knew that otherwise I’d have to waste valuable play time feeling about for it on the ground.

  Tess had quickly learned to intuit almost our every move. She always knew when we were going to the upper barn versus the lower barn, when we were going to get in the car versus go in the house. Inside the house, it seemed she even knew what room we’d be heading for before we did. When we’d take long hikes together—sometimes Howard and I would take a day off and bring her with us to hike in the White Mountains—she’d run ahead to catch up with my long-legged husband, then run back to me. Often she’d know to find me just before a fork in the trail—where, without her, I’d inevitably have chosen the wrong direction. Then she’d run ahead to Howard, and then back to check on me. Howard noted she’d hiked the same trail as he and I did, but did it four or five times before the humans reached the end. Bred for synching sheep with shepherd, border collies are celebrated for their brilliant minds. Tess applied hers to figuring out what we might do next together, and how she might best be of help.

  Even in her brilliance, Tess couldn’t possibly have understood my blindness in the dark. How could I not see what was so clear to her? Yet she generously worked around my unfathomable disability. She always patiently brought the toy right to my hands. And when I felt we should go in, I only had to say softly, “Tess, come.” She would run back to me and then lead me by the sound of her jingling tags back to the house.

  Though Tess constantly amazed me with her intelligence, strength, and agility, I think I most clearly saw how richly she blessed me on those dark nights. For unlike most other humans, thanks to Tess, I could voyage, even play, in the pitch blackness. When I was with her, she loaned me her dog superpowers—powers I did not myself possess but had longed for ever since I had first seen them in Molly.

  But eventually, that would change, and change me profoundly.

  ✧

  On a June morning, just as we were waking up, Tess jumped down from the bed, stood up, and fell over.

  At first I thought it was arthritis. Tess was then fourteen, and between her age and the snowplow injury she’d sustained before we’d met her, it was no wonder that she stumbled sometimes. Our marvelous vet, Chuck DeVinne, was already treating Christopher, then twelve, for age-related joint ailments, and every morning I hid capsules containing three medicines in a breakfast muffin.

  But when I looked into Tess’s eyes, it was clear this was not morning stiffness. She was having a mini-stroke.

>   She seemed to recover quickly and completely. But her brush with disaster put us on notice. Though Howard and I were in our forties, the animals with whom we’d shared our vibrant youth were rushing ahead of us into old age. Our days together were numbered.

  Of course, they always had been. To me, one of the most heartbreaking conditions of life on Earth is that most of the animals we love, with the exception of some parrots and tortoises, die so long before we do. I used to joke with friends as I left for trips to lands with poisonous snakes, man-eating carnivores, and active landmines that I was trying to make sure I predeceased Chris and Tess. I never feared dying. Death was just one more new place to go. We’d all go there eventually. I believed if there was a heaven, and if I went there, I would be reunited with all the animals I had loved. But I deeply dreaded being left behind when Chris and Tess passed on.

  Still, as I constantly reminded myself, they both seemed to be doing just fine as seniors. Chris’s appreciation for the best things in life—gentle touch, loving company, and chocolate donuts—continued unabated. He still amassed new fans for Pig Spa. Tess charmed everyone, as before, as she leapt to catch the Frisbee, and ran after the ball till we stopped her, when her tongue was hanging out.

  Then one day, distracted by an interesting smell, Tess dropped her Frisbee in the grass. When Howard asked her to pick it up, she ignored him. She had gone deaf. It had probably happened weeks or months before, and because her sensitivity and intellect had so effectively compensated, we hadn’t even noticed.

  Then came a bout with canine peripheral vestibular disease. The symptoms are like those of a stroke, but to the sufferer they feel very different. Tess’s world spun uncontrollably. Beset with vertigo and nausea, she couldn’t stand up for weeks.

  Incredibly, she emerged from this, too, like the fighter she was. She would enjoy walks again, but with a decided head tilt forever after. And by now her bright brown eyes had grown cloudy. Deaf and going blind, she could no longer play Frisbee. The ball held no interest. My heart ached—and at first, I thought it ached for her. Surely, I thought, she must miss our hikes, our hours of play, racing across the field to catch the ball and the Frisbee.

  I was wrong. The heartache was my own. I was the one who longed for those younger, stronger days, for the magic of her more-than-human gifts of hearing frequencies I could not detect, seeing with surety in the dark. I missed traveling in the slipstream of her superpowers. I was sad—but Tess was not.

  One look at her showed she was happy. Her tail wagged. Her smile, her ears, her composure, all radiated contentment. Tess didn’t feel like chasing or leaping. Life was still rich and interesting, redolent with scent, and full of tasty treats and the comfort of being with those she loved. She accepted that now, for some reason, the world had gone largely dark and quiet. But she wasn’t worried. Clearly, she understood that somehow we humans could navigate this black and soundless world for her.

  Tess still enjoyed going outside, even at night. I used to love how she could run so far away from me to catch the toy; now I rejoiced that we stayed so close together. Tess could follow my heat and my scent at first. Later, we remained touching at all times. And I was honored, after our years together, to receive the gift of her graceful, trusting reliance on me, as I had once relied on her, to navigate through the dark. Never before had anyone relied on me so completely. Never before had anyone loved me more deeply. And never before had I experienced grace so profound.

  In her wobbly old age, Tess still made me want to sing. Her grace was now even more amazing. Hers was the grace to which we appeal when we need strength or compassion of greater-than-human origin. Grace is not merely athletic prowess or elegance of movement. It is also, theologians tell us, the divine ability to regenerate and sanctify, inspire and strengthen: “I once was lost but now am found / was blind but now I see.”

  Tess never lost her superpowers. She had simply brought them back and handed them to me, like the Frisbee at night. Until the end of our days together, I would enjoy the humbling privilege of doing for her what she had done for me. Now it was I who would lead her through the darkness.

  My love for my dog and my pig burned ever brighter as they aged. There was no darkness we couldn’t navigate together. But what about when Chris and Tess were gone?

  After Chris and, too soon afterward, Tess had died, the one thing that kept me going was the comforting thought that I could kill myself.

  Tess, sixteen, was already failing when we found that Christopher had died in his sleep in his pen on a morning in early summer. I was in shock. We had no warning. At age fourteen, Chris had a bit of arthritis but otherwise seemed fine. Because he had shown no symptoms of rapid decline, and because we had no idea how long pigs could live, I had hoped he would outlive Tess and help me through her death. But this was not to be.

  In her final days, Tess had endured my flushing her body daily with infusions of Ringers solution to aid her failing kidneys. At night, sometimes she woke whimpering, with confusion or nightmares—I never knew which. I knew it was only a matter of time before her life held more pain than pleasure. That time came one short season later, on a sunny September afternoon, when our vet came to our home, and, as Howard and I held Tess in our arms beneath our silver maple, gave her the shot that ended her brilliant, big-hearted life.

  How I wanted to go with her! Losing Christopher was horrendous enough. Without Chris, the barn, even with our busy hens, felt empty. Just looking at our yard made me sick with grief. After his loss, I had lived for Tess. I knew she was dying, and I think she did too. But we were together, and for those short months, for both of us, that was enough.

  Once she was gone, though I still had my darling hens, my beloved husband, our lovely home, friends who cared, and meaningful work—blessings that had brought joy to every day—it all felt like nothing. It was early autumn, my favorite time of year, and the air smelled like ripening apples. But I didn’t want the precious fruit of our hundred-year-old Roxbury russets. I didn’t want to pick the last of summer’s blueberries. I didn’t look forward to the fall colors or the fluffy snow. I didn’t want food or sleep, music or company. I didn’t want Christmas, or Easter, or next year—or ever. I hated myself for my ingratitude.

  Weeks went by, and then months. Still my despair felt bottomless. My hair fell out. My gums bled. Worse, there was something wrong with my brain. When I spoke with people, I would search for a word in my mind but speak its opposite. Once I was at an elderly friend’s house and tried to make a little joke about an eighty-year-old acquaintance who was dating a sixty-year-old. I wanted to say he was “robbing the cradle.” But to my horror it came out “He’s robbing the grave”!

  I knew I was dangerously depressed. Alarmed, I fought to quell it. I forced myself to swallow food and water. I took vitamins. As before, I worked out three times a week at the health club. I spent time outside every day to get sunshine. Attempting to revive my ailing brain, I got tapes to play in my car to learn Italian. Nothing helped.

  And for the first time in decades, I could not escape into my work. After Christopher died, to honor him, I’d begun writing a memoir of our life together. So every day, my work was to recount, in vivid detail, the fourteen years of comfort and joy that Christopher, and Tess, and the friends who had gathered around them to become family, had brought to me—comfort and joy now forever lost. Even the little girls next door had moved away. Writing the book was not cathartic. It was draining and difficult.

  I struggled every day to finish the manuscript. And what then? Chris and Tess would still be dead. Would I still feel like this for the rest of my life?

  I thought: I can’t stand this.

  And I remembered the injectable Valium left over from my mother’s failed battle with cancer. After her death, I had taken it home with me, meaning to dispose of it safely. But I never had.

  ✧

  I made myself a deal. If I didn’t feel any better by the time the manuscript was finished, I would end my pain
, as vets end many animals’, with a simple injection. I’d overdose on Valium. I didn’t know then that this plan wouldn’t work. An overdose of injected Valium wouldn’t kill me; it would only make me sleep longer than usual. And because of the nature of depression, I also didn’t realize what a hideous blow my suicide would deal my survivors. Killing myself would only deflect my pain onto those I loved—the last thing in the world I’d have intended.

  But the decision brought me a strange sense of peace. Knowing I would not have to suffer like this forever, I could soldier on until I had fulfilled my obligations. There was at least an end in sight. Either I would feel better and go on with my life, or I wouldn’t, and could end it.

  Besides the Hogwood manuscript, I had one more duty to discharge before I could make the decision. I’d signed a contract for a shorter book, for younger readers, about the work of Dr. Lisa Dabek, an extraordinary researcher who had just begun radio tracking a species of kangaroo that lives in trees in Papua New Guinea. Lisa had become a good friend since I’d first met her at a talk on my Amazon pink dolphin book years before, and I owed her the honor of featuring her important work in this book. The expedition to her study site was slated for March—a particularly depressing time in New Hampshire, when the snow is melting into mud and everything looks gray and dirty. It might be, I thought, the last expedition of my life.

  ✧

  The first three hours of the hike to our field site would be the hardest, Lisa promised. Certainly, it had to get easier from here, I thought. With each step up the muddy, sometimes forty-five-degree slope through the cloud forest, my heart banged in my chest like a bongo drummer gone berserk. Holding on to my walking stick, I gasped for breath. An eight-year-old from the village was carrying my backpack because I could not. One of the local women who was working as a porter extended a scabby hand to help me. She clearly had a skin disease. I grabbed her hand gratefully. Sweat, sore muscles, contagious skin ailments—none of it mattered. Neither did the painful swipe of stinging nettles, or the leeches that brush off from the tips of leaves and can end up in your eye. All that mattered was putting one foot in front of the other until the first three hours were over and we could sit down and take a break.