Hospicing Hope Continued by Sara Wright

Part 2, You can read last week’s post here.

Walking over to Hope’s gravestone early the next morning, I immediately noted the passionflower was still open. Very Unusual. But then, crucifixion and abandonment by someone this dog loved characterized the last two months of Hope’s life, the dark side  associated with the mysterious power that permeates this wild vine and flower. When this passionflower started blooming profusely in the house months before ki’s time, I felt the threat looming…

A few minutes later after the sun cast her fire over the hillside where Hope’s body lay, masses of golden swallowtails dipped and soared around her grave. Oh, that’s when I felt Hope surrounding us with love. I am well she told me and flying with the butterflies as you can see…

 The earth moved beneath my feet.

  One month later swallowtails continue to fly around Hope’s grave.

 What I couldn’t know that first June morning  was that the remainder of the blossoms on the plant in the window that overlooked Hope’s grave would fall away unopened. Plants speak to those that love them, and this flower was highlighting my dog’s final betrayal and death by dropping her flowers, only one part of this plant’s ability to be emotionally present and to communicate truth/reality.

Ancient as well as modern Indigenous peoples still use this plant for medicine and healing, transformation, perseverance, a vine that celebrates a genuine root connection between earth and sky a quality that the man who betrayed her does not have. He calls himself a healer, but the power is all in his head. How I missed this I’ll never know (in retrospect I see that our relationship was idea driven – and therefore potentially dangerous. This root that connects earth to sky was the other side of the life force associated with passionflowers – a side I was intimately connected to. Betrayal severs connection but for those who love ki, passionflowers continue to tell the story of both sides.

 Momentarily, I was swept away by memories of giving this plant to other people who then betrayed me… The plants always died.

Lucy’s longing interrupted my reverie, so I returned to the house. She was in mourning too, lying just where Hope once did and needed me more than ever. On my way into the bedroom, I stopped to visit with indoor passionflower that was still studded with yellowing buds all of which continued to fall during the next few weeks.

Until a few days ago.  Now new buds, buds that are in tune with the summer season and new life have suddenly appeared like magic!

 Today exactly one month after Hope’s death the first flower on the new pearl like strands is just opening. I need to add that after the betrayal I couldn’t bear to look at the plant without experiencing a descent into hell. I kept the shade lowered separating this wild vine from the rest. Only within the week have I begun to ask the plant’s forgiveness. Today’s flowering feels like both a response and a benediction.  

But I have digressed.

Lucy and I had four days together before we got the news from Suzanne. Lucy was in liver failure and would not be with me much longer. I thought the shock of losing another beloved companion would unhinge me, but much to my surprise it did not, even though this dog was the last of my family, except for Lily b…

Now, every action I take is directed at hospicing my Lucy just as I did with Hope (I was trained and worked as a hospice worker but had never experienced anything like what I was living now.)

When I broke my hip in the fall of 2023 Lucy was so traumatized by the event that she never recovered. She chewed the fur off both front legs. She compulsively clacked her jaws in fright. She lost all of her hair and was terrified of returning to the clinic where she had been shifted around by well-meaning staff. She wouldn’t leave the house and no longer enjoyed walking through I insisted on regular exercise. She retreated to our bedroom, the only place she felt safe. Always shy and reclusive she needed me more than ever.

I stopped going anywhere without her.

 Hot muggy summer weather made this a distinct challenge, but I continue to keep her with me at all times except early in the morning when I take my walk. Fortunately, she can tolerate this brief absence, if I tell her exactly what I am going to do… It interests me that she needs to hear this verbal assurance  though we regularly communicate beneath words. Ever vigilant she waits pitifully at the door with huge black onyx eyes until I return. If I am forced to go somewhere she cannot go, I leave her with a person who cares about dogs. This person kindly dug a second grave after I got the news of Lucy’s impending death. Every time I look out the window or walk to the brook I see the grave, praying for acceptance.

For this moment in time Lucy seems all right, and her quality of life is excellent, but I am only too aware that the situation could change at any moment. Every day I talk to her the way I did with Hope asking her to let me know when it’s time. But other than that, we live almost as one being; her needs have become my own.

My love for Lucy intensifies with each passing day (though I have no idea how this could be). Although only Nature knows when her time will come we live each day in the present moment.

One more day….