Elegy for Isabelle
Remember Me Beautiful
Remember Me Young
Remember Me Smiling,
My Face to the Sun,
Remember Me Happy,
When You Remember What Was,
But Most of All, Remember My Love
Isabelle with a rainbow of light on her back her last week of life.
Sparkle doing her best to help during Isabelle’s last days.
Isabelle came to us as an adult nine-year-old dog missing her front leg after being hit by a car at age two. My sister too had a tripod at one point, but her three-legged was missing a hind leg and was short-backed and long-legged, whereas Isabelle was the reverse, long-backed and relatively short-legged—a beagle/basset mix, I always assumed. Which meant I never knew a side of this dog that wasn’t cumbersome, her hopping-front-leg-forward gate, followed by the walking of the hind legs up one at a time. I watched how she struggled with the day-to-day parts of life the others and I all took for granted. The bond with her took time, but the compassion was immediate.
Yet, Isabelle wanted no one’s pity. In her earlier years with me, she just got on with life, enjoying the outdoors, loving her food, sleeping on the bed. I’d look out and see her digging in the compost pile with all her heart, her nose a fourth appendage, her tail a stabilizing propeller. Or one of her favorite occupations, scouting for mice.
I thought she’d be able to go with us on short walks if she got in better shape. She did a little at first but then it proved too difficult and she’d stop, flop down on the side of the road and not budge. I ordered custom-made wheels but she didn’t care for them. I got her a wagon and pulled her on short walks. But she hopped out bashing her nose, the smells on the side of the road much too enticing. In her last year of life, a friend gave us a fancy, sturdy stroller called The Dogger. I placed Isabelle in gently, and there she remained. By then I think she was too tired to think about wanting out to sniff a particular spot. Or maybe she just loved being wheeled around, enjoying the views, the smells, the outside air. I pushed her around and around and watched as she raised her nose to sniff the scents carried on the breeze. For that was always one of her favorite things to do. I tried to eat my meals outside during each of the seasons. The dogs would join me and Isabelle loved to lie outside and sniff the air.
There were a couple times during the day when Isabelle magically sprouted her missing leg. Feeding time. It was a funny thing that when I’d stand at the stove then the counter and cook then fill their bowls, Isabelle all of a sudden could walk just fine, and she’d gallop up and down the kitchen, her tongue lolling out of her mouth, her face smiling goofily.
But when she got older, she needed more and more help walking. I’d listen and be acutely aware of that first click of toenail or a slight rustle of tag on her harness that told me Isabelle had pushed up from her bed and was wanting to go out or change rooms. I’d learn to listen like a mother listens for a tiny cough from a child, and leave what I was doing to go to her.
She was one tough dog and she never complained. No whining or balking, just doing what she had to do. Isabelle taught me more than any other dog about perseverance, valiance, courage, and most of all acceptance.
When she arrived, I wanted her to be called Izzy but Belle just came about and that morphed to Bella, both words for beautiful. Our communicator, Patty Summers, confirmed that Isabelle felt she was more Belle than Izzy. Patty also was the one to tell me when Isabelle was in much more pain than I realized, even on pain medications. I knew she hurt, but I also knew the will to live is strong. You don’t put an animal down out of inconvenience, and I wanted to be certain. But I guess I’d just gotten used to helping her walk from room to room, lifting up on her harness. I guess I’d gotten used to seeing her contorted and torqued body moving slower and slower. And by the very end, I was carrying her from room to room.
And so, on January 11th, the vet came to our home and Isabelle lay on the bed and I told her for the last time how brave she was, how I had learned so much from her, how I never minded helping her out. I thanked her for coming into our lives. And I told her how much I loved her. Then she was released from her broken, old body.
There had been one thing that bothered me and that was that I never had a song for her. Always for each of the dogs, a song would present itself but I could never force it. There was a Beatles song and Vivaldi and later Elton John, but no real song stuck. Only when I had told Marcella, a fellow beagle-rescuer and the woman who’d first told me about Isabelle, did her song appear. On Isabelle’s last week, Marcella heard an interview with country singer Brandy Clark where she sang the song, Remember Me Beautiful. Marcella sent it to me thinking of Isabelle, and when I listened, I cried and it so perfectly became Isabelle’s song. For the last few days of her life, I sang that song to her and I sing it still now.
My back may rejoice in regaining straightness from its perennial bent position and in not lifting and carrying her, but my heart does not. My heart only weeps as if trying to fill with tears the spot where a gentle soul has departed and a large hole left in its place. A labor of love to be sure. In which case, never a real labor. Some of my most meaningful moments in the day, towards the end of Isabelle’s life, were when I’d stoop to grab the top of her harness and help her outside in darkness, in damp, in cold, and stand quietly as she did what she needed. And in this I found meaning and purpose. In this there was simple love. Pure love that asks for nothing in return.
Run free, Isabelle. We love you. My Bella.
