Goodbye Bell Bells

If you see this, just do me a favor and pretend you didn’t. Just say a quiet prayer and let it go. I write this blog for myself. Not really a “dear diary”, but a reflection on life from the lens of an amateur radio operator, made publicly available for the curious. And in this vast world, very few people know or care that it exists. In fact, this is a very painful post. Stop reading now if you think this may bother you.

I am not walled-off, hardened, or feelingless. I love deeply and care extensively. I cherish the hills and valleys of my emotions. The myriads of nooks and crannies of the soul, the dark and the light, the joy and heartache, every last crest and trough on the roller coaster of life. Daybreak will destroy the darkness, and nightfall will suffocate the sun. The cycle of life.

Nellie’s gone.

Intellectually, you know a dog cannot live forever. But, I cannot tell you how much I wanted her to.

What can I say about loss that hasn’t been said before? Heartbreak, the universal muse. The juxtaposition of isolation and communion. A uniquely personal affliction, ubiquitously shared. We have all experienced the achromatic palette of heartbreak. Yet when we do so, we are alone.

Today was a beautiful sunny day, with puffy white clouds dotting the sky, like a child’s drawing. The air temperature just slightly cooler than that perfect state of being entirely unnoticeable. The slightest breeze kept the air fresh. It was easy to spot my green van from the perch on top of the hill at NEARFest, a flea market full of mostly radio-related electronics in a fairground in New Hampshire.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to go. Well, in fact I didn’t want to go. Nellie’s death had been a blip in an otherwise very busy week. But Nellie wasn’t a blip, and I wasn’t sure I could handle trying to paint on a happy face any longer. And I certainly did not want to tell anyone about my loss. Because, who really cared if I was hurting? We all have lives, and pain, and things… My little pain is a drop in a giant bucket.

But I ran into my friends, and the words poured out. Not much had to be said really. Many of them already knew Nellie from our various radio escapades. We swapped stories of pet losses. Calm talk on the surface barely hiding the raging undercurrents of emotions. The universality of the suffering that occurs with the loss of our interspecies companions. I am grateful that I went. Solitude turned to solidarity. We all share our interest in radio. And we all share the loss of that which we love.

I’ve climbed mountains my entire life. When I was a kid in the single digits for years, my Dad took me up Prospect Mountain in Lake George for my first hike. I didn’t like walking up hills, so I stopped to check out every squirrel. I still don’t like walking up hills, and I count my steps when the terrain gets too steep. C’mon, Min, just another 50 steps…

I’ve long thought the most important quality that a mountain climber gains is perseverance. As long as you manage to put one foot in front of the other, you will reach the top. Your only task is to take a step. One, two, three, four, five… That single act of moving forward is the most significant one of all.

Some call their pets family. Some call them their children. Some say they own them. Nellie was my friend. In the last moments of her life, with her body and mind still very strong, I (we) had to make the decision to end her time on this earth. The tumor had made its final creep through her body, destroying a critical bodily function. A strike so chillingly lethal, and unforeseen. We knew she would eventually lose the battle to cancer, but had thought she’d dwindle away. That we would have more time to send her off to the great beyond. That she’d be with us. And secretly we fantasized that she would somehow outlast the disease; that it would simply disappear. Instead, her anatomy was blindsided by a sneak attack. She had hiked up a mountain just two days before, and now she would not be able to live, the tumor crushing her urethra and destroying the function of her bladder essentially overnight. Short on performing a surgery no twelve year old dog could ever deserve, Nellie had reached the end of the trail. She knew what we were doing when that poison was injected into her, and I don’t think I can forgive myself even if there was no other choice.

I won’t bore you with the details of how my dog was the greatest. All of our pets are the greatest, aren’t they? I will just leave it with I love Nellie with every cell in my body. My soul has been screaming since the moment she passed. And I’ve been counting my steps, because I know that this too is simply a steep hill on the path of life. If I can have one wish, it would be to know that Nellie forgives me, even if I may not be able to forgive myself.

The loss of Nellie has left a palpable void in our lives. Tomorrow, Marc and I are setting out in the hopes of finding a new canine friend to continue on this walk through life with us. It seems too soon. But the house has a eerie quietness, almost an echo to it without Nellie. And we feel incomplete without the presence of a dog. There is a dog out there who needs a place to go. And we now have a spot unexpectedly open up for one.

The cycle of life in all its cruelty and beauty. That photo is of Nellie and I at our secret spot earlier this year. Nellie would lead me down the hidden trails to find it. A secluded picnic table at an extremely popular park that was never once occupied in the many times we sought to claim it. We would sit there, and Nellie would swim while I played radio. Just maybe that is what it is like in Heaven.

Until we meet again Dear Friend.

KM1NDY

“Nellie Belly. Full of Jelly. Nellie Belly Nells.”