Storymania - No Good Bye by Rick Mantilla

No Good Bye
Rick Mantilla

I never had the chance to say goodbye.

The look that she gave me when the doctors took her away for tests, blood work and to make the necessary preparations for emergency surgery the next day. I lied to her, told her that I would be right in and that everything was going to be all right, knowing that I wouldn’t be allowed to see her until after the operation.

My wife and I noticed the slight changes in her behavior and appearance. They were subtle at first not enough to make anyone worry but over time and looking back we should have acted on in sooner. She never complained or acted as if she was in pain, her energy level remained the same, and the same playfulness, and energy that we looked forward to each time we saw her. Clueless of what was really happening to her the insides of her body until it was too late. The loss of appetite was the first sign, but of course we thought that she was just being picky since she had always been finicky about the people she liked to be with but her food as well. Then we noticed the bulge protruding from left side.

By the time we made the next available doctor’s appointment she completely changed. A complete change in 24hrs, her energy levels fell, would not eat and she just looked sad and tired just wanting to sleep forever. We did all we could to comfort her until the appointment. 48hrs seemed like 48years and we stayed up and watched her sleep, worried that she may need something and we wouldn’t be there. Standing vigil was the only way that we knew how to show her how much she meant to us. We talked about why we didn’t do something sooner, blaming each other, wanting to find an outlet for our grief we found each other, and in the middle of it all we found ourselves actually talking to each other instead of at each other. There were long pauses between words, the silence so loud that only her deep breathes that she took as she slept competed for dominance. I can still hear her breathe.

The doctor did the usual, asked how she was feeling, took her temperature, weighed her and drew some blood. He looked at her side reassured her and looked at us. I felt my wife’s hand slowly drop down and reach for mine. When she found my hand, the emotion I felt in her hand is something that till this day I don’t think that I will ever experience again let alone find ways to express it. Some things have to be felt. Maybe she felt the same thing coming from me, I won’t know since talking about our feelings about, towards each other has never been a strong point in our relationship, I’m partly to blame, nor do I think it ever will be.

He said that he needed to take some x-rays to at least get some idea as to what was ailing her. All we could say is go ahead. What else could we say? Ask him to utter some magic words and she would be all right? Ask him to ask god for help since doctors seem to have a better gasp on what life is. We waited half an hour in the waiting room and then got called back in. He showed us the x-ray and all we could see was this huge mass on the film that nearly covered it completely. He said that it was pushing the other organs inside of her up against her body cavity, especially her stomach which would account for her lose of appetite, he wasn’t sure if it was her kidney that had become enlarged and was growing or some type of tumor that was growing. He would only able to tell if he preformed exploratory surgery and take it from there.

My wife said goodbye to her and told her that everything was going to be ok and thanked the doctor and quickly left the room. She was fighting with him not wanting to go. She gave me a look as if to say “please don’t leave me here, please come with me, I need you to protect me, please don’t go.” I told her that I would be right behind her and to follow the doctor. She listened to me and as she went with him I told her I would see her later. How was I to know that her look of fear, her wanting me to comfort her and to be with her would be the last time that I would see her alive.

For some reason I felt that everything would turn out ok. That she would come out of it just fine. My wife and I proceeded to go about our day waiting to hear from the doctor when it started, when it was over. We received updates from his assistant telling us of the progress and so fourth.

5:27pm Friday, November 16th, my wife had just gone into the bathroom when the phone rang. I picked it up and spoke with the nurse who told me that the doctor wanted to speak with me. My heart beat picked up speed and I began to take short shallow breathes. I tried to take deeper ones to calm me down but I couldn’t. He spoke and began with “I have never seen anything like it…it was the size of a small watermelon…and it was attached to every major blood vessel. It had to come out. It was her kidney. When we removed it, there was too much blood, we couldn’t stop the…” Before he could finish I knew. My chest tightened up and it felt that I had stopped breathing, I felt like I was choking and someone hit me so hard that the only thing that I could do was just stand there in shock trying to figure out how or what I was supposed to feel. I thanked him for all he did and asked if I could see her now and he said yes we will wait for you. He apologized with an exhausted voice and hung up.

I stood there with the phone still cupped to my ear as I head that recording that instructs all of us to hang up if we wished to make a phone call knowing that the hardest part was yet to come.

I heard the faucet in the bathroom turn on and water began to flow from it. I head my wife asked if it was the doctor. Her voice sounded a million miles away, an echo that searched and waited for a response. I finally clicked the phone off and waited at the door.

When she came out she looked at me. I reached out to her with my hands and grabbed both of them. I didn’t know of any other way of telling her.

“She didn’t make it.”

She moved in closer to me and embraced me and cried. I held her tight apologizing to her while clinching my teeth to fight back the tears I so wanted to let out, I had to be the strong one now. I felt a tear land on my neck as she pressed closer into me, wanting so desperately to take her pain away, all I could do was to hold her.

We called her mother up and drove to the doctor’s office I was driving, my wife in the passenger seat and her mother in back, all of us stunned and without feeling.

The nurse at the desk informed us that he tried to save her but couldn’t. He did everything he could and told us that he was visibly upset after all he had known her since she was a pup. We asked her if we could see her. She led us to the operating room and told us to take all the time we needed.

Two of his assistants, one male, the other female, were there, both of them looking very sad. My wife was the first to go up to Minnie to say goodbye. She stroked her fur and talked to her telling her that she would now keep grandpa and Uncle John busy while they were in heaven and that she loved her very much. I looked at his assistants and both of them were crying, one of them reiterating what the nurse had said, I don’t remember which one, that he, all of them, did all they could do. My wife thanked them, planted a kiss on Minnie and steeped back to allow her mother to say goodbye.

She didn’t say a word, just stroked her fur and thanked her. She took her glasses off and leaned in to kiss her goodbye leaving a tear behind that got caught in her fur.

I went up to her. Her body lying on a cold, metal operating table, she was lying on her left side, the right covered with a tarp attempting to hide the section where the surgery had taken place. I looked at her; her eyes were shut and her pink tongue slightly hanging out, the same look she had when she was sleeping. I smiled when I saw this. I touched her and caressed her, letting the fur slowly touch my fingers as I remembered her reaction when I did this to her. I didn’t say a word out loud instead talked to her in my head as if her soul and my mind had a direct link. I told her I was sorry that I didn’t say goodbye to her and that I was sorry for lying to her and that I loved her very much. I gently kissed her and turned not wanting to look up at the assistants with the tears that I had, I kept my head down and thanked them.

Over the next several weeks I found myself coming home after work at five and opening up a can of dog food doing what I normally did after my day was done and found myself crying alone when no one was around and remembering the look that Minnie gave me the last time I saw her and feeling guilty over it. If this is how people act when they lose a beloved pet I can only imagine how people feel towards ones children or the loss of someone dear to them.

Her toys and bed are tucked away in the attic, some pictures of Minnie are up on our shelves and there hasn’t been a day that we don’t talk about her and I wanted something of her to remind me of her but I thought that carrying a pink chew toy that looked like a rolled up newspaper would look weird. So I opted for something a little less drastic. I took her name tag, in case she was lost, and her dog license and placed them on my key chain and when they rub against each other, it sounds like she is here, the sound that came from her when she ran to us when we came home, when we walked and played with her, when we were with her. I miss her.