I would drive 500 miles - #89

And I would drive 500 more.

I’m in a hotel room in Fort Collins, and the song I’m Gonna Be by The Proclaimers is on loop in my head. We must have listened to it at least 20 times on Thursday to temper my anxiety. Now, it’s Friday night and the song lingers. I am sitting on an astronomically high bed. When I sit on the edge of the mattress, my feet dangle an astonishing nine inches above the floor. Which means this bed is approximately nine and at least 10 inches too high for Cooper to jump off of. And Cooper is why I’m here.

To my left, there is an unopened salad from some place with Market in the name. I ordered it online, not even through a website, but through the modern marvel of ordering through Google Maps which only reveals its true horror when also attempting to use Google Maps. There’s also a tumbler of wine from the 750mL of shitty cab I bought in the lobby. There is a box of tissues that I took from the pretty box it was stashed in in the bathroom. Why do all Kleenex boxes look like they’re designed for hospital waiting rooms in the early 90s? Why must we buy covers for something already covered? 

Next to the bed is the chaise. And I mean immediately next to the bed because I dragged it there. It is a stepping tier so that if Cooper needs to drink in the middle of the night, or shit himself, he can step down from the bed, onto the chaise, then onto the 2nd half of the chaise where I have removed the cushion, then down onto said cushion, and finally onto the floor. 

On the chaise rests a bone, a toy from home, my dirty shirt I was using as a slobber wipe, and the towel I grabbed from the bathroom after I was like, “why am I using my shirt for this?” Across the room from me sits bags. A bag with Cooper’s new medicine, a bag of Pill Pockets, a bag with Cooper’s jacket and food, a bag that my food came in, a book bag carrying a Sarah J. Maas softcore fairy porn book and my laptop, and finally my own bag of clothes with two of the same pair of pants, two of the same bra, four of the same underwear, two of the same shirt. Is this really how I dress?

And finally, directly in front of me lies my phone, the remote, freeze-dried lamb cat treats, the sequel to the Sarah J. Maas softcore fairy porn book that I bought at Barnes & Noble after finishing the one in my bag from the library earlier, and Cooper. Cooper is a mess. His belly is shaved, along with part of his hind, as well as one of his front legs. When he is not shaking, he is drooling. He was admitted into the ER last night at the Colorado State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital, the premier pet-saving facility in Colorado, after I drove for nine hours to get him there. The drive is normally seven and a half, covering some 435 miles, but it’s June. It’s construction season. I kept singing to Cooper I would drive 500 miles and I would drive 500 more just to be the girl who drives 1000 miles to see you snort and drool. When I tell you I am tired of driving across the state for my animals, I am saying I would do it again and again.

We drove out here because Cooper was having fainting spells. We took him to the vet on Tuesday. We took him home. We took him back to the vet on Wednesday where they had me carry him into the back room and put him in a kennel so they could observe him throughout the day. It was the same kennel Snoots died in, the one where I held his paw and was so sure I meant our living room when I said, “I’ll see you on the other side.” I burst into tears. We took him to the vet on Thursday and they asked if I could take him somewhere else. They said we needed specialists — there were too many tests they didn’t have the technology for. So off I went, yet again, to the Front Range, raw with feeling. A live wire of grief and fear. 

For all that therapy gave me over the years, it took something: my shields. I used to be one of those fools who never cried and thought that made me cool, like some kind of dark heroine except I never got to the part of the book where the good things happened because she finally showed emotion.

Therapy unlocked my ability not only to feel but to communicate those feelings, and now I almost compulsively communicate it. And in Fort Collins, I have been communicating: Carrying a dog bed but no dog into the hotel. Driving a car filled with the trash of urgency into an oil change. Wearing the same clothes as I walk into the emergency care facility the next morning after leaving Cooper and my wallet there. Every person has looked into my hollowed out eyes and very gently made my life easier within seconds, offering discounts and kindness and helping hands. 

The rawness of fear and grief is meant to be handled with that kindness, with the gloves required to help a wild animal. It is meant for the delicate touch of a person who’s been there, the thick skin of a person who’s seen teeth. It is not meant for the woman chewing gum behind the Ulta checkout counter like some kind of teen movie villain.

“Did you find everything OK?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“What’s your phone number?”
“Why?”

I could feel it then — the shell I’d become from too much driving and too little sleep, too much fear and too little reprieve, it cracked and with it my entire disposition. 

She leaned onto the counter. “I said what’s your phone number?” 
I leaned into my anger. “I said why.”
“Sorry?” Her front lip curled up as she cocked from one hip to the other. 
“Why do you need my phone number?”

I felt the bitter disdain on my face and I wondered what I looked like to her: I was older but dressed younger, short, vacant, bleary eyed, and without rules. I was a predator and my phone number was my pup. 

“It’s for… loss prevention.” This can’t be a reason they tell customers. 
“I don’t want to give my phone number.”

She scrunched her face, trying to determine if I was in fact this annoying, and looked around the room, hoping for relief from me. 

“I, um, I can’t ring you up without one?” 
“I can’t just buy these things?” It was lip tint in desert rose and a taupe eyebrow pencil. 
“Do you know anyone else’s number who shops here?”
“No?”

She scanned the room for a manager again.

I needed to leave to get back to the veterinary hospital. I sensed this becoming a thing and sensed myself locking my jaw. It was time to retreat. 

“Just use 440-729…”

I gave her my childhood phone number. I just didn’t want texts from Ulta. I didn’t want makeup spam from a store nearly 8 hours from my house. I wanted to be left alone. I just wanted to be alone. I took my items, got in the car, and cried on the way back to the vet. 

Cooper doesn’t die today, but my brain kept crafting the narrative where he was, writing instagram captions and imagining burying him and what the bed would feel like without him pressing against my shins. I also kept yelling at myself, breaking the spell. “Kelton, he’s not dead! Stop it! Stop doing that!” This was the story I had avoided in January that wrote itself anyway, where Snoots ended up in a Guardian article instead of in my arms. 

But now Cooper is in front of me, finally coming out of the terrified state of shell shock, crawling into my lap to snortle and tremble. We have gone out the door, down the hallway, to the elevators, down four floors, and out the side door seven times in the last two hours. He doesn’t feel well and he wants to keep checking. I have taken him to the bathroom enough times to find it funny. I am exhausted, I want to go home, and I found myself saying “oh come on” to the dog I just spent the last three days draining my bank account for. 

If there is any benefit to grief trailing grief, it is that it is not a memory of roads you once knew — it’s just the roads you’re on. You know when to turn left at comedy. You know the weird curb jutting into the road that you’ll inevitably hit and start screaming about. The difference in Coop’s grief is that it's longer but sweeter. It won’t be a robbery when it comes. It’ll be a parade — on every street all at once. The town has time to get ready. And we’ll take all the time and miles we can get. 

Cooper has been diagnosed with pancreatitis, an enlarged heart, and pulmonary hypertension — made worse by moving to elevation. The price of paradise. But Cooper is 12. He has lived in Tennessee, New York City, Minneapolis, the Santa Monica Mountains, and now Colorado. He has driven across and around the United States multiple times. He has scaled mountains, backpacked through the wilderness, stayed in the most beautiful campsites and the poshest of hotels. He’s been in myriad ad campaigns, been the star of bike races, and was once even kidnapped and retrieved. One time in line for breakfast at the Malibu Pier, Bill Burr was a handful of people behind us and he turned to his wife, pointing at Cooper, and said, “now that’s a cute dog.” Cooper has lived a very big life for such a small dog. If the medicine works, Cooper may have another year to bask in the sun and trot through the wildflowers. If it doesn’t, he’ll go out as top dog, number one boy, and friend to everyone who meets him. Though I suspect he’ll go out that way no matter what. Here’s to the time left and the time enjoyed. May it surprise us and may he always know I’d drive to the ends of the earth for him.

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For a more uplifting story about dogs, try this one.