Return To Roses
Saying goodbye and closing the door.
I’m sitting here staring at the box that now holds the ashes that a week ago was my dog.
It’s wood and has a carved floral decoration on one side.
The only thing that identifies him is the sticker on the back that says “Bentley Fell.”
Walking into the veterinary to pick up his ashes just days after we had to make the heartbreaking decision to say goodbye was incredibly emotional. My heart sank as I saw the door that led to the room we were in that evening. I remember my final look at him. He was peacefully curled up on the floor, and I double checked to see that his eyes were closed, kissed the side of his head, and said, “Goodbye, Bentley.”
Seeing the door, I also remember that before I left, I tried to get the blanket he was on as neat as I could. I didn’t want it wrinkled.
He was now at peace, yet just a few minutes before, as I held him in my arms, I could feel his heart beating and his nervous shaking. He was always anxious at the vet, but this time we were there to relieve him of his suffering and pain.
He knew.
And so did our other dog, Rufus.
Unlike Bentley, Rufus gets overly excited when he visits the vets. That night was no exception.
I sat down on the floor and held Bentley as best as I could for a larger dog. He had lost about ten pounds, but he probably still weighed 60. His head resting in my lap, my right arm wrapped around his ribcage as I gently caressed his chest, my left hand cradling his head as I stroked his face and rubbed the meaty tissue where his ears connected to his head.
He always loved that. He would come to me, put his head on my lap as his way of asking me to massage the back of his ears.
I was looking him in the eyes, calmly talking to him to help him remain as relaxed as possible. Truth is, he was in so much pain at this point that he never even tried to get up. Just like at home, it was hard for him to lie down, and once he did, it was even harder for him to get back up.
We first noticed the signs of his arthritis earlier this year when he was lifting his front left leg. However, by June, it was glaringly obvious how rapidly it was impacting his body as his health had deteriorated significantly. The last month was especially tough, and the final weeks of his life were heartbreaking. We suspect, as did the vet, that much more was going on inside his body than just arthritis. On his final day, the doctor could feel a large mass in his stomach and said he probably had cancer in or near his spleen and most likely elsewhere throughout his body. We chose not to do any blood tests to confirm one way or the other, because at this point, with the immense discomfort he was in and his age, the loving and humane thing was for us to hold him in our arms and say goodbye.
Once the life left Bentley’s eyes, Rufus knew. He calmly sat next to him and just looked at us.
They say if you have more than one dog, you should always show the deceased body to the surviving dog so they know they are gone. Otherwise, they may pine and want to search for them.
There were a lot of tears, but at least he was no longer suffering.
And then we had to leave him in the room.
Alone.
Closing that door was so difficult…
One door closes, return to roses.
I loved Bentley so much, yet we didn’t even intend to adopt him.
The idea of two dogs never crossed our minds.
In November 2013, having said goodbye to our fourteen-year-old beagle, Ringo, earlier in the year, we decided to drive up to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State to look at a litter of Red & White Irish Setter puppies. In all honesty, we knew there was no way we could look at a litter of adorable two-week-old puppies and not choose one for our family.
In the breeder’s house, there he was, helping to look after the mum and her pups. He was already seven months old and very gentle with the newborn litter, which looked more like guinea pigs than dogs.
But he wasn’t the focus of our visit. The litter of pups was why we drove up there. We paid a deposit on one of them and agreed that, once they were three months old, we would return to pick up our new puppy.
A couple of weeks after our visit, the breeder called us and said she really enjoyed meeting our family. She then said she had an offer to make us… would we also like to purchase the seven-month-old dog who was with the mother and pups on the day we visited? She said she would sell him to us for less than half the price, as she just wanted him to have a nice home.
We immediately said, “Thanks, but no thanks”. Our home would be complete with the puppy we were to receive from her at the end of January.
She understood.
However, her phone call got us thinking and talking.
“What if?”
We spoke with friends and family who have two dogs, and they all said, “Without hesitation, if you can do it, DO IT.”
Over a bottle of wine, my wife and I discussed the pros and cons of two dogs and the “should we or shouldn’t we” questions. And a few days later, we called the breeder and told her we had decided to adopt him.
He came into our lives and our home on December 27th, 2013. He already had a name, but we decided to change it to make him ours.
He was now Bentley.
A grand name for such a handsome boy.
It didn’t take long for Bentley to learn his new name, and when he started responding to it, we knew we were now his family.
Bentley was such a gentle soul who loved to run. His happy spot was the Oregon coast, where he would run several hundred feet ahead of us along the Pacific surf, chasing the birds. Or, in an open field alongside a river where he could run, jump, splash, play, and wrestle with his younger “brother from another mother”, Rufus.
He was also a very loving and emotional creature. You could see it in his expressive eyes. And he clearly felt jealousy. If you were petting Rufus, he would have to come over and be pet too.
Unlike Rufus, Bentley was also obsessed and motivated by food. When he lived with the breeder, he most likely had to compete and fight for his food, and he probably lost that battle to the other dogs. Even though he no longer had to fight for his food, that instinct remained with him, and he would eat very quickly and then scavenge for scraps.
Until recently.
That’s when we knew his ailing health had taken a much more serious turn for the worse.
It was becoming harder to feed him, and we could see his body becoming weaker. The runs were no more, and the long walks became much shorter. We could tell he was in a lot of pain and discomfort. His eyes expressed so much, and it was heartbreaking to watch him struggle.
Bentley, our once strong, incredibly fit, energetic, loving dog, now struggled to move, became very confused, and stopped eating.
He was dying, and sadly, it was time for us to say goodbye.
One door closes, return to roses.
Since that day, I’ve been listening to a lot of mindfully curated, mellow, and reflective music.
Jeffrey Silverstein is a musician based in Portland, Oregon. I guess you could call his music “Cosmic Country,” but I think there’s much more to it than that label suggests. I have always found a spiritual, introspective calmness in Jeffrey’s ethereal music… a yearning for something cosmically and existentially larger.
“Metaphysical Music” is what I would call it.
I first met Jeffrey in 2017 when he was hired at my school to work with our students who need social and academic guidance, as well as emotional and anger management support. It was through music that he and I really connected. Jeffrey had recently moved to Portland from the East Coast and was a musician. He set up a small corner of instruments for his students to access, helping them channel their negative energy into something more positive, creative, and healthy. He eventually started getting some gigs around town, and I went and saw him.
Back then, it was just Jeffrey with his guitar and pedals creating sublime, looping soundscapes. Occasionally, there were vocals, but they were added more for texture than storytelling. It was always about the sounds.
While Jeffrey is still a teacher, he wasn’t at my school long. When he left, we kept in touch for a bit, but life gets busy, and our conversations became less frequent. And then COVID hit, and life paused.
But it was during that pause that I heard a song called “Trip Sitter” while I was painting. I put my paintbrush down, looked at my Spotify, and saw it was by Jeffrey. I smiled and thought to myself, “Good for him, he did it!” But it also inspired me to reach out and reconnect with an old friend.
A lot of Jeffrey’s music is instrumental. There is often the gorgeous, gliding sound of a pedal steel guitar with delicate, introspective noodly guitar rhythms saturated in reverb. Sometimes, old voice recordings are layered over Jeffrey’s music, as on “Caught Behind The Hours” and “A Dog’s Age.” Other times, he sings in a conversational way, similar to Lou Reed. And occasionally, he may add a female voice, as on the stunningly exquisite, floaty, and airy “Birdsong in the Canopy.”
Jeffrey told me that he started his deep dive into country music because records were so expensive. He would go to record stores, flip through the dollar bins, and most of what he found was old country records that nobody else wanted. He could walk out with an armful for the price of just one in the top bins. It also makes the duds easier to accept when they are only a dollar or two.
But I suspect his love for the good ol’ Grateful Dead also led him down that particular path.
And it was Jeffrey’s metaphysical music that I repeatedly turned to this past week.
Jeffrey, if you are reading this, I want to thank you.
Thank you for being a real one. Thank you for what you do with your students. And thank you for your gift of music and for sharing it with us.
As one door closes, your songs have been a source of comfort for me, and I feel ready to return my dear Bentley to the roses where he now belongs.
Two beautiful tributes in one. Sorry for your loss, Mike. My grandfather wept only once in his adult life. That was when he had to say goodbye to his dog. The bond is profound.
So sorry for your loss Michael. Loving Bentley enough to give him a dignified and peaceful goodbye is the greatest gift. It’s so hard saying goodbye to a pet and I’m glad you were able to find some degree of solace in music.