To: Cairo * From: Asia * July 10, 1995
Cairo - my Baby!
I love you
Bark Bark
meow (just kidding)
He he
Grrrowl
*Pat – Pat*
*Rub – Rub*
Take a flea bath
Go to the Lake
I MISS you ---
momma
November 4th, 2007 - 12:27 pm
I shouldn't be surprised. Her health had been failing, the latest a tumor under the eye. Last night, suddenly, she started hemorrhaging and it was clear that her time had come. Still I am stunned that how between yesterday and today,
she is gone.
Actually, that's a smile. Even as a pup Cairo had
a wacky, wonderful smile but in the beginning I insisted
she wear this mask when my daughter brought her over.
I felt really bad about it but it was the only way to keep her
from consuming the house plants.
From a letter dated 7/18/95
Aside to CAIROI had a dream with you in it. It involved boats, of course, and tides and travel. Strange dream. I remember you running around exploring, doing your own thing. You weren't constantly by my side but whenever I called you, you came running with your tail wagging. I miss you so very much. Often, when I'm out walking, I look down and imagine you trotting alongside me with your fur shining and your tongue hanging out the side of your mouth.
I love you.
Momma
I was always trying to photograph that smile, but whenever she broke into it, she was also wiggling too fast to "capture" it. This was about as close as I ever got. In the next second, when she was in a full grin, she had already hopped and wiggled out of range. She greeted everyone with complete joy although every now and then somebody would freak out thinking she was being aggressive. I felt bad for both of them but especially Cairo because animals always pay the price for our ignorance. Sometimes I thought I should hang a sign from her collar saying, "SHE'S SMILING AT YOU, STUPID!"
She lived with all of us at different times,
and was always ready for a road trip
but loved her Momma best of all.
Waiting for someone,
anyone, to join her for a walk
or toss her a snowball
Cairo and her Momma.
Eventually Asia sent me a dog nose mask, as its teeth were a bit like Cairo's in full grin. I took a photo of that mask this afternoon, after Cairo died. I didn't plan to blur the shot for some arty effect. The photograph just came out this way so finally I see. Cairo's smile could no more be "captured" than the twinkling of a star.
Another Dog's Death
in
Collected Poems, 1953-1993
by John Updike
Knopf
For days the good old bitch had been dying, her back
pinched down to the spine and arched to ease the pain,
her kidneys dry, her muzzle white. At last
I took a shovel into the woods and dug her grave
in preparation for the certain. She came along,
which I had not expected. Still, the children gone,
such expeditions were rare, and the dog,
spayed early, knew no nonhuman word for love.
She made her stiff legs trot and let her bent tail wag.
We found a spot we liked, where the pines met the
field.
The sun warmed her fur as she dozed and I dug;
I carved her a safe place while she protected me.
I measured her length with the shovel's long handle;
she perked in amusement, and sniffed the heaped-up
earth.
Back down at the house, she seemed friskier,
but gagged, eating. We called the vet a few days later.
They were old friends. She held up a paw, and he
injected a violet fluid. She swooned on the lawn;
we watched her breathing quickly slow and cease.
In a wheelbarrow up to the hole, her warm fur shone.
At the end, livin' the good life with grandpa.
The videos are so sentimental and impossibly romantic that they are the equivalent of Mexico's De Película Clásico, the 24 hour twilight zone of 30's - 50's era soaps. For me these things create a kind of global village hometown feel, but then I'm weird. But M. Lee is worse. On our last trip to Mexico, he so got deeply addicted to De Película that I seriously began to worry about him.
