It seemed that they must have listened because one night I went to bed and the next day when I woke up, all of them were leaving me.
Nigel and Caro, of course were first. Nigel headed down to Graytown and got a flat the summer he graduated high school with some mates of his. He worked at a pub and went to uni where he studied Welsh and History. Caro, as promised, headed off to London where she enrolled in a school for Veterinary Science, and worked in a department store to support herself in a flat in Chelsea. Two years later, our little Natalie left off for school in Paris, where she was to study Art. She was still so small. She looked just like a little kid as she hugged her daddy and mum at the rail stop. “Goodbye for now, Auntie Sil! Uncle Ollie!” She hung out the door of the train and waved as it pulled away, “See you soon! I love you all! Cheers! Bye!”
We all stood there until the train was out of sight. “Three gone,” Alexander said with an obvious lump in his throat, “Four to go.”
“I hope she’ll be all right,” Lucy’s voice broke. “Paris is so far away.”
“She’ll be fine,” Oliver put his arm around my sister, “As long as she doesn’t call and say she’s house sitting or camping over spring break, we’ve no worries!”
“Oh mercy, Oliver! What we did to our parents!” I put a hand over my mouth so Lucy wouldn’t see me smile.
“I’d kill her!” Alexander muttered.
“Don’t say such things!” Lucy insisted. “She’d never!”
Oliver and I laughed. Shameless, we were. We had no remorse for what we’d put our parents through. When we’d married we felt it was our life to choose. Not one day after did we ever do a blasted thing that anyone told us we should. We gave each other permission not to. We didn’t listen to a word of decent advice. We were young. Love had a way of making us fearless because we knew that no matter what happened, if we fell on our face as we entered the ring or conquered the world in battle, in the end it would just be us, together. Everyone else would have buggered off before the day was through. He and I were just the way it was supposed to be. It was brilliant.
There was a two year separation between Nattie leaving us and Gryffin finishing his studies at comp. Gryffin decided that university was not for him. Instead he took a job writing for a journal and the autumn after he finished school he packed his bags and moved straight to Edinburgh to put pen to paper and make a living at it.
“If there was more opportunity in Wales, I’d stay,” He told me the morning he drove away, “I’m going to miss you, Mum. And this place. Lord Copse and Lady Folia, too. I told them I’ll be back one day and asked them to look after you. You’ll be OK, yeah?”
I smiled. “Gryff, I have a husband to look after me.”
My son laughed, “I know, but I love you, Mum. I worry.”
“I love you, too, Muffin, and don’t worry. Your dad is very good at looking after me, plus I’m pretty sturdy myself. Just go and make your dreams all come true. That’s all I want from you. Be happy.”
It’s true. It is all I ever wanted for him or for any of the children for that matter. I wanted them to go off and chase their dreams and make happy lives for themselves. But it didn’t ease the discomfort or the loneliness or the worry that followed having them go.
As much as I hate to admit it, I’ve never been good at letting things go. Oliver was always good at it. He’d mourn for a bit and then he’d move on somehow, but I never figured out how he did it, especially when someone I loved would pass.
I lost Duncan the summer I’d had him fifteen years, almost on the exact date he’d been delivered to me. Duncan had been lively and strong until the end, but the last few months of his life he’d started having strokes. They were small ones, ones he recovered from quickly. They’d take him off balance, but after re-hydrating him and giving him a vitamin, he’d perk up and go chasing rabbits off into the wood as if he were still a pup. Then, toward the end, I found him in the middle of a fit. When he came out of it, he walked sideways and was nearly blind. Still, he didn’t seem to be suffering and he was more than content to lie beside somebody and have his ears rubbed, so Oliver and I decided it wasn’t time to have him put down. I wasn’t ready to part with him anyway, but I was slowly working on preparing myself for the inevitable. Duncan was dying. It was only a matter of time until he did and I knew it.
I woke up in the middle of the night one night to the whispers of the elves. I lie there and listened, unable as always to make out a word that they said. Still, something told me that I needed to go into the living room, so I climbed out of my bed and walked along the cool floorboards into the front of the cabin. I heard an odd noise, a sort of raspy snort, and flipped on the light to see my little dog lying on the couch, twitching. It was obvious that there was something terribly wrong.
“Oliver!” I called as I knelt beside my dog, “Oliver! Come quick! It’s Duncan!”
Oliver was beside me in a flash. He put his hands on Duncan’s chest, turned him, and put his ear against his side. When he lifted his head, his face was stone serious. He turned his dark eyes to me and shook his head. “Hold him, Sil,” He whispered, “Sit with me on the sofa and let’s hold him.”
He didn’t need to say any more. I lifted my ancient Scottish terrier into my arms and I cradled him like a baby. I ran my hands over his smooth fur and kissed his little face. I watched my tears land in his beard and stick. I wiped them away. I watched him take short, shallow breaths. Over a few hours they gradually became more and quieter until they were faint. It took me a few minutes to realize it when he stopped breathing all together, but I know that Oliver knew it the second it happened because I heard him crying softly behind me.
“Oh my,” I whispered as I ran my hand over Duncan’s smooth fur, “He’s left us, hasn’t he? Duncan‘s gone away.”
“I’m sorry,” Oliver whispered harshly. He cleared his throat, “It’s just his time.”
I put my hands over my face, but I didn’t cry right away. I couldn’t decide if it were sorrow or relief I felt that he was gone. I decided that it was both, but those are two emotions that are difficult to feel at the same time. They don’t mingle well. Ollie put his arms around me from behind and cradled me like a child, rocking me gently from side to side.
“He was so old!” I bawled. “He was the best dog ever!”
“I’m so sorry. Yes, Sil, Duncan was the best dog that ever lived. My God, we had him longer than we’ve had Caro!” He shook a little.
We sat there like that for a time, Oliver holding me and me holding my poor old dog, both of us weeping quietly so we didn’t wake the children. Finally, about the time the sun was on the rise, Oliver told me it was time to bury our pet.
I allowed him to take Duncan from my arms. He lovingly wrapped him in the blanket he often slept on by the stove and carried him out to a shady corner in the garden. Just before the tree line where the deer often stood and watched us, he began to dig a hole. I sat on the porch with a rag and I sobbed as I watched him plunge the shovel deeper and deeper into the Earth. Finally, he took our ancient Scottish terrier into his arms and he kissed him gently on his old face before he placed him in the ground. Then he removed his t-shirt and laid it across him before he began to refill the hole with dirt.
When he was finished, he came and he sat beside me and neither of us said a thing.
The children woke a few hours later. I let Oliver tell them that Duncan had found his rest. We both went with them out to the place where he was buried. We both hold them while they cried. Losing Duncan to them was the same as losing a brother. They’d never known a day without the old bloke, they’d never spent a night without him sleeping beside one of them on their bed. They’d never known death before losing him, not one of them, and it was devastating and confusing and painful. I wished that I could do something, anything, to ease their suffering, but it was impossible to do through my own grief. I felt so selfish as I sat and cried with them, but maybe I really wasn’t. Maybe I was just teaching them that it was all right to be so sad you fell apart. Maybe they needed to know that it was OK to feel bad when you lost something you loved. Maybe I taught them that in life you can’t always be strong and that there are times when it’s perfectly acceptable and even expected, that you are so overwhelmed by emotional pain that you literally cannot stand.