Elissa adopted Ollie a couple of years after her diagnosis. He was a senior dog, the kind not often chosen—a brindled boxer with a dopey, drooling face who made me sneeze when he plopped his head on my lap. The shelter called him Ali (as in Muhammed), but Elissa changed the spelling because Ollie was more old man than fierce fighter. Walking side by side, dog and owner bounced like Muppets, Ollie’s stocky frame mirroring Elissa’s, which was wrapped in a hoodie and puffed by Prednisone and the coffee shop pastries that got her through the hard days. Though Elissa had never been a dog person, Ollie gave her something she needed, something to nurture.
Anaplastic astrocytoma. Over its four-year conquest, the inoperable brain tumor took so much: Elissa’s dream of becoming a foster mom, her teaching career, her first novel, her search for a life partner. She used to joke, On which date do you reveal your inoperable brain tumor? I don’t have any siblings, but Elissa was my sister. For nearly half our lives, we had called each other as much. Though Elissa had a mother in Minneapolis and a sister in Seattle, the distance was too far to travel for routine care, and so I became the person who took her to the doctor and chemo, who ran triage when she had a stroke, who supplemented her memory when it faltered.
There is no template for this role, no terminology that fits. What is a caregiver before the diapers need changing and the wheelchair needs pushing? I was her person when she was more person than patient, in the heady inconstant twilight of her final years. I was her person when she was as vital as I’ve ever seen and her needs were slippery as the shadows of fish.
Compounding and complicating this dynamic was the fact that we were both experiencing health crises. A few months after Elissa’s tumor arrived, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I was depressed and afraid, reconciling myself to a disease progression that would hang deteriorations of function over my head like a series of surprise cartoon safes. Elissa wouldn’t let me be alone. She knew what it was to lose mobility young, to be the first to leave the party, to take weird drugs that may or may not fix you. She showed up on my doorstep, blatantly ignoring my requests for time to process. And it helped. But a few years later, we weren’t on parallel paths anymore. I was okay, and she was not, and that latter fact was never going to change.
And then, Ollie was sick too. “He’s not eating,” Elissa said, picking the peeling paint off my stoop next to where her cane rested. “Peeing all the time.”
I sighed and watched the spring wind push white petals from the sidewalk out onto the asphalt of the street. These days, it was hard to know what was reality and what was a fiction created from Elissa’s condition. Her tumor meant she often failed to disclose information and was becoming increasingly unreliable. If there were factors related to Ollie’s health she wasn’t discussing, it was nearly impossible to discern whether those omissions were volitional.
Two years earlier, we had been out at an evening art event, when Elissa began talking excitedly. I teased her for tripping over her words. The next afternoon, I got a call from Elissa at school. I could barely understand her, the way she was slurring. No one at school could understand her either, and the school nurse was worried. I met her at the hospital, where we learned she’d had a stroke. Was the stroke a result of the tumor? Chemo? High cholesterol? Unclear. I spent the time she was hospitalized bringing her Thai food, reaching out to her loved ones, and wondering how I could have missed what was happening in front of my eyes.
The tumor created a swirl of chaos in which I could find no ballast. I had no jurisdiction over this force of nature. She lived independently. She was thirty-six and headstrong as a children’s book heroine. Elissa’s eccentricities had always been a part of her charm, but the tumor was sharpening eccentricity into harm. Was Ollie starving because Elissa had been forgetting to feed him? And was it cruelty or kindness to pursue that line of questioning? What’s more, how can you possibly begin to answer such a question without harming a friendship in its waning days of waking life?
Ollie looked gaunter than I remembered, his dark eyes slightly dull, as I lifted him into my car to drive him to the very expensive part of town. When we arrived, Ollie jump-fell out of the back seat, leaving behind a dark stain of urine that assured me something was wrong. The hospital was a shining beacon of care, glowing with earnest professional architecture; the lobby’s light wood gleamed in the sun that streamed through floor-to-ceiling windows. I checked us in at reception, beside a massive aquarium clearly designed to lower the blood pressure of clients in crisis. Past the receptionist’s practiced expression of concern, Elissa and Ollie waited, a broad-chested pair, sagging at the shoulders.
We had snapped into the dynamic that would characterize our relationship from there on out: Elissa hadn’t hesitated to sit down, and I hadn’t hesitated to do the talking.
Conversations with Elissa had once been a process of building castles in the air. We riffed off each other, bobbed and weaved, made meaning through pleasurable digression. She was a word person, despite the damage that had been done to her brain’s center of language. In college, where we met, she published a zine called Hope in which she interviewed actual riot grrrl musicians. Her laughter, raucous and free, punctured the intellectual severity of our peers. Even as her disease progressed, she insisted on using words precisely—once she wrote me, deeply concerned, over mixing up the copy editing marks “stet” and “sic.” Elissa was among the most verbally dexterous people I have ever known. When had I begun to speak for her? When had she begun to expect it?
In an examination room, a sandy-haired vet ran long fingers along Ollie’s sides. “I believe I can feel a growth,” she said. “It may be a tumor.” Ollie looked docile as ever, unflinching through the palpitations. A tumor.
The coincidence was conspicuous, but neither of us acknowledged it. It was another of so many silences. Memory loss, death, what came after —some topics we left untouched, though the borders between what could and couldn’t be said were about as distinct as perforations on a sheet of paper. She would say things like, I want to reach the age of Flannery O’Conner, but only once did she tell me she was scared. Only once did she ever broach the subject of her actual transition. Mostly, she insisted we would grow into old ladies together someday. She was protecting me in part, but also, would her brain let her believe it was the end?
I was ravenous for the intimacy of connecting with Elissa about death. I don’t know exactly what kind of connection I wanted, or what I thought we would say to each other. But the moment our friendship ceased being a partnership of equals, disappearing before I had a chance to mourn it, I understood that any closure conversation would be a fiction. My friendship with Elissa had evolved to irrevocably include her dying. And my surviving.
“We can take some X-rays,” the vet explained, “and then discuss the tests we can run to confirm the diagnosis.” When she produced a list of these tests and their associated prices, I blanched. Take the X-rays, we agreed. I said, “We’ll need to discuss the rest.”
While Elissa used the restroom, I took the chance to plead my case, imploring the kind-faced receptionist not to allow Elissa to sign any contracts on her own. Elissa was like my sister but she wasn’t my sister. Though I could speak for her, I had no power of attorney, no legal right to stand proxy and make decisions on her behalf. I was worried she’d be taken advantage of. I tried to trust that these professionals, well-versed in crisis, would understand.
After the X-ray, the veterinarian ran her hand along Ollie’s belly and confirmed our fears. Ollie had a massive tumor. Quick-growing and serious. “There are options,” she said and cleared her throat. A vet in a place like this must be used to patients moving mountains to save their “fur baby.” I could see her preparing her customary speech. She would couch the hard news in a container of action—these are the steps we can take, she was poised to say.
Elissa’s life was on the precipice of change. When the day came that she could no longer care for Ollie, she was planning to send him up to her sister in Seattle. She was dreaming of a last trip to Mexico, planning to sell her house, weighing the decision of when to stop curative treatment. Her doctors agreed it was time for her family to step in, and that she needed regular, consistent support.
The future held a jumble of choices and expenses. Undertaking surgery and aftercare to prolong the life of a terminally-ill dog was just not possible. It was all wrong, what the vet was about to tell us. Compassionate, but absurdly wrong. And yet I was powerless to stop her. As much as I had become accustomed to speaking on behalf of Elissa, her full story was not mine to share.
When the vet was done, Elissa tilted her head and opened her mouth. But instead of responding, she stopped mid-sentence. Her eyes lost focus and she stared off into the distance, as if frozen in time. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought that the weight of the situation was too much and Elissa was about to cry. But Elissa was having a seizure.
The kind of seizures you see on TV are grand mal seizures. Elissa’s seizures were petit mal. These smaller seizures are muted, often mistaken for inattention. According to Harvard Health, a person can have 50 or 100 of these seizures a day, and never have their condition detected. Petit mal seizures are sometimes called “absence seizures,” a dreadfully fitting name.And now, in the vet’s office, in the middle of everything, she was having one.
And it was useful. The reality of Elissa’s situation had hung diffusely over the room, but now that it was material, we could address it. Though the seizure was only 10 or 15 seconds long, that was time and reason enough to speak what Elissa would not. In the tightest of voices, I said, “My friend is having a seizure. She has an inoperable brain tumor, and she is ending treatment soon. She cannot take care of Ollie.” I was matter-of-fact, and clear, in complete control. My body was taut as a stretched elastic, holding all the emotion I couldn’t release. This, I thought, is how I behave in an emergency.
The vet leaned forward, her blonde hair slipping out of her ponytail. Her composure broke into something human as she listened, sad and sorry and concerned. Perhaps she wondered whether Elissa herself needed an emergency room. But I told the vet that this was “normal,” as normal got for us these days anyway.
When Elissa came back into her body, she was disoriented. But she was also relieved. Nothing was hidden anymore.
The vet reframed the conversation. “It’s clear,” she said, “how much you are going through. This is a lot. And you may want to consider whether the kindest thing is to end Ollie’s suffering. The prognosis, even with treatment, is not great.”
We nodded.
“If you choose,” she said, “we can do the procedure here, tonight.” Her eyes crinkled with compassion. “You’ve given him good care,” she said. “I want you to know you haven’t done anything wrong. He is a very sick dog, and this is a fair and loving decision.”
Neither of us thought we were coming to the emergency vet to put Ollie to sleep, but suddenly that was what had to be done. He was suffering, and no amount of delay or expensive treatment would fix it. We swallowed against the decision, but we made it.Together.
And then the clinical apparatus of death kicked in, unfolding with a series of clear steps designed to support us at every turn. We were taken to a small private chamber in which we were to spend our last time with Ollie. Ollie had been sedated for his x-rays, and now as he staggered drunkenly around the room, I tried not to cry at the pathos of it all. The tension in my body was releasing, and I was so tired.
Elissa left to get a Snickers bar while I tried unsuccessfully to engage Ollie with a white rope tug toy. When Elissa came back, I tried to read her. I had trouble understanding what was happening behind her eyes.
Jazz looked like he was straight out of Portlandia’s “central casting”: black scrubs, two full sleeves of tattoos, and plugs in his earlobes. I had the impulse to turn to Elissa and whisper, “Fosse!” but I restrained myself. Despite his vivid appearance, the vet tech wore the same practiced look of concern as the rest of the staff. He was sorry for our loss, and I wanted to say, “Jazz, you have no idea.”
Jazz’s role in relation to Ollie was unclear, but we patiently allowed him to cycle through his script until he handed Elissa a brochure. “I’d like to offer you some information about a special program we have here for grieving pet owners. We offer a number of resources, including a pet loss support group. Would you be interested in learning more?”
We exchanged a look and shook our heads.
Jazz plowed forward. “I’m sorry that I have to ask you these questions now. The next question is, would you like us to save a lock of Ollie’s hair?”
“Excuse me?” Elissa said.
“We know it can be comforting for pet owners to have a piece of their pet. It often helps them grieve.”
“No thank you,” Elissa said.
Jazz nodded sympathetically. “We also offer memorial art classes.”
Elissa was shaking with suppressed laughter. Inside my own body, the release of elastic tension was shifting from twinges to snaps. I had spent the last few years haunted by an unborn ghost, trying by turns to forget and to be mindful of the truth that Elissa was going to leave me, soon. Pet memorial art classes? What planet were we on?
Elissa had little patience for preciousness. “No, thank you, that’s all right,” she said.
Jazz tried again. “These art classes offer opportunities to create memorial boxes for your pet’s cremains. Decoupage, for example.”
It was over. Neither of us could contain our giggles.
“Really, no,” Elissa managed to say.
Jazz, well-trained, never broke his professional composure. “Well, at least let me leave you this pet memorial journal. Many pet owners feel like it helps them in their grieving process. To write through their experiences.”
Elissa rolled her eyes. I held out my hand.
Our final stop was the Comfort Room, where technicians would administer the drug that would put Ollie to sleep. The room was awash in natural tones and scattered with plush pillows that looked like souvenirs from a Westerner’s journey of self-discovery to India. Grey fabrics draped the walls and soothing music played, the kind of Zen melodies full of bells, chimes, and waterfalls that are often heard in acupuncture studios. On the far wall, a memorial tree spread its branches toward the ceiling, silver and gold gingko leaves shimmering in the low light. Each leaf represented a beloved pet now gone from this world.
Ollie lay in the center of the room, on what looked to me like an altar. On one of his legs was the injection port for the drug that would put him to sleep. The bandage affixing the port was decorated with a childish heart. “Press the buzzer,” the aide told us, “when you are ready to say goodbye. Take as long as you need.”
Elissa leaned over and patted Ollie’s head. “You are a good boy,” she said. Then, she sank back into the couch. I knelt on the floor beside Ollie. I placed my hand on his body, felt his side rise and fall with breath.
When a person is close to death, they recede. They become not only themselves, but a second, spirit version of themselves, drifting from the concerns of the earthly plane. Elissa could not squat beside Ollie because her mobility was limited, it’s true. But she was also gone, somewhere far away, both locked inside herself and released into the atmosphere. She was inscrutable to me.
I was angry. Ollie was supposed to see Elissa through her pain, not the other way around. A person with a tumor should not be burying a dog with a tumor. And Elissa should not be made to rehearse her own death.
Yet as hard as this was for Elissa, it was a selfish thought that rankled me. I was the one laying hands on Ollie, just as I would lay hands on Elissa. Ollie was not my dog, but I was the one who was in charge of this tragedy. And when Elissa pressed the call button, I was the one who felt the last rise and fall of Ollie’s breath as he closed his soft eyes.
When Elissa began hospice care, her actual, blood sister came to nurse her, and I wasn’t in charge anymore. That was a relief and a disappointment. A knot had slipped loose between us.
I still have Jazz’s pet loss journal, blank in a drawer. A decoupage box, a coffee can, a pet journal, an essay—these containers seem appealing in the way they offer shape and veneration. There was grief, tremendous and shattering, after she died. But the grief I experienced in the years she was dying? That grief was shapeless. Ambiguous grief, attending an ambiguous loss.
On our last road trip, Elissa and I played Categories. It’s a simple game: Take turns naming an item in a category (fruits, movie stars, jazz singers, bridges), all items starting with the same letter. We played until we realized her brain couldn’t anymore. Such a small loss, in the grand scheme. Who would even recognize it? But once, when we were eighteen, I drove a minivan leaking oil, Elissa in the passenger seat knitting a hat, all the way across New York state to see Tori Amos play songs we knew by heart. Every day that year I felt confused and alone and unsure of who I was, and somehow playing Categories with Elissa helped bring me home.
Elissa’s physical form was with me a long time after the textures of our relationship changed in ways I couldn’t name. I see her, standing in the sun, ankle-deep in the second-clearest lake in Oregon, unable to navigate the rocks, wearing a too-small bathing suit she had borrowed from me. I see her: liminal, inaccessible.
The questions that haunted me would go on to haunt me alone. What did it mean for me to be her “person” without being kin or romantic partner? My name was engraved on her emergency bracelet—how was that like and unlike a wedding ring? How would our platonic bond come to define both of our lives? She would die, but our relationship would not.
We were no longer on parallel paths, but in the quiet moments, we lingered in parallel silences. From her vantage, was I receding, too?
The mystery of it all felt unnatural then—as it does now—because Elissa was never an enigma. In one of her last blog posts, she responded to the prompt, Who are you? Come out from behind that curtain and show yourself, with, “I’m Elissa Marie Mogensen Nelson, thirty-five years old, a writer and teacher. . . . That’s who I am, really. And I was never behind any curtain.” And yet. Elissa came to know death in a way that made her inhabit a plane apart. Maybe she processed in a “wiser” way than the rest of us. I don’t know, and I will never understand.
In the end, Ollie helped. Before I drove away from the veterinary hospital and collapsed over grilled cheese and whiskey, before Elissa lost the ability to speak clearly, before we carried her ashes in a coffee can to the coast, before we scattered her ashes into the waves by Cape Meares—I sat with Elissa in a holy silence, bent over that creature who held her burden in his small dog body.
Ollie’s death gave me and Elissa a moment to inhabit the communal space of grief. I would call it a sacrifice, but I can see Elissa laughing at my hyperbole.
Until the end, she never talked about her death. She talked about the books she wanted to read. About the magnolia she would plant outside her window in spring. The puppy she would adopt, now that Ollie was gone.
***
Rumpus original art by Cyrus Finegan
