The Longest Goodbye

A journey through ashes and acceptance

As I poured the ashes into the hole, I wondered if it was deep enough.

Did it matter?

I found myself perplexed by the cemetery rules. An air-tight urn must be sealed inside a cement vault before it can be interred. But…why? People disperse ashes in all sorts of places: the ocean, the mountains, the backyard. They become dust in the wind. On any given day, we could be breathing in someone’s Mee-Maw.

Still, I felt guilty as I sprinkled Mandy’s ashes into the hollow I’d dug. I’m a rule follower.

I tried to be inconspicuous as I pulled a trowel from the Doctor Who drawstring bag I had gotten one year at Comicon. The bag had come with my ticket and was what my hand found when I blindly grabbed one off the closet shelf that morning.

After the trowel, I pulled out a small but weighty velvet pouch and then, a plaster mold.

Kneeling on the ground with these objects laid out in front of me felt ritualistic. Should I expect the TARDIS to materialize any minute, The Doctor emerging to foil my plan?

Nervous, I was making light of myself as I noticed all the other people placing flowers and sitting in camp chairs around the remains of their loved ones.

I felt like the noob I was.

This was the first time I’d been to the cemetery since Mom’s funeral ten months before. The promise to reunite her and Mandy drew me out that day: Mother’s Day. The first since her passing.

Mom worshipped that dog. Mandy brought her so much joy, comfort, and companionship. She was truly her best friend.

Manda Panda, as she affectionately called her, was always Mom’s favorite topic of conversation. Every time we chatted on the phone, I’d get a play-by-play of Mandy’s latest antics. Whether it was chomping tirelessly on her favorite squeaky toy, monitoring the squirrels in the backyard through the window, or napping beside her on the settee, Mom delighted in narrating Mandy's actions. She’d often interrupt herself mid-sentence, bursting into laughter at something Mandy had just done—rolling on her back, begging for tummy rubs, or giving her a sideways look as if she were listening in on us.

The day we had to move Mom from my house to assisted living was heart-wrenching. Mandy couldn’t come along. Despite her exceeding the size limit, the facility was willing to consider an exception if Mom could care for Mandy herself. If only. Alzheimer’s had made that impossible.

No good would come from giving her the bad news ahead of time. She would forget the conversation within minutes, forcing me to re-tell her. Forcing both of us to relive the trauma over and over.

I’d already been through several days of hell repeatedly re-traumatizing her with an explanation of why she was moving again. An explanation the disease would not allow her to comprehend.

She hadn’t understood why she had to move from her home of more than fifty years into independent living. Then, she didn’t understand why she was moving from there into my house—why the confinement to her room during COVID was accelerating her decline. And she didn’t understand now, settled back into a house, why she had to move yet again.

First came the anger.

“You just want to be done with me.” 
“You’re tired of worrying about me.”
“You want to put me away so you can go live your life.”

Then, the pleading.

“What did I do wrong?”
“I’ll be good, I promise.”
“I won’t get in the way.”

The list of don’ts from the Alzheimer’s Association brochure, How to Communicate, played on a loop in my head:

Don’t reason.
Don’t argue.
Don’t confront.
Don’t remind them they forget.
Don’t take anything personally.

What’s left, you ask? Yeah, I wondered that too.

All I knew was that there were zero options on that list for helping her understand that I could no longer provide the level of care she needed.

There was no more delaying the inevitable, though. The moving conversation had to happen; I had to explain why we were packing up her belongings.

I saved the Mandy news until the last possible moment, knowing it would break both of our hearts. Knowing there was nothing I could do to prevent it. Mandy was her only constant, by her side every day, no matter where she was—her house, independent living, my house. Mandy was home, wherever home happened to be.

After loading up the last of the moving boxes, I walked into the house and announced "Time to go!"—trying for a “You’re going on an adventure!” approach. It didn’t work. She had been moping around the house all morning, going through her routine in an almost catatonic state. As the time to leave drew nearer, that state drew closer to agitation.

Mandy was perched on the couch, intently watching me go in and out of the front door, carrying box after box. When I said it was time to go, her ears perked up and she looked at me, her eyes asking, “Me too?” Mom slung her purse onto her shoulder and, dejected, sighed, “Come on, Mandy.”

Gut punch.

“Mandy can’t go.” I tried to pull the words back even as they were coming out of my mouth.

I should have rehearsed something. I should have had a plan. I knew this would be the most devastating news of all for Mom. Why hadn’t I prepared?

I was mentally and physically exhausted. The day before, my sisters and I had transported all of Mom’s furniture from her house to the assisted living facility. The pieces that would fit, that is. Ever since she had reluctantly moved out of her house, she never had everything she wanted. Understandably, she wanted it all. But each time the level of care increased, the size of the living space decreased.

We spent twelve hours that day preparing her new room, arranging old furniture, assembling new pieces, organizing her closet, unpacking her clothes, and stocking her kitchenette and bathroom. Setting up her lifelines of phone and cable took hours, thanks to the inept and unhelpful company that had an exclusive agreement with the facility. All effort she wouldn’t be able to appreciate, because the disease wouldn’t let her. Because this was our decision, not hers. The whole situation was one gut punch after another.

“What do you mean, Mandy can’t go?” Her voice cracked with heartbreak as the tears started to form.

I scrambled. “She can’t come right now,” I said. “Not while we get you settled.” I tried to buy some time. From where, I didn’t know. The Doctor and the time-traveling TARDIS aren’t real.

She walked to my truck, head slumped in defeat, shoulders shaking with sobs. The drive was torturous. She cried and pleaded and argued. Blamed and blamed and blamed. She was moving to an unfamiliar place without her life companion. Or as she put it, not only was I kicking her out of my house, I was taking her dog, too.

Don’t take anything personally.
Don’t take anything personally. 
Don’t take anything personally.

Mandy lived with me for the next two years, but our bond had gone much further back than that. For decades, Mom took an annual trip with friends to the Lake of the Ozarks. “The Ladies of the Lake,” the locals called them. I would spend a week each summer dog-sitting for her. First, it was Hailey, and then Sable. For twelve years, it was Mandy, until Mom no longer had the ability to be a Lady of the Lake. Yet another example of why Alzheimer’s is often called ‘death by a thousand losses.’

The disease took Mom on July 28th, 2022. Less than three months later, on the evening of October 19th, old age claimed Mandy.

I cried harder at the emergency vet than at any time during the four years of Mom’s illness—more than when I was at her bedside with my sister and sister-in-law in her final moments, telling her it was okay to go. More than at her funeral. I don’t think I cried at all that day, not even when I carried her urn out of the church at the end of the ceremony.

When I got home without Mandy that night, it occurred to me that there were tears for Mom wrapped up in the ones for her beloved companion. That having Mandy had delayed the mourning process.

I felt a bit guilty holding on to Mandy’s ashes for the next seven months. But I had my grieving to do. And then, I had my excuses. Winter was coming. “I’ll go when the ground thaws,” I told myself. But we didn’t truly have a winter that year—the ground never really froze. Still, I held onto them.

I finally made good on my promise on Mother’s Day, my first without Mom.

I felt no emotion as I came upon her grave. Not even as I poured Mandy’s ashes into the crevice I’d dug in front of her marker.

It seemed strange to feel nothing. Maybe it was because of my beliefs—that life, and what comes after, is all about energy. When we die, our energy is absorbed by everything around us. Mom and Mandy had passed away months ago. Their energy had already been ingested into the ecosystem. They were everywhere now.

I placed the plaster mold of Mandy’s paw print on top of the makeshift grave. Then I stood up, took a deep breath, and whispered, “You’re reunited now.”

I felt like I was saying it out of obligation, just like the night I’d put Mandy down. I’d kissed her cheek and said, “You’re running toward Mom, aren’t you?” I visualized her racing over the rainbow bridge, tail wagging, Mom waiting for her ecstatically on the other side.

Did I believe it? Yes and no. I don’t think there’s anything beyond death, but I acknowledge I could be wrong. I’m not above playing both sides on this one.

When I die, if I find myself standing in front of some pearly gates? I’ll take an apologetic stance, palms up, shoulders shrugged. “My bad,” I’ll say. “Can I come in?”

Then I’ll squeeze my eyes closed and cross my fingers, waiting to hear if Mom and Mandy say yes.

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