When I woke up in the middle of the night to pee, I looked for our dog, Nico, before I stepped out of bed; she likes to sleep sprawled out RIGHT NEXT TO ME on the floor so between her and my nightstand, I have to perform circus tricks to get out of bed without stepping on her.

All that was on the floor in Nico's usual spot was a pillow and a blanket that had fallen off me. Then, because I'm a dipshit, I felt I needed to go looking for her in her dog bed; she wasn't there either. I found her at the foot of the bed, lying very still (the way most living creatures do in the middle of the night).

I don't know when it started, but I've developed an irrational need to make sure people and dogs are still breathing in the middle of the night. I think I started doing it when Delia was still drinking and then it got worse when my nephew was born. Or maybe it was all those years of my dad being sick and watching him die; seeing how easy it could be to just stop breathing without anyone noticing. Also, Nico is getting old; I think she's fourteen now. Anyway, I feel compelled to pop out my earplugs and hover to see if the object of my concern is still breathing, getting close to look for a rising and falling chest or the soft sound of exhalations. My loved ones are apt to wake up to my face in theirs, inquiring once I've woken them up, "are you alive?" Duh. Are you crazy?

It was hard to see last night, so I put my hand on Nico's chest. She didn't flinch or move even a tiny bit. Her thick fur felt cool under my hand. I couldn't feel ANY movement and feared she wasn't breathing so I rubbed her a little. NO RESPONSE. It was like she'd been dead for an hour or two! Then her hind legs relaxed a little bit, but I thought it was just because she wasn't stiff yet and I'd moved her.

I woke Delia up by shrieking, "honey I think Nico's dead!"

Delia woke up and crawled to the end of the bed as I told her I couldn't feel her breathing and she wasn't moving. She gently put her hand on Nico's chest and belly, too and couldn't feel anything so she sharply said, "NICO!" and snapped her fingers.

Nico came back to life, then. It was like magic. She lifted her head and shifted her body to a "should I get up now?" position. Delia flopped back to sleep, I went pee, and when I got back from the bathroom I still couldn't believe Nico hadn't been dead. I felt like she came back to life just because we love her. She was standing at the foot of the bed looking at me; instead of going back to sleep right away, I held out my hand to her so she would come to me and I stayed awake petting her until she settled down to sleep by me. Her body is so little under all of that fur.

*****

You would think I could stop myself from doing these breath-tests by reminding myself I'm being crazy. No one is going to just die in their sleep, at least not anyone who was perfectly healthy the night before. But I don't really believe that so the only way I can stop myself is to tell myself if they're dead, what can you do about it? Just go to sleep and take care of it in the morning. I'm not kidding. That's the only line of reasoning that sometimes works on my three am head. But mostly I figure there's no harm in checking so I do. But there IS harm, when I imagine someone's dead even when they're alive and make my heart start pounding and wake up other people to verify. It's embarrassing and weird.

I cannot sleep in the same room as our nephew anymore because I just stay awake listening to him breathing. If I manage to fall asleep, I still keep waking up with compulsions to listen and check. He's not a tiny baby anymore so the crib death thing isn't really an issue, I'm just painfully aware of his mortality. His and mine and everyone's, I guess.

Labels: anxiety, death, dog, family, fears, mortality, pets, relationships

posted by Trixie at 3/02/2008 10:37:00 AM -