Quietly Quantifying Quality



Our old dog Taco is winding down.  The home vet has checked in on her and we all trust we will know when it is time.  After all I’ve  been down this road before with another wise old Xolo.  Nonetheless yesterday I Googled a few articles on when to put your dog down and I was taken aback by more than a few of them that seemed to place value solely on our ability to do things we used to do at a younger age. In fact one article said if your dog could no longer play with a ball … if it did not want to go in the car for a drive … if it no longer liked to go for walks … if he disliked large groups of people … that these were signs the dog no longer had any quality of life and it was time to end it.

Damn … I don’t go in the car anymore … I don’t enjoy groups of people or noise for any length of time … on some days I have a hard time walking to the kitchen and taking a shower is often untenable. I guess I should be happy my family didn’t read the article.

Some of the experts suggest that you write down 5 things that the dog used to enjoy doing and if it could no longer do those things or even three of those things that perhaps its diminished capacity meant it was time to call it quits.

I can no longer do any of the things that I enjoyed doing even 10 years ago. Much of my day is spent in pain and in quietude. My situation forces me to find happiness or meaning in other things. But is this not the case each of us face as we grow older?  As my street wise sage pointed out to me “…those articles babe, were written by young people who have no clue what it means to get old. One day when they get up there or they get sick … if they even remember that they wrote that article … they will kick to themselves and say what was I thinking.”

tacosunsaluteTaco’s world is small. But she  still enjoys going out her dog door and standing in the morning sun. She even still tries  to run to the kitchen when she smells someone making food.  Like the rest of us she makes the best of a body that is breaking down.

Is a life with pain not worth living?   I do believe that is a personal question.   So we ask ourselves am I worth less … is my life less meaningful that I am sick without prospect of healing?  How do I quantify my own quality of life? Do I have a list of five things I still enjoy?

The days of sex, drugs and rock n roll are long over for me. Unless you count disco night in IMVU, my sythroid or slo-mag, and I’ll let my children maintain the illusion that the only reason old people don’t get a full nights sleep is geriatric insomnia.  (Yawn).

I love sitting by my koi pond … even when my bones are aching so badly that I  have tears in my eyes.  One does not negate the other.  I love a tasty vegetarian meal … even if i need to go lay down half way through because I’ve lost my ability to swallow.  I love watching TV with my girl friend and laughing long into the night … or until 9:30 because we are OLD after all.  And I love waking up after only getting four hours of sleep … because I  don’t  have insomnia and I ain’t dead yet.

I have a life that looks different than it did when I was younger.  A life that may seem unworthy of living if I was a young person writing about old yeller.  But this is the life I have.  Taco has the life she has.  Sure I wish things different for both of us.  But ultimately I  am just grateful that no one else gets to quantify the quality of my life and I thank God I don’t have to fetch any more damn balls.

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