Going Home

It’s just before sunrise on a Tuesday morning, and traffic is light on the New York State Thruway. Heading out to western New York, the perpetual slipstream of the road ahead stretches to a vanishing point in the far distance.  I glance over at the empty pet restraints clipped into the passenger side seat belt and smile to myself. It’s a hard-earned smile. As I surrender to the hypnotic motion of the car moving through space and time, my mind and memory turn backward to how this chapter of my life began.

Meredith and a few of her closest college girlfriends had decided to meet up in St. Louis for a few days to reconnect and blow off some steam. Kind of a mini-10-year reunion. I told her I would love to tag along but being deep into a work project with a deadline looming, there was no way. “That’s okay,” she said. “Nobody’s bringing their significant others. I’ll miss you, big guy. I will. But this trip is just for us girls. Tell you what - I’ll take Lola along for company.” I feigned a hurt expression and scowled, “Well, alright then. But I’m not sure how I feel about a twenty-pound beagle in my place as a suitable travelling companion.”   Meredith laughed, threw her arms around my neck and kissed me. The memory of that kiss has kept me going ever since.

Lola was our baby. Well, at least for the time being.  Meredith and I had talked about wanting children, but we still felt like kids ourselves. We agreed to wait until our mid-thirties to allow time to prepare financially and also to use the pre-kid years to grow into parenthood a little more before the baby business began. 

In the interim, the idea of getting a dog came up. We were on the same page again and separately wrote down our top five breeds and compared them. Our lists didn’t match exactly, but “Beagle” made the top three for both of us. So, it was settled. A few weeks later we brought Lola home, and she quickly became as anything could be, short of adding an actual human baby to the family.

“Oh – and I want to drive,” she added. I wasn’t crazy about the idea. It would be two long days on the road each way. But for Meredith the windshield time would be therapeutic and satisfying. Before we met, she had always relished the freedom and decompression of long solo road trips. She didn’t get much of that anymore, and I knew she missed it. So, against my better judgement, and under the heading of “choose your battles”,  I didn’t fight it.

Was that really two years ago? Could that be right? In my head, I ploddingly flip the calendar pages and do the math. Weird that sometimes I have to go through the mental exercise of stacking the months up into years before I concede that – yes, that was indeed the amount of time that had passed since I lost them both. 

I poke at my nav display just to make sure I have it set right.  Yes. My destination is Jamestown, New York. So weird.  Meredith was in Jamestown, Missouri when it happened.  What are the chances?  She told me on our good night call the night before that she had an alarm set for five the next morning. Her plan was to avoid the St. Louis rush hour and be well east of there by 7:00. I got a text from her at 6:00.   “I’m hitting the road now Honey! (heart emoji)”   

A few hours later, a call lit up my phone. Unknown area code and number. I usually don’t answer random calls, but with Meredith being away, I picked up. A detective from the Jamestown, Missouri police department identified himself. Was I the husband of Meredith Eldred? Yes. Your wife was involved in a vehicle accident on nearby Route 40 at 7:30 am today. A tired trucker heading westbound fell asleep at the wheel. His rig crossed the median and collided with your wife’s car. I regret to inform you….

Part of me shut down as the detective’s words entered my ears, trickled down to my heart and settled into my soul.  My brain threw like a switch in a breaker box.  I heard the words, but something primal, some defensive instinct of denial interrupted and prevented the reality of the situation from processing completely.   I was torn in two; half of me objectively accepted the news from this stranger, while the other half frantically slammed grappling hooks into the soil of my past and battled to stop the world from continuing forward into this impossible new reality.

Processing the death of a loved one is hard to describe. I imagine each one is unique and maybe so personal as to defy description. For me, the loss of Merdith was existential and reality-shifting. We were everything to each other. Of course, we were both human and flawed. But we both embraced the belief that perfection – in oneself or another person, and thereby in any relationship – was an unattainable ideal. We agreed that the pursuit of perfection and the categorical rejection of anything less as unacceptable was ultimately doomed to fail - a recipe that would produce only a disappointing stew of frustration and despair à la regret. 

We loved and respected each other for always trying to be the best versions of ourselves, but also to forgive mistakes and allow our differences to serve as the tempering fire that made us stronger, the super glue that bonded us ever more closely together. We adopted the guiding principle that “pretty good” would be our standard.  So, we weren’t perfect, but man, we were pretty good most of the time.

From the second I answered that phone call, the book of my life was altered.  It marked a rift in my existence, dividing my life into two chapters: Chapter One – Life with Meredith, Chapter Two – Life Without Her.  The hours and days that followed were a surreal blur of grief, confusion, anger, and regret – a simmering caldera of emotions that shook me to my core and at times even challenged my grip on reality. 

I was torn, but eventually I was able to come to grips with the fact that Meredith was no longer on this earth, and I would need to find a way to move forward without her. It was what she would have wanted. I know this because (oddly enough) we had talked about it from time to time. As horrible as it was to think of one of our lives without the other, we pledged that if anything ever happened to one of us, the other would find a way to go on. So, I did.

* * *

It wasn’t until later that day when it suddenly occurred to me the detective from Missouri hadn’t even mentioned Lola! Seeing Lola’s food and water bowls on the floor in the kitchen triggered the realization that I had been so consumed with the loss of Meredith that I had forgotten to ask about Lola. I immediately ran to my desk, picked up the scribbled note I had taken during the call, and poked the number into my phone. Someone answered and put me on hold, then the line clicked again.

“Detective Collins here. Is this Mr. Eldred?”

“Yes. I was wondering… my wife was travelling with our beagle, Lola. Was she in the car when – you know – when you got there?”

The detective wasn’t sure, but he checked the detailed accident site report. (Pages flipping in the background.)

“Uh – no. No, I’m sorry Mr. Eldred. There is no mention of a dog in the report. Wait – hold on. Huh, now there is a note that apparently they found a set of pet restraints clipped into the front passenger seat belt. But, I’m sorry. The reporting officer did not mention a dog at the site.”

I flinched when he mentioned the empty restraints. Meredith had a habit of not always belting Lola in. She liked to let her free-range about the car so she could be looking out the window, on her lap, or wherever she wanted to be. I wondered where Lola was at the moment of the crash, and a rapid-fire stream of possibilities flashed through my head - none of them good.

He took a description and asked me to send a picture of the dog. He assured me that they would spend some time in the local area searching and knocking on doors. Notices would be posted in a two-mile radius of the crash site and they would post information on social media.  I thanked him and said I would see him the next day, as I would be in the area dealing with the awful necessities of the situation. None of which I was prepared for or could even believe were really happening.

* * *

I was in Missouri the following day. Nightmare stuff. Police business. Body identification. Death certificate processing. Transportation arrangements. A lonely night in a hotel room after a day filled with horrors. I was exhausted beyond exhaustion - mentally, physically, and emotionally wrecked from 36 hours of vacillating between not believing what was happening and knowing that every action taken and decision made was a concession to the unthinkable reality that had dropped out of nowhere to crush my life.

I finished up the sad, sickening details in Missouri the next day, headed for the St. Louis airport, turned in the rental car, and flew “the friendly skies” of a major airline back to Albany. I was incapable of feeling the friendliness, if there was any to feel. Over the next few days, I made all of the impossible phone calls to family and friends, settled final arrangements, then suffered through the funeral and the surreal reception following. I won’t deny that I was relieved when the final guest had said the obvious, (but undoubtedly heartfelt), things people say and were on their way elsewhere.  

Then, by myself, I left the reception hall and went home to a house that didn’t feel like home anymore. I wanted to feel Meredith’s presence, to sense her watching over me and accompanying me as I went about my daily routines. But I didn’t. Neither of us had ever really believed in that kind of thing. So now I was either living proof that all of that was nonsense, or I was suffering the consequences of my own faithlessness. 

Besides the devastation of losing my wife, every now and again I would think of Lola. What happened to her? Despite what I believed had been sincere and diligent efforts by the police, there was never any news. I would call Missouri occasionally to get an update, but it was always “nothing new”.  Was she also killed in the crash? Had she been severely wounded? Had she crawled off and gone to ground in some secluded thicket to die? Did she miraculously survive with only minor injuries and begin a new life as a stray, living by her wits and the providence of Meredith’s guardian spirit (if that worked for dogs)? These and dozens of other questions about her had been running through my conscious and unconscious mind for two years in a nearly unbroken loop.

* * *

I’m passing Rochester now and I glance over at the empty restraints. A few days before I had received a call from an unknown number. Area code 716 – somewhere in western New York. What the heck – I picked up. Is this Michael Eldred? Yes. 

It was Julie, an animal care associate from a rescue shelter in Jamestown, New York. What she told me was the second most mind-blowing news I had ever heard. But this news – these words – came from a place very near the opposite end of the joy/pain spectrum from the ones that had ended Chapter One of my life. 

“We have Lola,” she said.

My legs turned to water and I sank to the floor.

“What?”

“L-O-L-A. We have her. A spayed four or five year-old Beagle? She was brought in to us by a local family yesterday. She’d been sneaking into their garage to eat their cat’s food for a couple of days. Yesterday they closed the doors when she was in there and gave us a call. We went and picked her up. Found her ID chip this morning.”

To say I was speechless was in no way an exaggeration. I was literally incapable of making any intelligible sound with my voice. I gasped. My throat closed up and my eyes flooded with tears of joy and disbelief.

“Mr. Eldred?”

“Yes!” I had words again.  “Yes! I’m here. Is she all right? When can I get her?”

She told me Lola was thin and had some scars, but their vet had given her a clean bill of health that morning. She would need extra nutrition and rest for a while, and they would be happy to release her to me as soon as I could be there. 

*  *  *

The nav display says I’m less than 10 miles from the shelter. My mind has been racing ever since the phone call. What happened to her? How did she survive? The people who brought her in lived 850 miles from the accident site! Was this like one of those sappy movies where lost animals brave the elements and defeat impossible odds and obstacles to find their way home?  Whatever it was, I will probably never know. But somehow, she survived.  That’s all that matters right now.

I pull into the animal shelter, grab Lola’s harness and leash and go inside. I hear multiple dogs barking behind a door to a hallway straight ahead. A young woman approaches me near the front office.

“Hi, may I help you?” 

“Yes. I’m Mike Eldred. I’m here for-“

“Lola! Oh, my gosh! You’re Lola’s Dad, aren’t you!” she said, beaming.

“You got me. Family resemblance?”

She laughs. “Is that her harness and leash?” I nod. “Let me take those. I’ll put it on her in the back and have Julie bring her out. Julie is the one you’ve been talking with. She’s been mothering Lola day and night...”

The excited young woman goes through the door in mid-sentence.  The opening and closing of the door create a crescendo-decrescendo of the barking in the back of the building as the door closes behind her. I hear muffled but excited voices and a lot of claw-tapping on the tile floors. Less than a minute later, the door flies open again, and there is Lola.

She spots me and covers the distance between us in a flash. Her twenty-five-pound body hits me with all the force of a freight train. She is wagging not just her tail, but her entire body as she covers my face with jubilant beagle kisses. I am laughing and crying at the same time, on my back on the floor. After a minute or so of this affectionate delirium, I struggle to my feet.

“Julie, I presume?” I ask, offering a handshake.

Smiling, she nods and returns the gesture.

There is a little bit of paperwork to be done and a bill to settle. They ask me for proper ID to make sure I am, in fact, the owner (strictly a formality after they saw how Lola reacted to me). We chat for another few minutes before I leave - a little about Lola’s physical condition, but mostly sharing amazement and speculation about how she had survived the last two years and covered three-quarters of the twelve-hundred-mile journey home on her own.

I finally say my good-byes, thank them for the dozenth time for their care and compassion, then take Lola’s leash in hand, and head out the door. As we cross the parking lot, I make a mental note to research local bakeries and have a nice dessert platter and a thank you note delivered to the shelter. 

When we get back to the car, I open the front passenger side door and transfer Lola from the leash to the seat restraints. I close the door, walk around, get in, and start the car. I reset the navigation to “Home”, and I look over at Lola. She looks back at me with what I imagine is some of the same grateful joy and disbelief that I am feeling. I wonder if she knows that Meredith is gone?  Maybe together we can help each other feel like home is home again.  I reach over and scratch her behind the ears. “Let’s go home, girl.”      

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