Saying goodbye to a friend and to my dog
We adopted our dog Eno the day after my friend, Ikey died in 2014. Isaiah “Ikey” Owens was a gravely-voiced, bespectacled musician that I had come up with in Long Beach, California. Our bands would play local shows at ramshackle venues in town. My music career had become an array of fits and starts. His fared better. He had joined my downstairs neighbors’ band, the Mars Volta. His performing career took off and he later joined Jack White’s touring ensemble as his keyboardist. He loved it. He would become a fixture of Jack’s band. Everyone knew Ikey. Everyone loved Ikey.
That summer, he was helping me produce a three-song EP before their tour. The smell of weed wafted through the room of the old Craftsman house on 7th he was working out of. I wrote the melodies, played keys and he would produce with a friend. He’d also add some organ embellishments, of course. We never quite finished. He left for tour. I kept the tracks and meant to finish them.
It was a seemingly mundane Tuesday in October 2014, when I received a text from my friend, Justin. Another fellow musician, it was odd for me to hear from him so early. It just said, “Ikey” with a crying emoji. I don’t remember what I replied. I don’t remember much of anything. I saw the news… Ikey Owens… heart attack… tour… dies in Mexico. What?
I sat frozen. I hugged our tiny chihuahua, Iggy (named for Pop). I was numb as is usually the case when when in shock. For some reason, I can’t explain… and perhaps not a very good one, I turned to my husband and said, “Let’s adopt another dog. Please.”
This is not a normal grief coping mechanism, I’m sure. However, I am sober and was low on vices. I wanted to channel my grief into rescuing a creature we could love. I wanted Iggy to have a friend to play with. I needed some love and joy around a very dark house.
I then quietly uploaded the tracks Ikey and I worked on in their raw form to my Soundcloud and decided to leave them as is.* They would stay the way Ikey had left them. I also saved a voicemail he had left me from tour. I’m loyally nostalgic like this. I still have a horrible tattoo on my left ankle from my brother’s late friend, Sean. It was one of his first attempts at tattooing. After Sean died of an overdose, I couldn’t bring myself to cover it up so I let the chola script ride. I have a penchant for leaving things as is to remember those who pass as they were.
I found Eno on a chihuahua rescue site. He was listed as “low energy.” I thought that sounded perfect because our other pup Iggy was, like his namesake, a sinewy spaz. Eno however, was a Buddha-like space cadet. He was born to be named after Brian Eno. The rescue was located in Topanga and when I called about him, I was warned. “He came from a hoarder’s house. He’s a few months old and very sad. He doesn’t really walk. I don’t know if he ever will. He should end up to be 9 lbs.” She sent me a video with her speaking to him as he looks around listlessly and I decided I didn’t care what problems he had. We loved him.
The ride home was rough. His stomach was upset. But a miraculous thing happened when he got him home to our place in Pasadena. The moment he met Iggy… he didn’t just walk, he ran. They immediately began playing together. He was happy.
Over time, Eno would be a wealth of life lessons. He had developmental delays, but nothing too bad. He could never quite understand how fetch works and would stare at your face instead of the ball. He destroyed many of my Havaiana sandals and had a penchant for pulling down kitchen towels on the reg. He would angrily bark at every person who walked into the house and scared them. I could always see our guests internal dialogue, “Oh no… this dog is… awful.” Each of them would start off on guard and then when both parties realized the other just wanted some kindness and love, they would bond. The cynicism would always transition to, “He likes me now! We’re best friends!” They would beam as if they had scaled the Everest of affection.
How often people are like this in our lives. We judge them. We assume they’re awful. But really, all everybody wants is kindness and love.
Eno had wonderful quirks too...
If I was playing music, he had to be in the room with me. He would stare intently at me as I played as if to tell me, “Yes, that’s good. Stop doubting yourself” or maybe it simply lulled him to sleep. If I went to take a call for work, he would be so upset if I didn’t have him in the room with me. So much so, that I started saying, “Let’s go to work!” and he would run into my office and on to his bed. His favorite quirk however, was being able to smile on command. (Video at link there.) Smiling on cue was a hit with everyone.
Eight months ago, my husband came to me and said, “Oh man, you have to see this tribute Scott Van Pelt did on ESPN to his dog. I don’t know what I’ll do when one of the guys get sick.” I watched it. I felt Scott’s pain. I had been there before. I knew how horrible it would be. This is what we sign up for, isn’t it? A lifetime of joy and one very, very horrible day. But that day was far for us, I was certain. Eno was only eight and Iggy was nine but still behaved like a youngin’.
I was wrong.
On January 9th, 2023, Eno was having digestive issues. We thought his pancreatitis might be back. Several years earlier, we almost lost him. After that diagnosis, I had gone into super mom mode. I made his food at home, gave him supplements, increased exercise and his favorite past time of sneaking food out of anywhere (our plates, trash etc.) was over. He lost weight, his health improved and he was thriving. We assumed this was just an upset stomach, but took him to the vet out of caution. There was something mysterious and red bruising his belly.
That day devolves into a blur. “Something is wrong with his liver,” the vet said. “His lymph nodes are swollen… blood test… lymphoma cancer… terminal… it moves quickly.” We cried in the parking lot. I held his little body in a blanket and stroked his head.
I went on a mission to find solutions. A new chemotherapy pill for dogs, doggie acupuncture, CBD, homeopathy, homemade doggie bone broth… we tried it all. He was doing OK the first week. I had hope. We will get some time. Months. Maybe years. We visited a holistic vet who was so wonderful and then walked on a cliff above the beach at Crystal Cove.
While there, Eno did something I’ve never seen him do. He approached another man quietly for the first time ever. He sniffed his socks. The man and his friend were surfers watching the locals try to ride the swell the storm had brought into Crystal Cove. The surfer bent down and kindly petted Eno. I felt this ray of love and optimist burst from my heart. Maybe he will heal, maybe we have some time. It will be miraculous.
…but it didn’t work out that way. He was fine for five days and then a rapid decline and resistance to treatment.
Meanwhile, I remembered every death that has been near to me. The shock of my father’s sudden passing by heart attack. My mother’s own recurrent cancer diagnosis. The words, “bone… brain… liver… lungs” ringing in the air as the doctor uttered them. The slow pain of watching someone’s soul feel so stifled by a body that is fading. I feel it all. I feel it all. My sweet husband, who hasn’t been as near to death as often as I have, would hold his sweet face and cry. I told him,
“Don’t cry around him. We have to help him move forward without fear.”
This was something I learned from reading The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying while my mother was ill. The book speaks of how we earn the greatest good will or karma in this life when we help another being walk toward death without fear. When my mom was sick, I had become so tired of people bringing their sad energy around in her final weeks, so I threw her a birthday party. Everyone had to bring two things: joy and a gift that would last longer than she would. I didn’t want a house full of dying flowers. It was beautiful, I have pictures full of smiling people and my mother laughing from her bed.
I write this now as Eno sleeps at my feet. He is fading. We stay up all night monitoring him and cleaning up what needs to be cleaned up. I have contacted at-home euthanasia services. I really hate writing the word euthanasia. I feel so powerless I could scream. I feel like my whole heart is exploding. I distract myself with work. I walk around in a haze. I am afraid to leave the house. I feel angry. I feel sad. I laugh at old pictures. I try to meditate. I have to breathe. I just want to help him. But…
I accept.
And I remember everyone who has passed on from my life (parents, pets, friends) and how the proximity of death makes you so painfully existential… and how life is so beautiful and so heartbreaking. It is yin and it is yang always. It is never only one or the other. It is a dark horrrible winter… and that same invincible summer… all at once.
And I feel like I’m in a full circle moment.
The little being brought into our lives to bring us joy during such a sad time will soon be joining the great rock band in the sky. I don’t want him to suffer. Yesterday, someone told me the quote, “Death only sucks for the living” and for the some reason, it gave me peace. I will be lost without him by my side when I write music but I told him it’s OK to go. I also told him to say hello to my mom and dad… and Ikey, of course.
*Edit note — Eno passed peacefully at home January 24th surrounded by his parents, brother, candles and music. The picture below was turned into a painting by a friend that is now in our living room.
The week he passed, I had two powerful experiences. One, while at a group meditation, I felt this overwhelming sense of his body laying on me like he would do during TV time. I could even smell him, it was so surreal. I’ve never experienced anything like it. I began to sob because I felt him so strongly.
Another, I went to a women’s breathwork circle a few days later. While lying down in practice, I got a vision of my parents (who have passed) walking him in the park by our house. It was so clear and gave me such peace. Not only that, but when we all finished our practice — multiple women asked the teacher, “Was your dog running in your house?” they all said they saw shadows of him. She replied, “No, my husband has him at the park right now.” They turned to me and said, “It’s your dog!” Eno was everywhere, letting me know he’s ok.
We will miss him forever.
(*You can listen to one of the tracks Ikey produced here.)
