Calliope, First Among Muses

“Thirteen years ago this week, the day before Thanksgiving, on a whim, I drove from West Virginia to rural Kingston, Georgia to a no-kill dog rescue. As I pulled up to the gate holding back a legion of canines, I saw a woman coming toward me bearing the pup I had just the day before fallen in love with as I perused the hundreds of dogs on Petfinder.com. Shooing the other dogs away, she opened and closed the gate behind her, then offered me the bundle in her arms. The puppy was scruffy and stinky, but her steel-blue eyes were bright and dancing as she surveyed my face and then snuggled into my neck. Oh, my heart!  She was most beautiful puppy I had ever seen! The woman handed me a folder of information in exchange for a 75-dollar adoption fee, and the covenant was complete.”—Rev. Robin White

Wing + Prayer

By The Reverend Robin White

PENDLETON South Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—1 December 2022—I’ve lost my muse. The place she once occupied is now inhabited by grief as well as something that feels like parched earth where there is very little hope of cultivation let alone inflorescence.

Thirteen years ago this week, the day before Thanksgiving, on a whim, I drove from West Virginia to rural Kingston, Georgia to a no-kill dog rescue. As I pulled up to the gate holding back a legion of canines, I saw a woman coming toward me bearing the pup I had just the day before fallen in love with as I perused the hundreds of dogs on Petfinder.com. 

Shooing the other dogs away, she opened and closed the gate behind her, then offered me the bundle in her arms. The puppy was scruffy and stinky, but her steel-blue eyes were bright and dancing as she surveyed my face and then snuggled into my neck. Oh, my heart!  She was most beautiful puppy I had ever seen! The woman handed me a folder of information in exchange for a 75-dollar adoption fee, and the covenant was complete.

Driving home, I felt filled to my brim. I had spent the last few months caring for my terminally ill father, grieving as I watched him reduced into someone I barely recognized. I had been feeling fragmented, lonely, and isolated in my bereavement. Now, this new companion riding quietly in the back seat seemed to take up residency in my heart: I would never be the same.

The next day, Thanksgiving, looking up at me with those “watch eyes,” and calling to me with her sweet, balladeer’s vocalizations, she acquired her name: Calliope, “beautifully voiced,” Greek goddess of poetry. Calliope (as per Wikipedia) “is the Muse who presides over eloquence and epic poetry, so called due to the ecstatic harmony of her voice.” Hesiod and Ovid thought her “Chief of all Muses.”

I’ve written of Calliope, of “Calli,” before. I have told the story of our struggle with her megaesophagus countless times. I have often tried to express the gratitude for, and the wisdom I gained from living with and experiencing firsthand her zest and aspiration for life. 

The median lifespan of a dog with megaesophagus is 90 days. Calli lived thirteen years! And throughout those years, she and I hiked mountains, kayaked wide waters, rode in golf carts, and drove through the woods in my father’s Kabota RTV. We drove across the country and back, snuggled together in a “pup” tent, swam in lakes and cold streams, explored sandy beaches (oh how she loved digging in the sand) and traversed snow (oh how she loved digging in the snow). We silently held vigil at the bedside of my dying father and, so often, we sat quietly musing about life and love and death.

A year ago last September, I came home from a trip to Greece and found my sweet girl burdened with a softball-sized mass on her front leg. After surgery and a difficult recovery, it was determined that the growth was a sarcoma. Our skilled and compassionate vet comforted me with the hope that the surgery might have removed all the cancerous cells. Four months later, however, the tumor was back and Calli was in for another round of surgery. This past summer, the sarcoma came back a third time, and we were told there was nothing more that could be done. At 13, Calli had a host of other challenges besides the megaesophagus and cancer: she needed help standing, had lost all interest in venturing out for walks, and was distressed by nightmares.

Over the course of the summer, I watched my beautiful, zestful Muse decline. She was restless and uneasy and nothing seemed to calm her but the pills our vet prescribed for agitation and dementia. Calli’s always-beautiful vocalizations became strident and unfamiliar. She seemed aggrieved that she could not make me understand what she wanted or needed. Our alliance had always lent itself to understanding one another on a deep level, and I was heartsick at her inability to communicate with me and my own powerlessness to act on her behalf.

In September, one year after the cancer’s recurrence, I made the decision. After all those years of willing her to live, I now had to let go and let her die.

The date was set for Calli to be euthanized. We had two weeks to grieve and prepare ourselves. I tried to spend as much time as possible with her. I spent nights in my sleeping bag on the floor next to her on her bed. I spent days musing with her on the front porch.

The night before our last visit to the vet, our neighbor let me borrow her golf cart and Calli and I took one last ride. The next day, I loaded up Calli and my kayak and we drove ten minutes to the lake. I paddled and Calli rested her head, as she always had, on the side of the boat. She was serene and thoughtful as she took in every last sight and sound.

Once back on shore, I allowed her to wade into the water and lap up as much of the lake as she wanted. One of the restrictions she had accepted, with greater or less grace, over the thirteen years of navigating her illness, was limited water intake, so this kind of unfettered consumption was a luxury. She lapped up the water and looked back at me with eyes that drank deeply.

Our adventure that afternoon ended with yet more “lapping”—a huge dish of vanilla ice cream.

I want to remember her glee as she partook of what was once a forbidden cup. I want to remember the puckish look in her eyes as she experienced the treat that at one time could have threatened her health, or even her life. I want to remember the love and fullness of sharing those beloved activities on that last day. I don’t want to remember what happened next; nor can I recount it again in written words. It suffices that she was unconscious and that I was with her to the end.

I‘ve lost my muse. The place she occupied is now inhabited by grief and something that feels like parched earth where there is very little hope of future cultivation, let alone inflorescence.

Seven weeks later, I received a framed cast of Calli’s paw print and a carved walnut carved box holding her ashes. Each had an engraving, “Callie.” There was the grief one feels facing the finality of a death, but there was also a ping in my heart, the added sadness at seeing “Callie,” her name, misspelled. It’s nobody’s fault. All through her thirteen years with me, I had corrected the spelling of her name. “Calliope, so Calli, not Callie. Here again, even in death, her name was wrong.

And yet, I recognized that “Callie” is how it is in this world. And for all the times and ways the world tried to make her “Callie,” she was not. “Calli” was, somehow, from a different place; somehow not of this present world. So often, when I looked into those “watch eyes,” Calli transported me from the horrors of our present world to a different place.

She was my Calli, my muse, and now I feel as though I can no longer write. I have to try to figure out how to “be,” how to be inspired, without her.