Before our Beachview vacation, Chris and I discussed whether to take Emmet with us or board him. While the delight of watching Emmet running in the water and scattering birds with abandon held a certain appeal, there was the countervailing weight of being responsible for him. There were parity concerns, too. I had handed off our children’s phone calls during the week to my sister, who agreed to handle the regular assortment of their 20-something gripes, frustrations, and woes. If I lacked the emotional bandwidth to be there for my children and all their small things, it hardly seemed fair to bear the day-to-day burden of the dog. We boarded Emmet. He caught Bordetella — kennel cough — despite being vaccinated.

In 26 years of dog ownership, I have never before had a dog with Bordetella. I do not recommend it. The first clue came 19 days ago, on the night we brought him home. He had an intermittent honking cough. This was a precursor to a non-stop honking cough. When he would cough, I would do my best Rodney Dangerfield impression and say, DID SOMEBODY STEP ON A GOOSE?. It was funny the first 80 or so times. After that, which is to say for the last 18 days, it has not been.

The vet first prescribed Prednisone, which transformed Emmet into a 49.2-pound hummingbird, practically vibrating with his heart beating out of his chest. He would wake me at night, snout to nose, the bed shaking. Chris and I could not get him to take the Robitussin that the vet recommended. Artificial raspberry flavor is clearly not a favorite. He spewed the blood-red cough syrup all over our white kitchen cabinets. Our kitchen looked like either a crime scene or a Jasper Johns abstract, your choice. When the Prednisone ended, Emmet nose-dived, likely developed pneumonia, and is now nine days into a 14-day regimen of antibiotics and codeine cough pills. I have become a master at medicating him.

Mostly, though, I have become a master of not sleeping. Emmet kept me up for 16 straight nights with a choking cough. Relying on the institutional memory of sick children from two decades ago, I would trundle downstairs, Emmet at my heels, and I would draw him into my arms on the couch so that I could calm him and Chris could sleep. As it was then, HGTV is my 3 a.m. drug of choice. We had cable in the aughts, but we stream now. So I found myself watching Canadian HGTV programming, since that is all that Hulu carries. If you are looking to buy or renovate in Vancouver, I can offer valuable assistance.

As the rest of the family left for vacation on Sunday, the dog and I stood outside and watched them go. He was too sick to board, and I was too scared to leave him with anyone else. Emmet has finally started sleeping through the night again, enjoying Chris’ absence by nestling against me on the bed. He breathes like an asthmatic octogenarian. In listening to him sleep, I realize a universal truth: Everyone snores.

Since I had already blocked the week off of work, I planned to revolutionize the home and be a whirling dervish of activity who knocked out every single project on my to-do list. With my lackluster efforts, I have discovered a second universal truth: I will always have a to-do list.

Witness:

It is Thursday, and the to-do list from this week is similarly ambitious and unsuccessful. There is the usual combination of actual work-work to be done and the overestimation of my speed and willingness to do things that are necessary but not necessarily fun. (The T-shirt drawer has been weeded out again, but the chain saw has yet to hit the runaway pyracantha.) To my credit, I have been over-productive in the friend arena, taking walks and catching up with people I love. Emmet has even joined us over the last couple of nights, a phlegmy convalescent walking happily in the warm, wet blanket that is late July.

Some of my friends, perhaps fearing that I would invite myself, have asked me to see a Fleetwood Mac tribute band tomorrow night. They do not know that this lyric from “Landslide” almost always makes me cry:

Time makes you bolder/Even children get older/And I’m getting older, too.

Indeed, I am getting older: I celebrated a birthday almost two weeks ago. Aging does not bother me, which is cancer’s great gift. But this was my first birthday without my mother. I would never underestimate the importance of fathers — I love mine dearly — but the act of birth is a partnership between you and your mom. Chris was there when our children were born, looking terrified, getting yelled at by the obstetrician, and happily relaxing when they finally arrived. But me? I could not walk down the hall for a Coca-Cola or visit the cafeteria or step outside to take a phone call. I had a job to do.

And here I was, 54 years later, for the first time without the one true partner at my birth. The woman who ensured that I had a fifth birthday party, complete with other squirming five year-olds and homemade cake, despite the fact that my brother had been born four days earlier. The woman who called me on the day itself at 7:11 a.m., even during college, to sing to me. The woman who often made me crazy and who broke my heart. The woman I loved dearly, even if I could not bear to talk to her for the last few months of her life. The woman I could not save from herself.

My mother.

Chris took this picture of me (along with two strangers and their wine glasses) at my birthday dinner. The cake was delicious, and even without a candle, I made a wish. I wished my mother the satisfaction of knowing that she was right. That was one of her favorite things — being right — and I could give her no better gift on our special day.

And the landslide brought me down.

ALC