A short story about letting go…
Jane’s favourite chair envelopes her like an old pair of jeans, familiar, faded, the fabric giving away at the edges. Her hands wrap around her mug, the photo faded over the years of dishwasher assault. She smiles at the memory of Cedar, her faithful companion of eleven years.
She had struggled so much more than with the others before him. He had nosed his way into her heart, her soul. It had seemed impossible at the time to let him go. She had resisted with all her might, inevitable as she knew it was for she simply didn’t have the capacity to home two dogs.
Twice, the trip to take him home had been delayed, not by weather or unforeseen circumstance. Jane simply couldn’t - wouldn’t get on the plane. Hell, she wouldn’t walk out her own front door. Cedar, simply waiting, not pulling, allowing her to decide.
Folding deeper into the chair's embrace, her body cocooned in cinnamon warmth wrapped in nutmeg and cardamom, she whispers into her IPhone, “Repeat the last paragraph.” An Australian male twang echoes the words of the letter from Max.
Max’s email arrived earlier in the morning. She can hear his excitement under the flat cadence of her chosen orator. Jane effortlessly drifts back to the day she finally got on the plane to take Cedar home, swathed in the power of love mixed with a dash of sadness, topped in joyful bliss.
She had been so wrapped up in her grief, consumed by her own needs, losing sight of the truth. Cedar was born, bred into a life of service. It was his time to laze around the farm, chase bunnies and kids and sleep to his heart’s content.
Not long after the plane had soared into the sky, Cedar did what he always did when she was out of sorts. Lifting his head, where it lay like a protective shield, with a gentle nudge, pushing under her hand to rouse her from her reverie. His moan matched her own, calming her heart, checking in as if to tell her “all will be well”. She bends forward, resting her forehead on his - their practiced goodbye.
Jane had been non-plussed by the unpleasant interruption of the plane plunging suddenly like a Lex Luthor, Drop of Doom ride, if not for the otherworldly sound reverberating off the cabin walls. Cedar had not moved. The lone flight attendant checked on her first.
When she asked about the commotion, he identified a young boy “autistic or some form of neurodiverse”. Short of judgement mixed with a sense of uncertainty and secret dismay. The boy’s wailing seems to lodge into Jane’s soul. Her heart shattered with his outcry of the betrayal to what once felt safe and secure.
Jane had acted independently of any constructed thought, summoning the attendant, releasing Cedar’s harness, directing them as one. “Go to him, Cedar. Stay until we land.” The attendant’s alarm and objection quickly abandoned when the boy’s haunting sounds launched a fresh round of restless rumbling within the cabin, a harbinger of what might be for the remaining two hours.
Jane can still hear the fractious murmurs from within the cabin, and the voice she now knows as Max, having been shushed by others on her belated arrival. His exasperated anxiety falling silent in witness to his son Josh, heeding the dog’s presence, hiccuping with sorrowful wails of unrepentant grievance of his circumstance.
Max had later described to her how he himself had relented to the dog “as if someone else had control of my body”. Cedar lowered himself in the aisle not breaking eye contact with Josh. Pausing. Head on his paws. Waiting. As Josh’s decibels slowly softened, Cedar inched forward, worming his way into the row, Max compelled to the sole empty seat across the aisle.
Jane recalls the collective sigh of the seventeen human passengers and the attendant, exhaling as if under water for too long, with the softening of Josh’s wails. His body relaxing, eyes fixated on Cedar as a renewed sense of certainty took up residence in his body.
“They stayed that way for the rest of the flight!” Max’s voice betrays the incredulity of the calm that moved over Josh like the quiet just after the conductor drops their baton. He and Josh had waited for her and Cedar when the plane had landed without further incident. Revelling in Max’s narrative, any remaining uncertainty Jane holds, dissolves gently, floating away, replaced with a quiet knowing. Cedar is going home.
Jane is summoned from her reverie. Branson sounds a temperate whine, a clear query into Jane’s well-being. She hovers her hand over the edge of her chair, just the right height for Branson to place his head into, releasing his alert with her words of assurance.
She’d been matched with Branson somewhere in the twelve months prior to returning Cedar home. It was hard to imagine, she had almost lost him in her unwillingness to come to terms with letting Cedar go. While she still thought of Cedar, earned for his presence at times, Branson had found his own way into her heart, becoming, like Cedar, more than just her guide.
Having never considered the benefit of a service dog for Josh, if not for having shared the fateful flight with Jane, the email from Max unveils its true purpose. “You won’t believe it Jane,” his words echo through the speaker. A golden retriever that seemed to have been grown from the very seed of Cedar, has been matched with Josh. “And his name is Cedar, too! Is that not the greatest?”
Silent tears roll over Jane’s cheeks, her smile softening the radiating ache of her heart. Branson’s leathery cool nose cues her to his presence, resting his head on her lap. She sets the cup on the weathered wood table sheltered beside her chair. Leaning forward, she brings her forehead to his, basking in the warm, musky scent blended with the memory of another.
How the story came to be
This story came from a place of deep love for dogs and inspiration of an incredibly brave person from my past, Jen. Cedar brings a touch of my present into the story - his breed pays tribute to sweet Kula, who brought over fourteen years of joy to our dear friends Robb and Sue.
Putting ‘Going Home’ out into the world is my way of releasing the fear of being seen, inviting you to embrace and share your own gifts. This journey was sparked by a recent creative writing course through UBC, and I am deeply grateful to my instructor, Loghan Paylor. Finding their class right after reading their novel, The Cure for Drowning, felt like absolute synchronicity.