There’s No One Making Sure Everyone Gets A Fair Share

　　Weezie sits expectantly, hungrily, in front of Trent and I forget again if dogs do or don’t eat pizza.

　　“I don’t know what I’ll do when it’s Weezie’s time,” Trent says. I know he says this because he’s experiencing some of my pain, coupling it with imagined future pain of his own, trying to understand. Plus the not knowing what to say that all of us experience in the face of grief. And I appreciate it, I do. But it’s not Weezie’s time. She is here. Unscathed. Alive. He also has Matt. What do I have?

　　The distribution of loss is inequitable. And I don’t want him not to have Weezie. And I don’t want him not to have Matt. I love my friend, and I want him to have every happiness. So I say this as a realization only. Not as a desire to redistribute loss or to make it more equitable. The distribution of loss is inequitable. That’s just the way it is. That’s just the way the world works. There’s no one handing it out. There’s no one making sure everyone gets a fair share.

　　So many adventures we had. And I loved every one.

　　Had.

　　Past tense.

　　Did Lily know this as her eyes grew heavy? That the adventures were over? Or did she feel the heaviness of sleep as the onset of a satisfying rest, one that would allow her to be fresh for new adventures ahead? Was it exciting or terrifying? Or did she see nothing at all?

Lily and the Octopus, P277
Steven Rowley
ISBN 978-1-5011-2622-2

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I Stopped Really Living

　　At the end of the first episode, when quarterback Jason Street goes down, Coach Taylor gives the first of his trademark speeches. Something about life being so very fragile. Something about us all being vulnerable. Something about how, at some point in our lives, we will fall. “We will all fall.”

　　I’ve never played football or any kind of team sport. I’ve never sat through a coach’s halftime pep talk. I’ve never been in the room with someone rallying the troops to turn the tide of the fight. But hearing Coach Taylor speak, I prop myself up on my elbows. I am forty-two. This is the halftime of my life, and my team is losing. I’ve never been more in need of this speech.

　　He continues about how what we have can be taken from us. Even what we have that is special. And when it is taken, we will be tested.

　　I’m captivated by this speech, and even though I’ve heard it before, even though I own it on Blu-ray, I’m also hearing it for the very first time. It is in this pain that we are tested. Since I am in this pain, the pain of having what is special taken from me, I look inside myself and I don’t like what I see: a man who is broken and alone. I think of all the time Lily and I spent together, just the two of us — the talks about boys, the Monopoly, the movies, the pizza nights — and I wonder how much of it was real. Dogs don’t eat pizza; dogs don’t play Monopoly. I know this on some level, but everything feels so true. How much of it was an elaborate construct to mask my own loneliness? How much of it was built to convince myself the attempts I made at real life — therapy, dating — were not just that: attempts?

　　Somewhere, sometime, I stopped really living. I stopped really trying. And I don’t understand why. I had done all the right things. I had Lily. I had Jeffrey. I had a family.

　　And then I didn’t.

　　I don’t understand how my life got so empty, or why the octopus came, or why everyone eventually goes away.

Lily and the Octopus, P274-275
Steven Rowley
ISBN 978-1-5011-2622-2

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What if this is the Day?

　　Jenny and I once talked about how we manage to live despite the knowledge that we are all going to die. What's the point of it all? Why bother getting up in the morning when faced with such futility? Or is it the promise of death that inspires life? That we must grab what we can while there is still time. Is it the not knowing if today is the day that keeps us going?

　　But what if this is the day? What if the hour is here?

　　How do you stand?

　　How do you breathe?

　　How do you go on?

Lily and the Octopus, P255-256
Steven Rowley
ISBN 978-1-5011-2622-2

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Some Things are Unforgivable

　　Some things are unforgivable. My problem is the opposite of mankind's: not having gone into battle often enough, not having waged enough war. I've always shied from confrontation, more often than not backing down from a fight. Quarreling has always felt silly, bordering on the ridiculous. War, after all, was something that happened to faraway people in faraway places. Not something that is sparked by an eight-armed invasion of your own front lines.

Lily and the Octopus, P223
Steven Rowley
ISBN 978-1-5011-2622-2

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My Favorite Memories

　　"What are we doing?" Lily yawns and nuzzles into me again. The night air is warm and still.

　　We're creating a memory.”

　　“Why?”

　　I don't tell her why. The answer is I need it. I need this memory to hold on to if my plan fails and she is no longer there.

　　“Because sometimes it's nice to have memories. Don't you have any favorite memories?”

　　Lily thinks about this. "All of my memories are my favorite memories."

　　I'm amazed by this. "Even the bad ones?"

　　"Dogs don't remember bad memories." Envious, I scratch her on the velvet part of her chest. What an incredible way to live."

Lily and the Octopus, P187
Steven Rowley
ISBN 978-1-5011-2622-2

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Death is a Unique Opponent

　　“What's your favorite thing about tattoos?” It's such an amateur question, something a third-grader might ask while interviewing him for some school project, although I don't know what school would assign a project on tattoo artists. Maybe a charter school, or a Montessori.

　　"Their permanence," Kal says.

　　"But now there's laser removal."

　　Kal shrug. "It still leaves a scar. Like a ghost." He looks deeper into me than anyone has in a long time.

　　"But eventually we die, and the flesh rots away."

　　Kal smiles at me with unwavering eye contact. It's unnerving, or at least I am unnerved.

　　 “Let me guess, people leave ghosts, too.”

　　“You're scared. That's normal for first timers."

　　I don't recall mentioning that this is my first time, and I'm fully clothed, and so he can't possibly see that I am unmarked, but he knows. “I'm scared. But not about the needles or the pain or regret."

　　"About what, then?"

　　"About memorializing someone who isn't gone. That I'm giving up the battle. That I'm surrendering in war.” I can hear Jenny tell me to say what I really mean. I carry my thesis further. “Afraid of death, I guess. And, maybe for the first time, of my own mortality."

　　"Death is a unique opponent, in that death always wins." Kal offers a small hiccup of a shrug, as if this is of little significance. "There's no shame in surrender when it's time to stop fighting."

　　... ...

Lily and the Octopus, P179-180
Steven Rowley
ISBN 978-1-5011-2622-2

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Because Dogs Live in the Present

　　“Do you want water? You can drink mine.” I indicate the glass of water I always keep on the nightstand.

　　Lily shakes her head no.

　　“I'm so sorry,” I say. “For all those other nights.”

　　“Wh-y-y-y-y?” The panting continues.

　　And this makes me cry even harder. All those nights she had no idea that I went to bed angry at her. Or if she had known, she has forgotten. Because dogs live in the present. Because dogs don’t hold grudges. Because dogs let go of all of their anger daily, hourly, and never let it fester. They absolve and forgive with each passing minute. Every turn of a corner is the opportunity for a clean slate. Every bounce of a ball brings joy and the promise of a fresh chase.

　　She wants to know why I'm sorry. I don't want to tell her about my anger. I don't want to tarnish my image in her eyes. Not now. Not with the octopus listening.

　　So when I respond, I lie.

　　“Because I'm going to have to give you a bath.”

Lily and the Octopus, P133-134
Steven Rowley
ISBN 978-1-5011-2622-2

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All of the Anger is Gone

　　I think of all the nights when Lily failed to pee on our bedtime walks. How much stress this would cause me. How difficult it was on those nights to fall asleep, to stay asleep, frustrated that I might have to take her to the yard in the darkness of predawn. So many arguments this caused between us. I always thought I knew better when it came to her needing to pee, but until this night she had never once actually wet the bed. And now that she has, we just lie there in the accident and the minutes on the clock keep changing and the love I have for her keeps growing and we both keep drawing breath.

　　What was so horrible about it?

　　Why had I always had been so angry?

　　What was with my need to be right? To win every argument with her? To outstubborn a dog?

　　And just like that, all of the anger is gone. Released, like the empty of a bladder, into soft cotton sheets as we lie in the wetness.

Lily and the Octopus, P133
Steven Rowley
ISBN 978-1-5011-2622-2

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Enclosed World Syndrome

　　As Lily aged and her reactions slowed and her eyesight became less crispy, Doogie's predecessor warned me that she might develop something he called Enclosed World Syndrome. I told him I hadn't heard of Enclosed World Syndrome, only New World Syndrome (the introduction of a modern, sedentary lifestyle to indigenous people, along with obesity, diabetes, and heart disease —— you're welcome, Native Americans.) I don't know if Enclosed World Syndrome is an official syndrome or something this vet made up, or who is even in charge of anointing syndromes officially. But Lily did rather quickly come to find comfort only in smaller and smaller concentric circles with our house at the center and, coincidentally, so did I. Or maybe Lily's aging coincide with the end of my relationship with Jeffrey and the stalling of my writing career. "How's Jeffrey?" "How's the writing going?" These were the questions that had irritated me to my core. Not because of their illegitimacy, but because I had no response. How was Jeffrey? We can't go two days without fighting. How was the writing? I haven't written anything in months. It became easier to avoid people than to have to explain that I was struggling. My Enclosed World Syndrome got a little better, partly out of necessity, when I became single again. Lily's never did.

Lily and the Octopus, P127-128
Steven Rowley
ISBN 978-1-5011-2622-2

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Stitch Together all the Gaps in Our Lives

　　To focus, I think of how dogs are witness. How they are present for our most private moments, how they are there when we think of ourselves as alone. They witness our quarrels, our tears, our struggles, our fears, and all of our secret behaviors that we have to hide from our fellow humans. They witness without judgment. There was a book once about a man who tried to teach his dog to speak a human language to help him solve his wife's murder. It said that if dogs could tell us all they have seen, it would magically stitch together all the gaps in our lives. I try to witness this moment how a dog would witness it. To take it all in. For the rest of my family, this wedding will be a gap in their lives, and I need to do my best to fill it.

Lily and the Octopus, P80
Steven Rowley
ISBN 978-1-5011-2622-2

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For I am a God

　　Someone once said give a dog food and shelter and treats and they think you are a god, but give a cat the same they think they are god.

　　We shared the rest of that ice-cream cone, for I am a god.

Lily and the Octopus, P36
Steven Rowley
ISBN 978-1-5011-2622-2

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There were no Limits

　　In my twenties, I had another terrible therapist (therapists!) who concluded that since my mother never says “I love you” (at least not in the same way that other mothers do), there was going to be a limit to my ability to feel love. Love for someone, loved by someone. I was limited. And then on the very last night of my twenties, when I held my new puppy in my arms. I broke down in tears. Because I had fallen in love. Not in a limited amount. I fell fully in love with the creature I had known for all of nine hours.

　　I remember Lily licking the tears from my face.

　　THIS! EYE! RAIN! YOU! MAKE! IS! FANTASTIC! I! LOVE! THE! SALTY! TASTE! YOU! SHOULD! MAKE! THIS! EVERY! DAY!

　　The realization was overwhelming —— there was nothing wrong with me! There were no limits to what I could feel!

Lily and the Octopus, P22
Steven Rowley
ISBN 978-1-5011-2622-2

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