My dog, Kodi, died suddenly the other day.  He was 15 years old.

I know, you’re asking, what does that have to do with multiple myeloma?

Let me try to explain.

When I was diagnosed in 2006, and by the time I ended up at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, I was in really bad shape.  Or so they tell me.  So much so, that I’m told that I’m fortunate to be alive today.

When I found myself unexpectedly admitted to the hospital for about two weeks while they slowly pulled me back from the brink, a lot of thoughts went through my mind, including an odd one about Kodi.

I’d already been thinking that after he passed on, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to get another dog.  Kodi was almost 10 years old at that point, and another long-term commitment didn’t seem wise. There’s always the possibility that as Linda and I start to get into senior citizen status that another dog might outlive us.

Facing multiple myeloma, a new thought occurred to me that, hey, I might not outlive Kodi!

Since my diagnosis, Kodi and I have shared frailties and, to a certain extent, decline.

I’ve learned more from him, I’m sure, than he did from me.

Kodi dealt with his declining physical abilities with dignity.

There was no complaining, and he continued to try to do the things he always did, sometimes stubbornly.  A playful evening run around the neighborhood late last summer with a wandering cat left him pretty sore, and he lazed around afterward for some three days, not doing much.  On a trip last fall to Long Beach Island, he couldn’t contain himself when we got there. He ran around the beach and into the ocean, which he loved.

As he aged, Kodi had his good days, and not-so-good ones.  Always, there were more good ones than bad ones, but it did require that he adapt.

As he changed his ways, he was sometimes not quite as energetic, nor did he act quite so enthusiastically all the time.  That didn’t stop him, however, from doing all those things that defined him.

It was as if he was making a statement, “This is what I do.  This is me.”

On days when he maybe didn’t feel so hot, he rested.

On many other days, you’d never have a clue that he was as old as he was.

Over the past six years, I’ve not been able to do some things because of health issues related to the myeloma.  It’s frustrating.

But, my goodness, even at his advanced age (I guess he’d be 105 in dog years), Kodi sometimes would still run around our front yard like a young dog, as if to say, “Come on, if I can do things like this, so can you.”

Lessons in life can come from places you might least expect.

Kodi never whined about his troubles.

Even when ills manifested themselves, Kodi continued to act like every day was a joy – every moment a treasure.

He always let you know how happy he was that you were there.

He would use his body language to intimate that something wasn’t right, but, even so, he wasn’t one to mope around.

If things were good, he did the things he liked – wandering about the woods behind our house, barking at the UPS truck anytime it came up the street, sitting under the tree on his hill in the front yard keeping an eye on the neighborhood as any good mayor would do, following around anybody working in the yard.

If he wasn’t feeling so hot, he’d go to the pantry door to beg for a “cookie” – that is, a dog biscuit – and take a nap.

The day that Kodi died, Linda and I were in New York City for an appointment with my doctor at Memorial Sloan-Kettering.

Kodi stayed with our daughter on occasions when we were away.

The night before he died, he was his usual self, sitting out in the warm evening in her front yard, showing no sign of distress.

Between 7:30 a.m. and 8 a.m. the next day, our vet speculates that Kodi’s heart just gave out.

The lifetime of a dog is way shorter than ours.

Perhaps there’s a reason for this.

We get to see his or her passage through all the phases of life – from the exuberance of youth to the frailty of old age.  It’s not hard to take those experiences and relate them to our own, and learn from them.

For Robert Frost, a dog’s life is a metaphor for ours. In a simple two-line poem, “The Span of Life,” Frost writes:

The old dog barks backwards without getting up.
I remember when he was a pup.