Life’s Purpose

Each of us wants our lives to have meaning. We want some grand purpose for being here—for being alive. The potential of not having purpose is unbearable, forcing us to seek this purpose. 

What is that purpose?

This is a question of infinite depth and of infinite answers. 

Your answer today may not be your answer tomorrow. 

If you would have asked me this question years ago, I am not sure what I would have said but it probably would have been along the lines of getting rich and living a long, healthy life. 

Don’t get me wrong, I still want those things. I mean - who doesn’t want the fancy car, the fancy house, and the freedom and power that coincides with having money. It just… unlocks doors that would otherwise remain locked to you. 

But if you were to ask me that now, my life’s purpose is the purpose that I give it. 

I know - I am incredibly thoughtful and introspective. That is incredible! Who would have thought that life’s meaning is what you give it?

Yet—that notion gives me freedom. 

Freedom I found through our dog, Norman. 

Three and a half years ago, we were looking for a companion for my dog, Hank. We had met an Anatolian Shepherd named Harrison that adored my then girlfriend, Sydney. You could just tell they were going to be great pals. 

We drove Hank from Denver to Windsor to meet him in the countryside at Big Bones Canine Rescue and were hopeful that they would get along. 

Hank, a Neapolitan Mastiff, was a loving yet mannerless boy upon meeting new friends and his massive jowls and wrinkles prevented other dogs from reading him well. If I had a dollar for every time I had heard someone say, “Wow, I’ve never seen my dog act like that!” after encountering Hank - I’d have somewhere around $5. 

It felt like a lot when it happened, okay?

Well - Harrison broke Syd’s heart. While he was kind to Sydney, he snapped at Hank and I was unwilling to put either dog in a bad situation. 

It is important to know that on our first date, Syd and I spent hours upon hours talking with one another - so much so that I kept falling asleep on her arm when we were chatting at 5:00 AM in her Jeep Wrangler. 

One of the topics we discussed was how we would both absolutely love to have a black and white harlequin Great Dane. 

While Harrison was not meant to be, there was an obnoxious dog that had just been brought to the rescue that happened to be exactly what we both had identified as our dream dog. 

Since we were already there and a bit defeated, we asked if we could see him. Not to toot my horn but he was new to the rescue and the volunteer stated that the only reason she would let us see him is because she could tell I had a way with dogs. 

Yeah, I’m kind of a big deal. 

So we got to meet Sarge. We walked from the large kennel that he was in to a drainage ditch on the farm and upon getting their and their walking introduction - he play-bowed at Hank. 

To this day, that memory makes me swell with happy tears. 

I had never had a dog play-bow to Hank. 

It was meant to be. 

We paid our $600 and brought Sarge home with us that day. And promptly changed his name from Sarge to Norman as 1) we like old man names for dogs and 2) you can’t be named Sarge when you are terrified of everything. I’m all for irony but that just wouldn’t work. 

Norman always had a couple of masses we lovingly dubbed his “extra nipples.” 

We never thought much of them but man, it seemed like they got longer by the day. 

They were benign tumors and supposedly nothing to worry about. 

But 2.5 years in, we found out that Norman had cancer on his spinal cord. It was covering a vertebrae and crushing his spinal cord. 

Our animals are everything to us and we spent $20,000 to find this out, operate to ensure that it was cancer and not an infection, before getting him home on our anniversary with the prognosis of us getting a couple of weeks with him. 

Upon getting him home, we saw that he wasn’t showing the vets quite how terrified he was. He immediately slumped to the floor in the most uncomfortable position I had ever seen him lay in. 

We brought down a dog bed for him so he had somewhere more comfortable to lay down. 

He refused to move from his initial spot. 

The vet had informed us that he had been a bit dramatic and vocal but was able to get up and walk around but not to support him. 

We coaxed him to stand and walk over to the dog bed and it was excruciating hearing him scream in pain and fear, drool dripping from his mouth like a child that has just skinned their knee for the first time. 

We had to take him out twice that day and the second time was at 3:00 AM for an evening pee. He screamed getting up and I carried him most of the way so he didn’t have to walk - he seemed to not be able to use his front legs well and was tripping over them and dragging his feet. 

He was in so much pain he would scream and try to lie down after peeing. I would try to help him and he bit me twice. 

This dog adored me. I was everything to him. He would ignore Sydney leaving our bedroom and wait dutifully on his bed outside our door for me to get up. 

Where I went in the house, he went. 

When I would get home from work, he’d be so happy that he’d crack his tail open, spraying blood all over the house. 

Him biting me solidified what I knew in my heart from the moment we got him home. We couldn’t force him to suffer through this pain just so we could have him around. 

I couldn’t reason with him and tell him that he could suck it up or we were going to have to put him down. He didn’t know his options, but we did. We couldn’t allow him to suffer excruciating pain and the terror of vet visits for the last few weeks of his life. 

We didn’t celebrate our anniversary. 

We soaked up as many moments as we could with our sweet boy that night. 

He was in so much pain he couldn’t sleep. He would whine softly to me and I would go and lay with him, sobbing. Occasionally, I would doze off but he couldn’t. 

At 6:00 AM the next morning we would go to McDonald’s and then to the vet to put him down. 

He took the longest pee of his life that morning and we were sobbing and laughing during it because man, that dog could take a pee. 

Then we went inside and I had the awful job of ringing the buzzer of death for him. 

I will never forget them literally having to drag him to the back room to prep him with catheters and him planting his feet despite the pain to try to stay by my side. Nor will I forget the relief on his face and the sweetest tail wags despite the pain when we were reunited in the last room we’d ever be in together. 

This unexpected turn of events from an otherwise uneventful few years absolutely rocked my world. 

I used to think about death a lot as a child, wondering what was on the other side. I was raised Christian but any time I thought of death I’d eventually come to question if there was an eternal life and what would happen if that was just something we told ourselves to free ourselves from the burdens of this life. 

Ultimately, my mind would always go black and I would feel that darkness pulling me in, overwhelming me. 

This periodically has surfaced through my life and Norman’s death caused it to resurface. I want so badly to be reunited with him but at the same time, if we get a second life, I don’t selfishly want him to only have lived as a dog. To have a short life cut short by a horrible disease. 

That seemed selfish of me and ultimately, I’d turn to the darkness again. 

If we are destined for nothing, then why the hell are we here? What is our purpose?

I would ask this nearly nightly with anxiety caused insomnia. 

Then, the thought. 

Life has whatever purpose you give it. 

It doesn’t matter if nothing happens after I die. I refuse to let that negatively influence the life I am going to live. If I only have one shot, I’m going to make it count and if I get more, awesome. If not, then I didn’t squander it.