Ghost's Grim Diagnosis — It Turns Out the Naming Rights! Membership Option Was For Real and Someone Is Now Five Hundred Bucks Poorer Presents Nat

A few years back I very briefly belonged to several Yorkie appreciation groups on Facebook. I am unhealthily obsessed with my Yorkie-Schnauzer Ghostface Killah even by American standards so I figured joining a Yorkie group would be a great way to see those adorable pooches I simply cannot get enough of.

I left the groups in a fairly speedy fashion once I realized that a lot of the posts involved members writing about the deaths of their beloved dogs. I joined these groups so that I could see pictures of cute dogs like my own, not to be reminded, several times a day, about the fragility of life and inevitability and finality of death.

When I see Facebook friends post about the loss of their dogs or cats my heart goes out to them but my stupid lizard brain’s response is invariably, “You would NEVER be able to handle a loss like that. If anything were to happen to Ghostie you would be absolutely devastated. Destroyed. You wouldn’t be able to go on.”

Unfortunately, the universe doesn’t check in with you in order to get your approval before terrible things happen.

In early 2020, for example, God didn’t come to me and say, “Hey, Nathan, you know how all years are pretty much the same, even the really bad ones? Obviously 2001 wasn’t a great year for Americans in particular but despite 9/11, but our lives were pretty much the same, only with more fear and more desperate patriotism.

Heck, 2016 fucking sucked because Donald Trump got elected President and a bunch of beloved icons died unexpectedly, but people could still go outside without wearing masks without fear of dying of a horrible pandemic. Well I’m just spit-balling here, but what if I make a year that everyone will remember for as long as they live because it’s so terrible and so many people died? I’m thinking of unleashing something that will murders hundreds of thousands of people, change American life dramatically in profound ways and traumatize the world. What do you think?”

If God were to come to me with his plans for COVID 19, I would veto them as strongly as possible. I would let God know that that was quite possibly the worst idea I have heard in some time and one he should definitely not go through with, even as a Noah-like test of our collective faith and resilience.

On a similar note, if the supreme being were to take me aside and say, “Hey, I know you are absolutely obsessed with your dog and look forward to growing old together but what if, instead of dying peacefully at a ripe old age in his sleep, I give him a terminal illness like Lymphoma when he’s only eight years old? What do you think of that idea?”

I would reply that this was, if anything, an even worse idea than the whole “deadly global pandemic” thing, and one that I could not be more vehemently opposed to.

Alas, God does not run ideas by me before implementing them and I was devastated to discover that the golfball-sized lump right under Ghostface’s chin was almost certainly an incurable, fatal form of Lymphoma.

My wife insisted we get a second opinion so we went to a very kind, very lovely woman who called her on Wednesday to say that, in The Room terms, the tests results had come back and he definitely has doggie Cancer.

It turns out that’s not that funny when the creature with Cancer is one you love as intensely and purely as it is possible to love someone. In fact, it’s the hardest fucking thing in the world.

My veterinarian told us that even with chemotherapy Ghostface had maybe six months to a year to live, and that in addition to costing a small fortune, chemotherapy could also weaken my dog and may not be able to extend his life by much, if at all.

I was so distraught that I began weeping uncontrollably at the vet’s office. It all just seemed so terribly unfair. The diagnosis lends a bittersweet quality to every moment I spend with Ghostie, and I spend more time with Ghostie than anyone else in the world. We sleep together. We wake up together. I take him for walks three times a day. I’ve spent the last eight years savoring my time with Ghostface, knowing that it was inherently limited and that there would come a time when he would no longer be with us.

I’ve lived every day with Ghostface as if it might be the last. Now that might actually be the case. It breaks my heart to be petting Ghostie—a dog who not only needs but angrily demands attention, love and adoration—and run my fingers over the inflamed lymph nodes that will take his life sooner rather than later.

I’m not going to lie. I am deeply depressed. Sometimes I’ll be doing okay and then I will remember what the vet said and an ominous black cloud descends upon me that can be hard to shake.

I need to stay strong, for my own sake as well as that of my family. I don’t have the luxury of breaking down completely or giving into despair.

I’ve got shit to do. I’ve got to learn how to drive and find a place for my family to live and finish between two and three and a half books/book-like projects. That’s in addition to being the entirety of Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place and one-half of the Travolta/Cage Project. Last but not least I have to manage Ghostie’s care and try to make his remaining time on earth as painless and pleasurable as possible.

I also get to Gather in about a month, something I suspect will be enormously powerful and also cathartic. Death plays a big role in Juggalo Culture. It’s not a stretch to say that the Gathering is, in no small part, all about honoring the dead by celebrating life.

In a way it’s a good thing that I have a million things that I NEED to do because otherwise it would be far too easy and tempting to give into the free-floating, bottomless sense of sadness I feel in my darkest moments, and to be brutally honest, whenever my mind is not otherwise occupied.

When Ghostie finally does meet his maker I plan to get a memorial tattoo of a ghost so that even after he’s gone Ghostie will always be a part of me, a part I will always cherish and will miss almost beyond words.

Be a part of the recently launched Indiegogo campaign for 7 Days in Ohio II: Return of the Juggalos over at https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/make-7-days-in-ohio-2-return-of-the-juggalo-happen--2/x/14797497#/ and help send Nathan back to the Gathering for the EIGHTH time for more literary magic, madness and miracles!

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