I leaned in close to your white face, kissed your nose and inhaled. This morning the smell of your fur was mixed a little with the smell of your accident, where your aging legs betrayed you and caused you to slip in the mess you made. Not the best smell, but I did not mind the kiss on the nose and the smell of your fur is not a memory, but a state of being, its home. You have rarely had accidents and only when sick and each time you lowered your head when it was discovered and you walked away. My eyes get misty and that is when the steam hits my face and I realize I turned the shower on for my temperature and not for you, I adjust the handle so the water can cool then return to stroking the clean areas of your coat, tears come to the surface again.
I shake them off, and look you in the face, “I need to stop, today is NOT the day.” The voice in the back of my head, surrounded by the black cloud, whispers, “No, not today, but soon it will be.”
“We don’t know that, do we?” I say as I lift you into the tub. You have already lived life that has defied expectations. You were so young when we started your training, as we wanted you to have the best and if you wanted to do therapy work we could as a team. After talking not just to one, but several experts we knew the training would not start until you matured a bit. Goldens, they are great for the work, but need to be puppies and grow up a bit and after three tends to be the best time to start advanced training.
I was so nervous that first night after we were surprisingly admitted and you are a mere fourteen months of age. There you were there, showing better manners than pups twice or more your age. I tried to not get too ahead of myself, but in a few short months we would be testing and then registered and before we knew it we would be visiting. You were only two and a full year younger than we expected you would begin training, but instead we were at the hospital and working.
You took to the work in an almost supernatural way, while we helped you learn to walk on strange surfaces, be around weird smells, odd equipment, large buildings, on elevators and slippery surfaces and to go up and greet your person calmly, quietly and without your tongue or against your instincts an awkward sniff. You already knew who in a crowd needed you most, which of the shy and standoffish ones would find comfort in your coat and at the most intimate of times when to depart before they left. You knew that, and not in many lifetimes with full time dedicated study do I think I could not only learn how, but how to teach another, that was just you. I loved the work, and working with you. I wanted more to do it, so I told a story or two to help others, learned to teach others and evaluate as well. All because of you.
At home, we let you be a bit naughty sometimes and we allowed, such a hard working pup does need some down time. You helped us help other dogs who needed to find their home and you always chose me, and I felt so lucky, still do, but Mom needed someone to choose her so little brother came home. You ‘tolerated’ him at first, but then when we weren’t looking you started looking for him and you for him.
Time seemed to fly and in no time, he joined us too, while his primary job was not the same as yours he did therapy too. Working together, the four of us, lives in the highlight reel of my life, and it always will.
In a blink of an eye, it was time to retire. You were 11, still wanted to go, but wanted each visit shorter. I knew it was time, but harder than keeping my nerves steady on day one was keeping the tears back on the last day. The better part of a decade you had served our community, the work you did, and the impact it had I will never be fully able to comprehend and I was happy to be along for the ride. You more than deserved a quiet retirement and while there were tears it was also fear of, “Did I wait too long?’ “Would he get a couple years?” The calendar was no longer in your favor and I felt its weight on making sure you had time to be ‘just a dog’. I never thought in my wildest dreams that four and half years would pass and you would still be here. I am still thankful that we chose the date we did. We were able to do one last visit, just the four of us, and it was as magical as the first time we worked as a family. It would be just a few months later that the world would pause and we would not have been given the choice or the option to leave that part of your story the way we did.
In just a little over a month from the time I jot this down you will be sixteen…….SIXTEEN!
Maybe you will make it to this milestone, maybe not, today's accident was just a bit too rich of a diet. There is nothing seriously wrong, no terminal condition, just the calendar ticking away. As long as you are happy and still doing well, sixteen can come and go and we will just keep trucking along, living and enjoying life.
I do fully understand what an ‘embarrassment of riches’ is now. Your mom and I, have had plenty of good fortune and though misfortune has seemed to cast a longer shadow at times. We still have had many fortunes, but an ‘embarrassment of riches', that has been you. I teased your brother and your mom and the two babies that you are the best dog, because it is true. I understand the old phrase and feel it, as you are still here. Still here, still happy and still you and while most of the time I feel lucky, there are so many times I feel guilty to be so blessed.
Almost all the pups you knew when you were young have left us, we mourned with their people. The friends we made because of you and their pups have long since said their goodbyes to the pieces of them that brought us together, but I still get to have you and for that I feel guilty. I never felt guiltier though that I still had the pup who chose me, when the pup who chose mom was stolen by cancer you were still here, a little more tired, but still here, still happy and I felt guilty that we had you and he was gone. Mom and I both asked for you to give us at least one more year as our shattered hearts could not bear losing another too soon. You have given us two and half and counting and we are so grateful.
You are the last one standing of the originals and for that I feel gratitude and guilt over our good fortune.
We were twenty-seven when we brought you home, to our first home and we had just been married for five years, we’re forty-three now, in our second home and just celebrated our 21st year of marriage.It is amazing and while I hoped, I never expected to have you this long. You saw me through job loss and underemployment and times I did not know if we would make it through unscathed. You have also seen us through countless walks, fetch sessions, celebrations, and when we brought home our ‘two legged puppy’. I thought when we came home that he would only know you through our memories, and while he says he remembers your brother, I know those memories are faded, but you, he will remember. I joke about the pain that was caused when he stole you and you started choosing him over me, but in reality I smile as I know he is our last ‘patient’ together and you are just keeping your eye on him and supporting him, even if it's just with a look as your legs don’t allow you to keep up anymore.
I can’t remember the last time your legs and body allowed you to keep up, any better than I remember that twenty-seven year old me who brought you home. I can’t remember the last time you wanted to play fetch or the last time you slept in our bed at my feet. I can’t remember the last time you beat me to the door to greet me before I went to find you. I can’t remember the last time I knew you heard my voice. I remember those versions of you, but I cannot remember when they left. Bruse Cameron wrote, “When you adopt a dog, you have a lot of very good days and one very bad day.” Your brother left us too soon, and I was heartbroken and angry and he was this quote. I cannot be angry when it is your time and Mr. Cameron’s quote doesn't really apply to you, but so very few people are given the opportunity to see an amazing dog slowly fade due to time, it is both a blessing and a curse. We have been given that time and time has not been stolen, but it does not ease the heartbreak and I am not sure what is best, sudden and rapid like your brother or losing pieces over a long time. Both are awful and my heart wants neither as the end of the story, just more of the middle and the story to never end.
I look for you now, it usually does not take long and I stand over you waiting to hear your breathe, have you look up, or see your chest move as I want to see if between the last time I saw you and now if you have left before my hand discovers it, if that should that be the way you leave us. I can’t remember the last time I came home or got up in the morning, and I was not a little afraid you were gone. Today, might not be the day, nor tomorrow or the next, there is nothing terminally wrong with you, but the date on the calendar and with each passing day you continue to defy the odds. It's not today, but I know that day is coming.
I, we, cannot ask you for anything more, you have served our community, been there for us in good times and bad, helped us stitch together the pieces when cancer stole your brother from us. You don’t owe us anything, you have taught me more than I ever taught you and I should not ask for more, but I can’t help it. You have been thirty-seven percent of my life and sixty-four percent of my adult life, asking you is only natural.
How am I going to do it when the day comes? I will make it through, life has taught me that, but how am I going to be without you? How will I be strong enough to let you go? How will I be strong enough to support your mom? How will I be strong enough for our boy? Will I be strong enough to show him it's ok to grieve, it's ok to fall apart a bit and this is how you can rebuild? Will I be strong enough to give room for his grief when I know mine will be overwhelming?
Today is not the day, but I feel its presence coming and I am afraid, as I cannot recall what life was like before you and I cannot imagine life after you're gone.
