Today I lost a great friend. I should be telling you I lost my "best friend", but we've had a bit of a rough time of it since my kids came along.
He was a better friend to me than I was to him. He forgave numerous shortcomings on my part- never faltering in his affection for me. He put up with everything I ever asked him to, and then some.
I wish I was as good of a human as he was a dog.
In the beginning, when there was only Chunk- he slept with me in my bed. On cold mornings, I would wake up in the middle of a Julie sandwich, with my husband on one side, and the 100lb lab on the other. Other mornings I would wake up spooning him, my arm thrown over his side. He loved to swim, he loved to play- He loved me.
He waited anxiously when I went to the hospital to have Ethan, checking the bedrooms one by one to see if I had returned. Then circling back to the first floor to wait. He was so upset by my absence that by the third day he had stopped eating.
When I came in the house with the baby, he was so excited that he nearly knocked me down. He sniffed that baby like he was trying to suck him in.
That was the day our relationship changed. This poor beast who had become accustomed to getting everything he needed and wanted, right when he needed it or wanted it-became a second class citizen overnight. He waited to go out in the morning, waited to be fed, waited (and waited and waited) to go for a walk.
I think people know that life changes when you have kids- I'm certain now that dogs do not- but like I said, he was a very forgiving friend.
There are pictures (thank God!). Pictures of Ethan riding on his back, pulling on his ears. Pictures of Riley laying across his side. Pictures of all of them playing in the sprinkler together.I hope one day these pictures will make me laugh, make me think that he was still having fun despite no longer being the center of my world.
His decline was so rapid. Playing in the yard on Tuesday, Gone on Saturday morning. I knew it was bad when I woke up in the morning and he wasn't laying at the foot of my bed. I knew it was dire when I had to carry him down the stairs.
Part of me thinks that I should have fought more for him. Payed all the money in the world to have him hospitalized, poked and prodded, fluid drained and tested. Chemo-radiation, whatever- But the part of me that remembers spooning with him, playing fetch with him, swimming with him, holding him during thuderstorms.. knows that he was suffering, and that there would have been so much more fear and suffering just in trying to find a diagnosis. He was a sissy. He would not have wanted that.
To see him laying on the floor there, struggling so much to breath that he couldn't even hide from the vet- I knew.
So I sat with him while they gave him the sedative, I tried to put his head in my lap, but I could tell that it made it harder for him to breath. He was relaxed when they started the IV. I petted him, I told him that I was sorry, that I loved him. I told him he was a good dog. He wagged his tail once, and then he stopped breathing. His tail slowly relaxed, and uncurled.
The doctor left me there with him, and I had an overwhelming urge lay on the floor and spoon him, just one more time.
