“We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.” - Kahill Gibran
The next day
In the morning I call the vet; my hands are shaking as I hit send and when they answer there is a dreadful silence before I can begin to speak. I’m asked if I want to be with her and I reply with a barely audible “yes.” I’m told they can take us now or later in the afternoon. I’m not ready, I can’t let go, I want to hang up, but I can’t move my hand to release the phone from my ear. I take the later time, hang up the phone and go into the bathroom and throw up.
I then call my friend Leigh and ask her to come with me. I know this is something I cannot do alone. Most of my life it seems I have done the things that most people do with their significant other either alone or with my four-legged companions: holidays, traveling, long Sunday rides and attending weddings and funerals. Today I need an assist and for a change have no problem asking for it. I go into the kitchen and make Hunter a breakfast of champions, a doggy omelet of sorts. We then head out to the park, which is right across the street. Knox is docile and for the first time ever sort of stays in the background, putting his alpha status aside for the moment and letting Hunter clear the archway first. He lingers a bit behind, not much, but enough to let Hunter lead the way. I sense some form of recognition and respect. I had called Kathy, my vet tech friend and expressed my concern for Knox; he has known Hunter his entire life and I wanted to know how her absence would affect him. I asked if I should bring him with us, so he doesn’t think that I took Hunter off in the car and he’s wondering why she never returned. Kathy said that he is a smart dog and that his main concern is me. He’ll pick up on my sadness, distress and grief and that this will have a profound influence on him.
I remember when my brother Dave died and we were living together at the time and how both Hunter and Knox stuck by my side like glue. When I’d have extreme emotional breakdowns, Knox just simply couldn’t handle it: he would get this sad look on his face and retreat to another room. Hunter, on the other hand, was my guardian angel as she had been before some fourteen years prior when my brother Darren and nephew died in a scuba diving accident. I had returned to California after the deaths as my family had seemed to disengage from each other, retreating into their own separate worlds of pain, trying to figure out how to deal and move on. I was staying at my sisters for the first five months or so and she and her husband already had a full house that included four kids, but their generosity never allowed me to feel like I was a burden. I had no problem in those days, most likely due to the numbness that was still invading my every being to “catch as catch can” and sleep (which I didn’t do much of) on whatever couch, bed or pullout I could find. Often during this time I’d awake in the middle of the night to find scalding tears dripping down my face; no matter where I’d awake, Hunter would be at my side. We’ve been through some rough waters, she and I and together, we’ve shared some amazing experiences.
We return from the park and I hoist Hunter onto the couch and I sit next to her for the rest of the day, I stroke her, tell her how much I love her and how much substance she added to my life while she sleeps, but I know she’s listening. One more grand meal and a walk around the park, this time it’s Knox whose nose gets left behind, but this time my legs are like Jell-O and can barely hold me up and I feel dizzy as the voices in my head keep shouting this is unbearable!!!!!! I know Hunter can sense all of this and I do my best to put my “happy face” on, but there is nothing to be happy about.
Leigh shows up and I ask her to drive. Everything else is a blur. The last thing I remember is looking into Hunter’s beautiful brown eyes with my arms wrapped around her keeping her supported so she won’t slip on the arctic sterile metal table. I’m literally holding her heart in my hands as it beats a mile a minute and I wonder what is she thinking, is she blaming me, is she mad, does she hate me? And then just like that, her heart stops and it’s over and I feel a deep sadness and aloneness that will haunt me forever.
“If I have any beliefs about morality it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.”
– James Thurber
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