farewell, dear friend

When she came to live with us 14 years ago,

Pokey had a difficult time with bare floors.

Raised with her mom and brothers and sisters outside,

Her legs would splay out from under her

when she encountered a smooth surface.

In the last few months before she left us,

she also had a difficult time with bare floors.

Her back legs would sometimes splay out when she was sitting,

leaving her in great pain and unable to get up.

She walked with me for years, every single day.

Four miles on a quiet country road--

Sniffing intently at the ground at wildlife crossings,

running ahead and then stopping to look back,

swimming in the stream most days from March to November.

During the last few months, she slept most of the time.

In her dreams, she was still on the road--

her legs moving vigorously in delighted doggy dreams.

She once was queen of the woods.

There was nowhere she didn't dare to go;

she scaled windfalls with ease and followed her nose

to delicious and exciting places.

When she was done exploring, she would come back to greet me, smiling.

A few weeks ago, she lost her balance at the edge

of a ravine and tumbled to the bottom--

then was completely unable to get up.

She waited quietly until I could crawl down to rescue her,

and she looked frightened and a bit humiliated.

We have struggled for months with how to deal with her

declining ability to be the dog she has 

always been.

Completely deaf, and increasingly anxious, she would

seem to tell us that although she had no acute

pain or illness, she was no longer herself in her body.

A couple of weeks ago, my husband fell on top of her 

at the kitchen steps.  The combination of her  new habit of 

being regularly underfoot and my husband's fragile balance

was beginning to be dangerous to both of them.

Thursday at noon, we fed her three pieces of Hebrew National Salami.

We took her out back for a walk by the pond, 

and then took her on a long walk around the neighborhood.

When we got home, we sat with her on a comforter outside under a tree,

and waited.

The vet and her assistant came and lovingly

and respectfully shaved a spot of fur from her back leg,

and while I was holding her close to me, they injected her  with a sedative.

She quickly relaxed completely in my arms,

and within minutes she was gone from us.

It was very moving to experience this relaxation,

especially since she had been so anxious for so long.

~*~

That morning, on the Writer's Almanac, Garrison Keillor

read a Thomas Hardy poem that seemed 

sent to us for the occasion, as if in Pokey's words:  

When Dead

by Thomas Hardy

         It will be much better when

              I am under the bough;

I shall be more myself, Dear, then,

              Than I am now.

         No sign of querulousness

              To wear you out

Shall I show there: strivings and stress

              Be quite without.

         This fleeting life-brief blight

              Will have gone past

When I resume my old and right

              Place in the Vast.

         And when you come to me

              To show you true,

Doubt not I shall infallibly

              Be waiting you.

                

We still look for Pokey as we go through the day.

And we miss her sweet and loving self.

We are sure, though, that she is at peace.