One Final Walk

I can’t say I wasn’t prepared for it, but the reality of it hits me hard in a hundred little moments every day since she’s been gone.  Three weeks ago the inevitability of making that decision pressed against us on all fronts.  I barely slept one night, trying to figure out ways to extend her time with us, my selfishness co-mingling with what I knew in my gut was the right thing to do.  I fell asleep after tearfully resigning myself to the difficulty of the next few days.

She was my near-constant companion for over ten years—we walked together twice a day—one of those times with Chris after he got home from work.  Technically, she was Aaron’s dog—the wanted and needed puppy who joined our family just two months after we left South Dakota for our new life in Minnesota.  He slept on the porch with her those first nights, hearing her baby whimpers and whines and letting her out to go to the bathroom during the night—an unusual caretaking role for a high school boy.  Then he left to go back up to Camp in the Boundary Waters, and I took over the well-known role of caregiving.  Tamba was here every day when Aaron came home from Camp, or school, or college, or lately, from the Cities and his job.  They were like siblings—rolling around on the floor, running around the yard as fast as they could, playing all kinds of ball games with one another.  She was joyous in every sense of the word when she saw Aaron was home.

When I got up Monday morning, I heard her shake her head as she exited her kennel, her dog tags jingling in a morning song, like thousands of mornings before.  We did what we always did—I put on my boots and jacket, grabbed the leash, she stretched her downward dog—small and modified due to her age and tumors—I clicked on the leash, and we headed out into the weather, into the morning, into the zen of Nature and movement.  I couldn’t help myself from thinking this was my second-to-the-last morning walk with her.  When we came back and she was off her leash, she wandered around the yard, checking out the smells of who had wandered through, but when she saw me, she played her stalking game!  She stopped, crouched slightly, head lowered, eyes on me.  I did the same.  Then slowly, ever so slowly, we walked toward one another, each carefully lifting one foot just as the other did, pausing mid-air, then gradually stepping toward one another until a certain moment when one of us would run!  Then both of us would run together, her jumping at me in pretend aggressiveness, me laughing.  We spent a lot of time outside that day—we lay in the grass together letting the sunshine soak into our skin, warming the coolness of the day and the coldness of tomorrow.  I doubted my decision a dozen times over, but then I saw her hind end give away when she walked by me on level ground.  After many attempts, I finally forced myself to call the vet’s office, and with a catch in my voice, made the appointment.  Chris and I walked our last walk with her that afternoon, grateful, as always, for our catch-up time together, along with our big, black dog.

Early Tuesday morning, Chris fed her one last time before he left for work with his usual remark: “Happy Birthday!” as the kibbles melodically poured into her dish.  When I got up, she and I took our last morning walk, and I felt a combination of extreme gratefulness for all my days with this beautiful dog and a sorrowful dread.  Later I sat on the patio with her—I looked at her, and she looked at me with her wise, calm eyes.  We had gotten to be so in tune with one another after all these years—I could sense when she needed to go out by her subtle cues; she knew when something was wrong with me.  And as I looked at her, I felt like she knew what was going to happen, like she knew we were spending our last moments together.  As the time neared, we took our final walk together, the two of us, in sync, turning left out the driveway after nearly always turning right for our walks.  We walked down the road, then turned into the woods where lots of new smells captured her attention.  We slowly walked up a steep trail that she and Aaron used to run up and down when she was a puppy, where he sledded down the deep snow holding on to a wiggling, happy puppy.  It was hard for her to walk up the hill, but she trooped on, like she always had these past painful months.  We looked out over the River, then wound our way back home.  A perfect last walk.

These three weeks have been gray and cloudy, cold and rainy—Mother Nature’s reflection of my sorrow.  A few days offered me a smile of sunshine—oh, yes, that’s what it feels like—just to keep me going: Emily was home for two weekends, and Aaron was here, too.  The mailman brought cards from people who knew how much she meant to us, who had been through the same thing.  I hear her tags jingling sometimes in the morning, I turn to look at her when I come up from the basement, I reach for the treat can when I come inside from a walk, and I lament going to get the mail without her.  I walk in the mornings, and Chris and I walk when he comes home from work.  I feel like she is walking with me still.  That’s what unconditional love is.  That’s what being there for one another does, come what may.  That’s the celebration of every ordinary day being a Happy Birthday day.  That is her gift of grace to me, and I am ever so grateful.