For the Love of a Dog

There are some days that start differently. 

This morning, we wake and move without saying a word. It’s still dark, just thin hints of January blue along the bare horizon. It’s a world of black and white until the light reaches quietly across the field. The trees are just beginning to show their form, their long fingertips reaching toward the gray. 

This morning, we sit in silence on the edge of our bed. The only sound is the hum of an air purifier in one of the kids’ rooms across the hall. All I can feel is the sadness pinching at the edges of my heart.

“She moved again during the night,” I tell my husband. Our elderly dog couldn’t move her back legs last night. A few attempts defeated her, and she remained splayed on the hardwood where we watched and waited. Hours of taking turns sitting by her side — my husband, me, the kids, the other animals. We all made our rounds. By midnight, we created a cradle for her with a blanket, and the two of us slowly carried her tired body to her bed one last time.

See, today is her last day. This morning is her last morning. We made the decision yesterday after a grim prognosis from the veterinarian and it has hummed like a bad melody ever since. An unshakeable sense that sorrow is knocking and we must answer. This morning, we found she had managed to move to her old spot in the kitchen. The same spot that always fell perfectly underfoot for me. She would stay there while I cooked, measured, rolled tortillas, reached for plates, it didn’t matter. I’d reach around her for onions, garlic, a cookbook, and when I finally annoyed her enough, she’d sigh and move to the other side of the kitchen, where it was only a matter of time we’d be in each other’s space again. A smart border collie, she predicted my position and met me there before I even knew where I was going.

This morning, she is sprawled in that same spot — evidence that she managed to move enough to get there but can’t move again. I ask if she wants to go outside as the blue snow begins to turn a winter white, as the birds begin to wake up, as the morning traffic speeds along on the main street in front of our home.

I creak the door open. She looks at me, and looks away. No tail wag. No twitch. Just her same old spot beneath the french press, beneath the fruit and the trailing plant.

She knows, I think. She knows it’s time.

And there she stays for the quietest morning in our house we’ve ever had. We make the coffee, feed the other four-legged, furry members of our family, and she is hand-served smoked salmon from Nova Scotia because a matriarch should eat like a queen for her last breakfast. She lifts her mouth slightly, licking the last of the flavor from my husband’s hand before turning away again. 

“It’s going to be a hard day,” I say to…anyone. Myself? My teenager? My husband? My 7-year-old? It doesn’t matter. I just need to say it. The words hang in the silence suspended between old leashes, a cold dog bed, impending grief, and the tears that already pooled among us. Two clay paw prints sit drying on our dining room table, and remnants of that clay from her paw are on the hardwood floor where she managed to drag her feet while we slept. 

There are some days that start differently. Days when you realize that the small things mattered. All the memories were stored up and now they’re all you have left.

Before we even considered breakfast, we cradled her one last time in one of our favorite old blankets, and she curled like a child in my husband’s arms. She didn’t jolt, snap, or resist. He carried her gently, like a loving father would his own child, to the car. 

There is no easy way to say goodbye. Death came quickly for her and while we all knew it was coming, it wasn’t expected and returning to a quiet house with dried clay paw prints on the floor, a toweled old dog bed against the wall, and a cold spot on the kitchen floor — well, it felt about as hollow and chilling as the winds that blew the snow around our house for the rest of the day. 

There are some days that start differently — cold floors, silent rooms, empty arms. 

May they be few and far between
and only exist because we learned how to love.