We Said Goodbye To Our Dog Today

 A million years ago - or maybe 15 - we lost a truly great dog, Garp, to congestive heart failure. He was to my eyes the perfect dog: docile, loving, a bit lazy. We had to let him go in late August. I was not ready for another dog.

By late October, my wife suggested we "go look at" some rescues. I should've known what that meant. We came home with Heffley. (We name our dogs alphabetically after literary characters.)

She was part Lab, part...something. A bit skittish, especially at first. It took me about a day to fall in love with her. For my eldest son, who was struggling in school, Heffley was home; she was loyalty with a wet nose and soft eyes. The world of school kept kicking him in the teeth and Heff kept licking his wounds and laying her head in his lap.

This coming Friday, he graduates from college. He was tied up in his final project, so he couldn't come home to say goodbye, as she rapidly declined from kidney disease and just being very old. Saturday, she could hobble a bit. Sunday, she could barely stand. Monday, we had to hold her up to pee. This morning, she couldn't even stand. To watch her slowly fade from this world, until the vet came to ease her journey, was both crushingly sad and sadly beautiful. 

She came into our lives when our boys were boys. She left it, as they became men. Her job was to always be there for them, but especially our eldest, who so desperately needed her. Her work was done, and she needed rest.

To try and ease our son's anguish over the phone was probably even more heartbreaking. We could see her decline. We could see her slowly dim, her confusion, her steady thinning in this world. All he wanted to do was to hold her once more.

To have a dog is to know love in about as pure a form as it gets. To have a child is to have a constantly exposed nerve, sensitive to every blast of cold air life throws at them - and thus at you.

Yet for all that heartbreak, I can't help but feel blessed for having that love in my life. The cost is dear, only because the reward is so precious.