-time out of time- when opening the door means each day to confront an absence, to feel loss for dark loving eyes to search me out, for ears to perk up, and for the joyous uplift of daily reunion. the morning's fresh air holding out a promise of play and touch. the sharing of feelings, the business of scheduling walks and food and camping trips and sleep. watching her straining to get into that lake, river, puddle or mud.
It is so hard to come to terms with, "she's gone forever." Thousands and tens of thousands of moments dart past me at night, each morning, in quiet moments, looking down where she slept- out into the yard where she used to dance circles, begging for a ball or stick to be thrown. Coming across her bowl, her collar. Her funny little hop, attention-getting; used to get us laughing, to coax us into some play. Her eyes following my every move. Her trust, her gifts to me. "Dallas…." my choked whisper conjures her again- the sound drifts off.
I begin to articulate what this dog has meant to me over nearly 15 years; Love, companionship, stability, a shared timeline of life's adventures, lessons, -and its sorrows… these clumsy sounds give me nothing back. Echoes of emptiness only resound where this beautiful spirit for so long walked beside me, never speaking, never telling me how she felt about anything, but anyway- sharing it all, being twined in the warp and woof of life itself. Every season, every part of the day. Knowing each other. From so many weeks old, until we stepped through all those final months and seconds together she was …indescribable. A gift of life so personal and unique, as if she was designed for me exactly.
Friends reach through the bars to console us, to love and lift us up, if just for the moment. We respond, like soulless puppets, but our bodies collapse as soon as strings are relinquished. No one touches this. We can hardly help each other.
My mind replays her dying weeks and days. I go over all the facts, the feelings, the grief at not being able to save her day by day. Helpless tears burn down my cheeks at neighbours' kitchen tables when I can take no more of it, the cruelest decision haunting me, nipping at me from every dark corner harbouring a shadow. Sobbing at the vet's. Pitifully coaxing bits of food into her tired, grieving body. She wanting none of it, wanting so much to please us. Her head laying down in knowing sleep. The rise and fall of her chest. her heroic heart. my own terrible powerlessness. My spirit's fragility, my heart's collapse, my world crashing in. Truth is, I can't let you go... Together we closed our eyes and fell. On and on, down and down. I.. I..
Time was-
I walk alone now
All these years, I would dream that she was in trouble, needing protecting, and I would save her, night after night. We would run down trails, swim in rivers, and have great, swashbuckling adventures. By morning light, she would smile at me as if she knew all. Now she is lying outside, still, covered in a dusting of snow, and she awakes. She's alive! My heart jumps a mile high in panic, and I go rushing out to meet her, amazed that we got it all wrong, harsh guilt washing over me that we could have left her out there when she should have been in with us, and, and, she's still here, somehow still with us! And then awfully, like a bamboozled compass needle - confused jerking emotion returns to its ticker-tape of loss, heart realizes the trick, and although it seems we briefly commune, the curtain falls again, and I am left fresh and raw in the early hour. I see her almost, everywhere, tail swishing as she runs, urging us onward. Head rising toward me as I stumble out of bed. The colours, textures, sounds and smells rush in greedily, and fill my lungs- I grasp and cling in spasms of shock to moments of fleeting light, the ghost of her, and then submerge once more to quiet ill. I crush my eyes. This is shock, I say to myself -it will pass. I lay my own head down in fatigue and search for sleep that does not come again.
