I lost a good buddy on Monday.
She has been in my life almost 15 years. She never talked about time in terms of years but she was down to the minute about other things. She always like meal times routine and punctual. I could find myself deeply involved in a project or a leisure activity and she brought me back to the moment in an second to the hour on the clock, the minute of the day.
She was an English Pointer, mid size, 40 pounds. She never hunted professionally but could point, even stand on her back legs and look over the tall grass if she sensed the need to follow her instincts. Her noise was stronger than her eyes.
My favorite memories of her is the fabulous spirit of freedom that she was capable of. It was on display as I watched her run the early morning beaches of Sandestin, Florida or Cannon Beach in Oregon or the golf course in Door County, Wisconsin. It was a flight so fast that it seemed that the feet only occasionally touched the ground. I remember a winter in Sandestin with the white sand, the tide slowly coming in, the sun dancing on the straight line across the surface of the water and not a living being there but us. She made me love that day and that memory. She frighten me, also, occasionally, when I lost sight of her but then back she came full speed, the sand made a noise at my feet, when she stopped.
It was five in the morning and before sunrise on Cannon Beach when we walked together. It was a new beach to me and she was older but she showed that same spirit was still in her muscles as she run and made huge circles around me. She exhibited enjoyment that have to be present in all of us, that total ability to feel joy.
Another connection, we shared, that was a bond was food. She often lay to watch me in the kitchen, waiting to catch my eye and the moment I would find a morsel for her. In recent times we have always share breakfast. I gave her part of my toast and if I have fried eggs it was also shared with her.
She became notorious, food-wise, in her early life by stealing a bit of food from a woman at one of my parties, the morning after a New Year's Eve gathering. Of course, the woman was lounging in a chair with her hand dropped holding the remains of a breakfast Danish. It stopped the conversation in the room for a minute or two but it firmly cemented her 'food grabbing reputation'. One other habit she had in the days of large dinner parties, that some dinner guests found annoying was, to very gently lay her head on their leg under the dining table. She will circle the table until she found someone that would feed her tiny bits, quietly. My loyalty was with her, the rest of those people went home at night.
Traveling with her made the trips more deliberate with stops for walks, conversations with strangers came easily and fresh water in the car, standard. She travel north to south from Wisconsin to Florida each way possible. The two round cross country trips to California included her barking at the elk in Yellowstone Park, walking the streets of Palo Alto and sleeping though the state of Nebraska.
The last couple years, my buddy has lost her hearing and she found that long walks were not much fun. For last five days I have known that her liver had enlarged and at her age, she could not have got though surgery. The pain of digesting food was more of an ordeal and meds were becoming less and less helpful. It was my time to do her a favor and we went to the vet office to say good by.
The important part of our shared time was that she expressed delight in life and grounded me in other ways.
My life would have missed something if we had not shared time.
I will miss my Daisy Mae!
No comments:
Post a Comment