Tea With Me: 24th August, 2021 Tuesday
Well, this one is a farewell…
The Old Ones…they are part of the fabric of our days. They know the routine. They have long since won the battle of wills with you that they just get to do it the way they want and you have figured out how to make that work. Their spots are just theirs, from where they nap, where they pee, where they poo, how they demand what they need to recieve, how they walk you on a leash, what level of vocal utterance they need you to fork up in order that they actually do your bidding instead of the other way around…and the list goes on about all the ways you have partnered eachother over the fleeting years of their lifespan.
There are holes in my home today. That quiet that descends when one of the Old Ones isn’t there.
And my eyes leak. Every thought, every memory, those memories I had not known I catalogued in our walk together.
She was Imp and Beauty. She led me places I never would have been brave enough to go without her incessant joie d’vive for the chase which commanded my provision and therefore quest of the perfect secure paradise for long legs born to fly to find their passion flight.
I have lost my Lead so suddenly. Yesterday. I knew it was her time but it happened so insanely fast. She was fine on Saturday, then wouldn’t eat her breakfast Sunday and didn’t even want to race to be the first to drool waiting for her bowl. She was on her day bed, and didn’t want her food. Something was oh so wrong. I gave it the day.
And of course it was the day the Dude arrived. We left her for two hours middle of the day to fetch him home. Her home. She got up as we arrived and greeted me and drank some water and did a pee and then flopped back in that spot she haunts today.
She ate her dinner, oh relief. And finished out her last Sunday without alarm.
I heard her in the night struggle with a coughing thing but she did that every now and then and I listened to gauge the length and then she stopped and stepped again onto her sofa perch at the foot of our bed. That sofa perch she had for 10. 5 years.
It was empty last night.
Yesterday am I gathered up the pack for out and she was not among the high thigh high bodies swimming down the hall. Again something was not right.
She had never been sick a day in 10.5 years.
She was always in the mix. She wasn’t yesterday am. I called her from the doorway and she came slowly. Out she went and in again and the she threw up all she ate the night before and it was not remotely digested.
I called the vet.
Two hours before they could see her. I woke Husband and said I had to take her and he was on puppy duty. Then I cried, “She changed our lives.”
I dressed and fed the rest. And called Dear Kris who cried with me and offered all the things it might be that might have something to be done and we both knew. She helped me wait as we talked through all the places she and I can so gracefully wander in and then it was time to put the collar on.
The Collar she had worn as a pup on California ground. The Ranch Husband used to tend. 1800 open acres I used to drive she and her lovely puppy brother with our Viggo Nanny Dog to race their puppy muscles so they would grow strong.
It terrified me to let them go. Would they come back? There was that day where Brother Pup and Viggo came but she did not and for an hour I screamed and cried for her in the canyon a mile away from help and sure as shit, she sauntered out from underneath some trees not to far away happy, hot and tired, the BRAT!!! Oh it was early days…LOL
She had lost the Collar on the Ranch and it was gone for half a year until one of the Hands found it and handed it back to Husband.
I have kept it. And yesterday as I robotically gathered purse, keys, and her, I grabbed it from the drawer to adorn her neck one last time. I knew it was the last. I knew she wasn’t right and wasn’t coming back.
As I drove her in the van, our Dog Bus, down old Route 66, I told her its ok for her to leave, and how astoundingly grateful I was for all our friggin time.
The Vet’s a Big Guy with a brain. No fuss but knows his shit. Heart rate way too fast and pulse was way too weak. Xray and ekg – I wait. He came back with her, sat opposite me, leveled his big masked head, and said, “She is in congestive Heart failure.”
First thing I said, “This dog is a Legend. She changed the world for Deerhounds. Because of her I started the Pedigree database now used across the Globe so the Breed might get healthier.”
I had never thought of her like that before. But it is the Gods’ own Truth. And as I thought about this all day yesterday, it was so mich like her that she would have sent me that awareness as she was leaving. “Remember me for that and not for all the other shit I pulled.” Oh she was an Imp.
Lady Cara Creep Pixie Princess Celtic Banshee Extraoridinaire Queen left this plain yesterday in keeping with her no fuss life. She had one day of not quite right and let me know in no uncertain terms it was time for her to go.
I am so mad at her as I cannot see the keys through rivers of tears. She didn’t give me any time to get used to her Old One not being here to complete the fabric of yet another day.
But she waited for the Dude to welcome him in to her home.
And then she left.
Fernhill’s Cara. 11.16.10-8.23.21
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