Saying Good Bye

This took several days to be able to post.  

I am writing this while I am at work.  My students are sitting there using Star Wars as a tool for understanding the Hero's Journey/ Monomyth.  I am behind my desk, trying to stay cheerful.

At 5:00 pm today we have an appointment with the vet for my husbands old dog.  It is time to say good bye.

It is so hard.  I wish I could say "our dog," but the fact of the matter is that she has been, from the moment they met (or so I am told), totally, entirely, consummately devoted to P.  The rest of us are just kind of there.

She was a good dog.  I wish I could say she was a good dog.  The fact is she was grumpy, aggressive, greedy dog who disliked me from the start.  Yet she was SO MUCH BETTER THAN GOOD, that I have no words to describe her.   She was Paul's companion in the way that seems like it belongs in kids books.  She would light up when he came home.  She would follow him around the house as his constant shadow.  Even when her stroke and arthritis made getting up and down hard she never paused in what she considered her job.

I am glad she made it to see the farm.  She loved it here.

Koya is hidden under P's hand nestled into the side of his body.

Always there, cleaning up our messes.

She was just always there.  Not really in focus, but steadily, solidly THERE.  Through every event in P's and my life together she has been there.  Our witness, protector, silent judge.  And now she is not.  And that is hard.