Surviving the Loss of A Loved One

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I want to deviate from my normal topics regarding child sexual abuse to surviving the loss of a loved one, in our case the loss of Guinevere, our beloved Golden Retriever. On the tenth of this month Guinevere was her normal frolicking, friendly self. Despite being one month short of eleven years she romped like a puppy, throwing her toys in the air, digging through one of her toy baskets to find her favorite toy of the day. Oftentimes, in frustration she put both paws in the basket, tipped it over and rummaged through all of the toys that were now sprawled all over the floor. Then triumphantly she carried the beloved toy into the kitchen in her mouth and lay with it under her chin as she took one of her many naps of the day. She was rarely without one.  Every morning she and I took a walk in the State Trust Land behind our house, usually with her running circles around me. She would run in front of me, then turn around to see where I was and wait patiently till I caught up with her. She managed to mark any feces left over by other animals, oftentimes one of her own. You can never be too sure she seemed to say as she looked up at me afterwards.
With all of our children grown, Guinevere was our baby. She slept in bed with us, sat patiently in front of us while we ate breakfast knowing that we were both suckers to her many ways of coaxing a bit of toast or waffle out for her. If we failed to heed her soft, golden eyes she had to drag out the big guns which meant resting her chin on either one of our try-tables and gazing up at us with a pleading look. It never failed to work. She was a strawberry blonde Golden with long red eyelashes and vertical, black markings around both eyes that looked like eye makeup. Her coat was thick and curly and she manicured her nails daily so they were sharp-like mini claws. She had blankets to sleep on, one in our television room and one at the foot of the third floor stairs. She always made sure she napped half way between my husband Tom in his hobby room and me in the third floor library, hence the blanket at the base of the stairs. She was the smartest dog we had ever known, obeying all commands instantly, coming whenever we called her (sometimes it required squeaking one of her toys to get her home). Since we have five acres of land she roamed it all freely never going up on the road. Every morning she had her own route that had to be followed as she checked out all of her favorite spots and there were many.
On the morning of the eleventh she didn’t jump up immediately when I awoke, dressed and headed downstairs, something that she always did. We had our little ritual at the top of the stairs where we had special mother-daughter time. I would hug her over and over, stroke her beautiful coat, tell her how much I loved her and how I could never live without her. She, in turn, would lick my face and raise one of her paws for a hug. But this morning she didn’t stop at the top of the stairs, just headed down with no spring in her step. When I set her food dish down for her to eat she just stared at it and walked away. I coaxed her back and managed to get her to eat. She wasn’t interested in her morning fish oil pill and Glucosamine Chondroitin tablet, something that never happened. When I put her outside for her morning business she was gone but a couple minutes where usually I had to beg her to come back in after 30 minutes. Her eyes were listless and she looked sick. I put on my coat for her morning walk, something that normally had her romping up and down and scattering toys in her wake. Today she just stared at me. I managed to get her as far as the gate to the Trust Land but when I unlocked it she turned around and headed back home. Something was wrong; something was terribly wrong. I tried to swallow my fear as I took out her leash to indicate she was going somewhere with us. This never failed to cause her to bounce off the walls with excitement. All she did was stare at me with a sorrowful look in her eyes.
I immediately called her vet and by 12:15 we were headed for the clinic. They took her temperature. It was normal. I sighed with relief. The doctor came in, checked her out and said she’d do some blood work. Guinevere didn’t want to leave our side and when the tech tried to coax her in to the exam room for the blood draw, she balked and Tom had to walk alongside her to get her to go. A few minutes later she returned and shortly after that the vet came back. It wasn’t good news. Guinevere either had rat poisoning, Valley Fever or cancer. If it was cancer it would have already metastasized. She wanted to do an x-ray. As Guinevere was once more coaxed in to the exam room we tried to swallow our panic and I prayed for Valley Fever, which was serious but could be cured. A few minutes later the vet came back and shared the results of the x-ray. She said she had a terrible feeling it was cancer and not Valley Fever. Rat poisoning had been eliminated. She showed us the white spots in her spleen on the x-ray that ran a path up to her lungs. She said she could send the blood work out to be analyzed to rule out Valley Fever but that she was almost certain it was cancer and that it had already metastasized. Tearfully we told her to send the blood work out. We didn’t speak as we drove home, Guinevere laying sorrowfully in the back seat.
As soon as we got home she lay down on the floor in the kitchen. We managed to get her in to the television room to lay on the rug. A few minutes passed and she tried to stand but, despite propping herself up on her front legs, when she tried to stand, her back legs collapsed under her. She looked frightened and confused. For the next several hours we sat, our arms wrapped around her, sobbing quietly and praying. Tom put a cot together and we decided we’d sleep downstairs with her with me on the couch and him on the cot on the other side of her. Tom left the room periodically as I kept my arms wrapped around Guinevere, sobbing and praying, sobbing and praying. Finally around 11:00 I lay down on the sofa and after taking a sleeping pill fell asleep. At 1:00 I awoke to Tom sobbing and saying over and over, “We’ve lost her; she’s gone.” I refused to believe it and bending my head, tried to hear a heartbeat that wasn’t there, watching for signs of breathing that were non-existent. Our grief was so overwhelming that all we could do was cry and cry in huge, jagged sobs. Finally we put a blanket over her and went upstairs to try to get some sleep.
In the morning Tom dug a grave up by the pine trees for her. He went down to the wood shop and made a beautiful wooden cross. We put Guinevere on a gardening wagon and pulled it up to the grave site. We brought, along with, her two favorite blankets to wrap her in, a pillow for her head and one of her favorite toys, a rabbit that looked like an angel. When you pushed the button on her chest she said, “I’m your special friend; I’m your Guardian angel.” Then we buried her. Tom hung her Harley Davidson collar with her dog tags around the cross that he planted alongside her grave. I prayed the Twenty Third Psalm and we said our sorrowful goodbyes as tears ran down our cheeks.
The next two days were filled with agony. I cried constantly, begging our baby to please come back, saying we couldn’t go on without her. Tom made frequent trips down to his woodworking shop, always returning with red and puffy eyes. We talked about her constantly, trying to make sense out of it all. How could she go so quickly? One day she’d been her normal healthy and bouncy self, acting like a two year old and the next she was gone. It didn’t seem possible.
How were we going to go on with our lives without this great joy that ruled our days? How would we be able to sleep without Guinevere curled at the base of the mattress? Everywhere we looked were reminders, her toys, her blankets, the front porch where she loved to take her morning nap, the back deck where she lay in the sun every morning, her food and water dishes and the end of the sofa where she always waited patiently for me to shove the pillows on the floor so she could climb up and lay beside us as we ate and watched either the news or a movie. Even an apple brought wrenching heartache as I recalled her and I sharing one every morning. Pain wracked us hour after hour. How to move forward? How to move forward? We took turns sitting on the bench Tom had placed in front of her grave talking to her and crying. As she lay dying I had asked her to give me a sign that she was on the other side. So far nothing materialized.
Guinevere had had one favorite toy. It was a small stuffed bear with a back pack on its back. We realized it was missing. We tore the house apart looking for it. We wandered around our property thinking maybe she had taken it outside. Despite finding other lost toys we were unable to find her little bear. On the third morning as I sat on the bench saying my morning prayers and sobbing with grief I told Guinevere that if she would help us find her bear that would be a sign that she was okay, that she was on the other side and that she would be waiting for us when it was our time to cross over. I told Tom the same thing. We re-doubled our efforts to find the bear.
On the third day I had just finished my exercises, a tearful job now as Guinevere always took her nap next to me on the bed while I did them. I had removed my tennis shoes and so I sat on the floor as I put them back on. All of a sudden, I thought, Look under the bed. But that was silly. I’d looked under the bed a dozen times and had never found her bear. I saw a shadow in the center under the mattress. I reached my arm out as far as I could, moving aside the step Tom had built for Guin to use after she’d developed arthritis to make it easier when she jumped on the bed. My hand wrapped around the small brown figure of the bear. Now the tears came with healing. I hurried tell Tom as we clung to each other tears rolling down our cheeks.
Now the sorrow would begin to pass as time was the greatest healer of all. Guinevere was waiting for us.

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