Rest in peace, Dakota.
I put my girl, Dakota, down on Sunday, September 28, 2008. Dakota had been having some bad days interspersed with OK days. She was 18+ years old—battling cancer and severe arthritis. That morning she sat in a pool of urine on the floor that was pink from blood—she didn’t have the strength in her hind legs to get up. I called a wonderful vet whose practice is entirely devoted to at-home euthanasia and asked him to please come as soon as he could. Dakota passed at about 3:30 PM.
My wonderful holistic vets helped us have a good last few years. I am so grateful to them and to my friends and family for their support.
Thank you, Dakota, for being my best friend and partner. You were the best dog I could ever ask for. I love you so much. You changed my life and made me a better person. Thank you, my friend.
Rest in peace.
Notes from Monday, September 29, 2008 11:43:48 PM
I’m doing ok. Life feels weird but I am glad I am just feeling my feelings… I want to be mostly by myself or be working.
These are some of the things notice:
• I keep seeing the French doors to the deck shut and panicking that they got closed and Dakota must need to pee. (They were left open 24/7 for months.)
• I took most her meds and supplements (a couple dozen of them) off the counter and now there’s a lot of space there.
• I picked her raised bowls off the floor—now there’s space there for me to walk comfortably around the dining table, which feels luxurious. I walked around that double bowl-holder for so long.
• I see Dexter lying on “her bed” under the stairs and worry that Dakota’s uncomfortable somewhere else.
• I slept upstairs last night and it felt so odd (I had slept downstairs on a twin bed for the last few months to be with her). My cat Blue Blue slept on my chest and was happy I was back in the master bedroom.
• Feeding the dogs only took a couple minutes instead of half an hour.
• I drove back home after the morning’s hike and as I turned off 35th Ave. I thought, “I’ll see Dakota in a minute.” Then I remembered that I wouldn’t.
• The postal worked handed me a package that contained $100 of Dakota medicine. I looked at it and said, “My dog’s dead so I don’t need this medicine. Do I have to take this?” She took it back from me and said, “No, I’ll write ‘refused’ on it and it will go back.” I was shocked that I spoke about her death matter-of-factly. Dakota’s death seems totally dramatic and sometimes completely banal.
• Sometimes I think to myself, “That was weird—I thought Dakota was dead but of course she’s not.” Then I remember that yeah, she really is dead.
• Life feels smaller without my dog and also larger when I think of possibilities of things I can do that I couldn’t do while she was alive and sick. I feel guilty for seeing some good things. But then I don’t.
• I knew this was coming but then it came and somehow it feels natural and unnatural at the same time.
It even oddly reminds me of the first time I was a labor assistant (at my friend Rebecca’s first child’s birth at her home in Berkeley). After over 2 days of helping her and her husband birth their baby, I walked outside and down the street. I felt like the whole world had changed because I had seen Merav’s birth. I wanted to stop people and say, “Hey—this is life and it is precious! Don’t take anything for granted.
People are being born every day and it is the most beautiful, miraculous thing in the world.” Of course Dakota’s death is not really miraculous, but having known her and now that I know she has died, it seems as if the world has changed. How can the world be going on about its worldly business? Part of me wants to stop people and tell them not to take anything for granted because there is beauty and incredible love in the world. Writing those words makes me cry.
I am crying a lot. Crying is good.
Mourning my dog I also mourn my (first) mother who died in ‘87, my dogs Dixie, Helen, and Raleigh, and the people I love(d) who died this year: my friend Rob Castle who died in February, my friend Beth Block who died in April, and my Uncle Kevin who died in July.
One more thought—this thought more than any other:
• Dakota was the dog of my life. The best. I have been so lucky.
Peace.
Molly