ELEGY TO MY SHIH-TZU FRECKLES (passed 3-23-2011)

ELEGY TO MY SHIH-TZU
FRECKLES
(passed 3-23-2011)


I knew the end was near when Freckles no longer whined to come back in from the yard after doing her business like she normally would do. The cruel milky film of cataracts that stole most of her sight now contributed to the stumbling, reluctance to move around much, and the outright refusal to eat the small tidbits of food that I laid out for her. She still drank small sips of water, but that was the extent of any ingestion for five miserable days. She coughed too much, and earlier the month before, we had found out from our Vet that she had congestive heart failure which would eventually shut down her kidneys. He said she didn’t have much longer to live, even back then, but we selfishly took her home anyway against his recommendations to Euthanize right then and there. We just were not ready (emotionally prepared) to let her go. We were hoping against all hope that somehow, the situation wouldn’t be detrimental immediately in the future.

As a Shih-Tzu that normally curls its tail across the back, she began to drag it on the hardwood floors and kitchen tile like a sad mop that lost its knowledge or its purpose. She also stopped playing with the other dogs who misinterpreted her rejection of them. This made them gang up on her, sequestering her into a corner with barking rebellion as she waited patiently to be rescued until I was around and within her scent range.

She also silenced her cry to get up on the sofas or the bed to be near us because height and exertion now pained old and arthritic limbs. It pained us just as much to observe our fourteen year old little girl suffer the ravages of age, having once been so lively, active and clingingly lovable.

One morning we woke up, my husband getting ready for work and I went downstairs to retrieve coffee for us. There I found Freckles in a corner between a wall and recliner where her soft dog bed had been, laden still with her toys. For some reason the bed appeared to have been purposely pushed to the side. Those vaporous eyes, still open, faced the stairs that led up to our bedroom as though she wanted to remember us one last time, her way of saying a silent goodbye. Now those eyes peered out into a foreverness that currently would exclude us from entrance. She was positioned on her side as though perfectly and peacefully asleep but as I put my hands to her fur, I knew there was no life left in that wonderful dog.

While we were busy planning our lives (with her but never without her), going about our business and daily-nightly routines, she was preparing to shut down, eventually sinking out of reach despite all the love that surrounded her that might have kept her going if they could and had they known; finally she accepted, surrendering to a power greater than ourselves. We guessed she must have passed in the middle of the night or early morning hours. The hardest part to concede (or ever forgive ourselves for) was that we were caught off guard, blindsided, totally and fatefully unaware that while we were laughing, watching TV and getting ready to go to sleep, she was preparing to check out from our lives and unsuspecting hearts. I don’t remember mumbling out loud, through an explosion of choked tears, time standing till and me feeling paralyzed, when finally at last I was even able to call my husband to hurry down to the living room.

I sadly remembered the night before, as we went to bed later than usual, how she stood at the bottom of the wooden stairs, wistfully wanting to come up with us, waiting for us to pick her up so that she could sleep between our warm bodies. But both of us had been too tired almost to notice this time, so we nonchalantly staggered up the winding staircase, leaving her behind there at the bottom. No telling what was going through that questionable and disappointed canine head.

She probably knew it would be her last night with us (animals know these spiritual things more so than humans) and yet we inexplicably, this one time, neglected to pick her up, carry her with us in our arms. Dogs, as you know, don’t ask for much. Food, survival, is first on their list. Running a pinnacle, almost equal second, is their desire only to be with the humans they love and trust.

I cried trembling into my husband’s heaving chest, filled with inconsolable grief and guilt. He felt the same way as he reached to pick her up, hug her against us both, to sob. We found her favorite blanket, wrapped her, knowing where we’d bury here outside.
She would take prized and noble place beside our horses and other dogs that had shared our lives and parted too soon.

Freckles, Freckles, we’re forever sorry; someday, when it’s our time to join you in the afterlife, we will spend eternity making it up to you, that’s a Vatican promise never to be broken. Just remember what all we shared, all the times we were there for you, how the majority of times you were treated special like the Queen you are. Maybe in some small way, in the Book of Redemption, that will cancel out all our careless indiscretions. We pray you didn’t have to wait too long until God found you to get into Heaven.

© Susan Joyner-Stumpf