My darling dog Keila left our pack last week. For 17 years we spent most of our time together, along with other dogs, traveling the wooded hillsides and flowery fields, splashing in creeks and swimming in the pond; and relaxing under the night sky or on a warm blanket. For over half of those years she has been the one dog sharing my bed, keeping her long bony Rottie body always pressed against my legs.
The past few weeks she had not been able to share my bed or living space as I’m recovering from knee replacement surgery and can’t afford interference with my incision nor have I had the ability to jump up all night to let her out or clean up her many nightly/daily accidents I’ve been living with for over a year now. I thought she would be returning to my side once I got far enough into recovery but she had a different time plan. Keila shared my sleep/dreaming space longer than any other human or animal in my life. She wasn’t a cuddly, demonstrative dog but quiet, serious, appreciative of closeness and at the end, still communicating distinctly from the feral archives within, while her eyes still lightly conveyed the indelible memories of the difficult life she had before she was found roaming the mountains with her sister Lucy who left Christmas Eve 2021.
At the end, Keila became drastically physically incompetent in all ways and her inability to move caused her great distress no matter what we did to provide for or soothe her. So we took her to our beloved vet to be euthanized. I had had a waking vision of a glossy bear running across a high mountain meadow followed by a vigorous glowing Keila in wake. As we were starting to cross the New River to the vet’s clinic a beautiful glossy black bear ran across the highway right in front of us and loped along side as we slowed down. The inside of the car suddenly seemed to be shining with a ringing light and my partner and I immediately felt uplifted and secure in Keila’s soon crossing.
When we got near the vets we stopped at a coffee shop for lattes for us and a bag of maple scones which we took to the vet parking lot while we waited and although I never would have given Keila something so buttery and sweet she ate one and a half of them with such relish and happiness. Our vet let us know she wanted to euthanize Keila in our car so that she wouldn’t have to be nervous about being in the hospital and around other animals and so she wouldn’t have to be put on a litter to be carried in. We spent a long time talking to our dear girl and running our hands over her body and letting her know what a precious, irreplaceable gift she was. She left quickly and with no apparent resistance.
Keila‘s fierce, beautiful and cherished body now lies on a bed of cedar with lavender, calendula and rose hips, and a hag stone in a deep moss and boulder covered hole under an old apple tree surrounded by spicebush.
Now, eleven days later I have no idea where I begin or end without being shaped by her presence. My grief comes in sudden strong waves as does my celebration of her singular, unknowable life. The one thing I do know: with each loss—and there have been so many— that little bird comes winging and sharpens its beak on the mountain of my life and I continue to erode.
(“In the land of Odin, there stands a mountain, 10,000 miles in the air. Once every million years a little bird comes winging, sharpens its beak and swiftly disappears. And when that mountain, it wears away, then till eternity will be one single day”).
