Cowboyevski

Last year was only a few hours ago.

Tomorrow it’ll be a week since our dog was killed. Early on I neglected to track the passing hours in that weird way we do between my present moment and the moment Cowboy took his last breath. It didn’t matter that he had been so vivacious less than an hour before he died, it only mattered that he was suddenly gone, and there was no changing it.

It made me so angry. He was right there! How could he just leave us like that – so completely and irretrievably – when he loved us so much?

I started writing a detailed account of the hour of his death in the first draft of this post but I don’t think it does anyone any good. Suffice it to say that my sweetest, closest little friend suffered a needlessly cruel death by strychnine poisoning after escaping our yard. It was a mercy that he came back to us and died in our presence, though. Honestly. It would have been unbearable if he had stayed out in the desert marsh where we live and succumbed to the poison and fear and misery alone, lost in the cold as too many animals do.

I learned so much from Cowboy. Normally the kind of person to call in while suffering grief, I chose to go to work instead. I’m a package handler, which means my shift starts in the wee hours of the morning and ends when most people are just getting into their emails for the day. When I clocked in, the wound was still fresh by maybe nine hours. I had been surprisingly refreshed by only three hours of sleep after the ordeal, and I felt Cowboy’s spirit had something to do with that unexpected peace.

Although I sometimes check in with the material reality that my best little buddy is no longer here, I refuse to let him go. I see him in his kennel, or on the banco where he loved to lie in the sun and watch the world outside our window. I imagine him leaping up onto my bed to sit near me while I read or scroll through my phone in my meditation chair. I know he’s still with us, and always will be. I cannot just let that love slip away without a fight.

So I try to perpetuate it into the world. In the wake of his death, I needed to be around people I care about besides my grieving sister and mother, or all we would do is pass our misery around with each other. I needed to see the world in motion again, to be around people who were untouched by this particular tragedy, and to let them know how much I valued them by being as present with them as Cowboy had been with each member of his family. It was actually easy to decide not to call in to work.

I gained the solid ground back under my feet as I told my colleagues what happened when they saw me crying, and they offered their sympathy and shared their own past griefs. I brought home a forward-moving energy that I think helped my mom and sister see how we still had enough love and memories and good intentions to see us through a future without our sweet puppy.

We’ll bring another into our lives. Cowboy was part of a legacy initiated by his predecessor, Bandit – they were both rescued corgi mixes. But I met a gentle teacher in Cowboy’s mix of Beagle and Blue Heeler; a loyal – if clingy – dog who hated to be without his pack, who loved to play and taught me how to, as well, through mindfulness aimed freely at joy.

A dog who knew the value of togetherness, who told me in his subtle way that I never had to feel alone; that we’re all connected in ways humans have become fuzzy on, but that we can rediscover these connections when we’re present with other beings and our hearts stay soft and open.

This isn’t the last I’ll have to share about our beloved dog. I’ve thought up more than I’ve been able to write down in one sitting. The pictures and video I took are too limited, and we can no longer make new memories together the way we used to, but I move forward knowing that he’s as much a part of me as anyone who left a mark on me, and through that connection we’ll never really be apart.

This was too sad a topic to begin the year with, but it’s part of a commitment I made, so here goes the first of many attempts to write more in 2021.