Good-bye, Sweet Tosha
Below is a journal entry from the night before we said good-bye to our beloved family dog last month. As I’ve shared the experience with people in my world, a lot of tears have appeared, in my eyes as well as others’. They are tears of heart-shatter that is grief, but there is more there, too. There are gifts there, ones that are also worth crying about. For me there are lessons and learning about what it means to open my heart — even when I know it’s gonna leave a mark.
Aug. 26, 2018 – From my journal
Tosha’s cancer seems to be everywhere. She has bumps of cancer popping up by the hour. She’s had two episodes that seem like strokes or seizures, and she has recovered some, but just seems to be stressed out, uncomfortable and pretty joyless. I think tomorrow will be the day we say good-bye. I love the story of how we got her, of the biggest and best moment of spontaneity Steve ever had: his stern talk in the car before we went into the shelter, the way we found him plastered against her enclosure, saying, “This one. We need this one.”
When she first came home, I didn’t want to love her. I didn’t believe I could, after Maddie. She just seemed pointy and light and lick-y and neurotic. But it didn’t take long for her soul to whisper to me, for those brown eyes to activate something deep within my heart. We just communed. My heart could talk to her and make her feel beloved and she could bring my pulse down with the inexplicably inviting smell of her little head and a caress of the bunny fur on her belly.
She was fast and agile and committed. She was part wild beast. She was a fighter and drew blood on more than one occasion and gave me major anxiety and agita when I walked her. She failed “Dog Park Etiquette 101.” She’d take off, 0 to 60 in 1.8 seconds, after squirrels, prairie dogs, deer ... and I’d be impressed by her animal-ness and terrified a ranger would shoot her – in equal measures. Yes, she could be trouble, but then she just fit right into this family. We love our kin warts and all.
Tosha, thank you for your wildness outside and your chill-ness in the house. You were as grateful to have us as we are for you, and you were so generous in your affection and desire to be near. Thanks for a million dollars in fur therapy. Thanks for having so much love for all of us, for having a special relationship with each of us. Thanks for all the gifts and joy and comfort you brought to my children -- and for being an integral part of their childhoods. Tosha, Maybelline, Licky Lu, Little Miss, Missy, Beauty Queen, Baby Girl, Little One, Wild Beast, Bunny – so many endearments and silly nicknames. Teddy + Sasha + Marley = Tosha. “T”, Miss T., Fuzz Butt. You have been all those and so much more.
Thanks for letting us believe that we saved you from the shelter, by way of Oklahoma (and Katrina?), even though all along you gave as much and more than you got.
May there be squirrels to chase (because apparently Dog Heaven and Squirrel Hell are actually the same place) and bacon to eat. May you again find the light and agile body that was so perfect to play in. And may your belly get plenty of scritching. A little piece of my heart will be there with you.
I know there are those out there who have lost a pet and decided that they were done with furry friends (or scaly/feathery ones). Why sign yourself up for a known end in misery, right? I understand that, but I am choosing to do this differently. I am putting a stake in the ground on this one: I’m not going to love this soul less because I know I’m going to lose her; I’m going to love her more because I know I’m going to lose her. We have a short time together: better to love hard.
I find my grief layered with a lot of things, in addition to how much I miss her.
I know we’ve all seen the posters about what we can learn from dogs – all true and even smile-worthy. But I can affirm this dog, over their years with us, left NOTHING on the table. Tosha, like her fellow dogs, loved and played and ate every meal and dead snake along the trail with gusto. This dog sniffed all the smells, ran until she was tired, wagged as much as possible, napped often. Before she passed, she looked up with gratitude and said, with her eyes, “No one had more fun than I did!”