One Week

This afternoon, at 4:45, marks the one week point when I said goodbye to Bow in this world. It hurts a tiny bit less each day. I am continuing all of my rituals and plan to walk up to the spot where we parted a week ago this afternoon.

Last night I attended a pet loss support group. Some people have been going for two years or more. Others felt grief so tremendous they could not speak. For once I was able to hear other people's life stories and their pets' without judgment. There was an element of my grief in each of them and an element of the love and joy as well.

Having made it a week, I don't plan to continue my daily posts about this loss nor to close the chapter on life with Bow. She will continue to make an appearance here, but not with such immediate, raw grief. I don't want "closure" but only to honor the grief and move forward with her where she needs to be in my heart, knowing I am forever changed by her. She was one of the greatest teachers ever to enter my life.

Memories of Joy Replacing Those of Pain

As I have worked through the pain of losing Bow with still less than a week since her departure, a small sign of progress is that I am starting to see the fuller picture of her life and our time together. I am able to look at older pictures of her and not be devastated by what was lost in her final days but cherish that I had what days of joy she brought me.

A good friend has been dealing with a case of shingles while I have been dealing with my grief, and we have been able to be supportive during our mutual time of pain.

Each day, I keep thinking about the person I was when she came into my life and who I am now. I hope that I have become less selfish, and she taught me that I still have the capacity to love fully and unconditionally. This came after nearly a decade of bad relationships, loss of my parents, other relatives and friends. I am not ready to extend the kind of love I gave her to another creature just yet as I work through the grief and honor her legacy. But I know that time will come, and I will be able to give as much love again. It will not be an attempt to replace her or forget her. But when I feel healed enough to give the way I gave to her, I will know that she is there -- fully alive in my heart to help me rise to most best, most loving potential.

Life Is Still Out There

I don't know why, but today was one of the hardest days yet for me. Just after things seemed to improve a little bit every day even though I have been feeling the huge cloud of grief, I thought things were off to a great start. I was up early, did the usual two mile walk, came back for breakfast and settled into the routine of the Sunday paper and corresponding with friends on email.It was already in my plans to head out to Golden Gate Park on this glorious, clear spring day. Just as I finished the paper and was getting ready to go, my instincts told me that I should be saying, "Come on, Bow, let's go on an adventure." The silence in the house was one I was anxious to leave behind.Being in the San Francisco Botanical Gardens for the first time since the March rains helped a bit. I don't know if it cheered me as much as reminded me that there is still so much life out there. At times, I had a thought of "If only Bow were here to enjoy this." But then a morbid but realistic part of me thought of what it would be like had we not gone through with the procedure on Wednesday. If Bow had even survived until today, being here would be absolute agony for her. She would not have been able to enjoy the sun, the flower. She would not be able to chase the birds. She would have, at best, limped along, hanging her head in pain as the sun made it blindingly difficult for her to take each step. As I let this sobering thought settle in, I managed to clear my thoughts by just enjoying all the new life blooming around me. It was as if it was all there as a celebration of Bow's eight and a half years giving joy to our world. Even if my sinuses may be paying me back, I came away with more hope.
Over lunch two women sat at an outdoor table across from me with their charming female Boston terrier who sat patiently, sometimes begging intently and reminding me of Bow's familiar behaviors during dinner time. I could enjoy watching the love between the dog and her humans without jealousy or envy, just respecting that it was there. Something I have had and still have in my heart.
Afterward I bought a beautiful frame for one of my favorite photos of Bow that I plan to put up as a small memorial to her. I can actually look at it with comfort not tears. It will be another week or so before her ashes come back to me. There will be certain comfort in that, knowing that she has finally come home for her eternal rest. I can begin focusing on the joyful, funny moments we shared and think less of the last painful days. When the life left Bow's body, I knew that she was no longer there and walking away with me in my heart. But knowing that her remains will return home gives me something to look forward to in this process. It will be a benchmark in the long road of healing.

Can We Just Share The Love?

Random 'Just Because I Dig Her More Every Day' Bow Slideshow

I'm Heading Down to SFO to Pick Her Up

Welcome to California Miss Bow!

COSTCO-Prozac-Almost-Haiku

Went to COSTCO today to buy doggie Prozac
That I still can't bring myself to give him
It's exactly the same as the kind for humans
Which I could take instead.

When I filled out the form,
I was told to list him as a dependent.
The pharmacist was fussy when I returned
And gave my name not his.

Then she said the name Guru
Wistfully as if to sooth an otherwise tense Saturday.

Since I was there...
...I renewed my membership
That I share with my ex...

...six years gone and counting,
But both of our names are still on the account
And he calls me almost daily

But he bailed on his weekend dog duty this afternoon
Due to some murky new crisis
That he'll explain when we talk, you know, real soon

For now the dog is utterly calm, embracing
His high end chew toy from the
Wag Hotel where a dog room costs more per night than
The hotels where I'll stay in Portland next week

In a couple of hours, he'll rest his head on my stomach
Trusting and uninterrupted for nine hours
Allowing me to interpret his intent without explanation
In the glow of early morning light
I can embrace it for that which has been denied me
By so many humans, forever racing after something Far more frivolous than a chew toy
If I lavish too much love in this moment on a sleepy Basenji
I take comfort knowing that there is only a
Basenji to receive it and no human to critique it.

Basenji Rescue: Month Two Begins

There has never been a moment over the past month that I have wanted to give up, but there have been quite a few times when I have wanted a rest from my duty as the foster dogdad for Guru. There have been the times of walking him when a yapper dog comes lunging at him and he freaks out, galloping like a manic horse and the hair on his back stands up like a Rhodesian Ridgeback. There was the moment me when the dog sitter called me in New York to say that he would have to bow out of the gig and had no recommendations for a replacement. There were the many moments when I had to calm him as a far more aggressive tiny dog came charging at him and I held him, comforting his fear and said "Please don't let your dog approach, he's a rescue dog that doesn't socialize well with other dogs" as the other guardian failed to pull in the leash of her out of control mutt yapping and niping away while the guardian sneered at me as if I were harboring a vicious wolf. There were the afternoons when the little girls with off leash yelping white poodls pointed at Guru freaking out at the bay window as they giggled and let their hyper high-pitchedl pooches' frenzy escalate.

It reached a fever pitch Tuesday morning when I spoke to the rescue "sponsor" in Sacramento and pleaded for options now that I'd come to the end of my dog sitter resources and saw no remaining options, and she, in a sterile, heartless voice said "Sounds like we need to have Guru put down." The silence was followed by a surge in me that I've not felt in years, not since losing my parents, other relatives, close friends and partners who fell to the late '80s and early '90s plague. Clear of sentimentality and charged with a sense of a warrior that I thought had long ago died in me, I replied. "That is not an option. You have to explore every option to make sure that this dog is afforded what your organization claims to be. I intend, even if you refuse to help me, plan to rescue this dog. Whether it's in my home or a better option for him, I plan to rescue him." If there was any question of summoning the strength to persevere as he peered up at me with flawless almond eyes clarifying his unwavering trust and deep need for the protection that I refused to let loose of.

Forty-eight hours later, I am feeling that I am at a better place. After at least five or six hours of googling and phoning, I have found what I think is a far more experienced and resourceful dog sitter. This morning, I took him to a new vet. After going to the Grand Central Terminal of the SF SPCA where it seems the main human interaction is the screaming out of the word "Next!"it was a shock to be greeted at the Animal Hospital of Diamond Heights by two sweet young women cooing at 8 a.m. "Oh, what a sweet and gorgeous dog."

Much as I denied that it was important to me, at the end of the exam I was near tears when the vet turned to me and said, "Guru is lucky to have found someone who loves and cares so much for him." After beginning the week feeling that all the systems I'd spent the past three weeks to put together had fallen apart, at the moment I feel new and better ones have been put into place. These could fall apart when I head off to Portland Monday. But I still refuse to even consider the option so coldly suggested by the rescue group on Tuesday.