Bob M
New member
I have not posted on NewfNet in quite a while, but I wanted to let folks know that our Mary has passed on at the age of eleven. Perhaps some will remember our "special" girl: Mary was the last survivor of the surprise litter born on in our basement on Thanksgiving Day, 2004. Mary was brain-damaged-- hydrocephalic, to be specific-- and we were initially told not not to expect her to live more than a year or so. Ironically, she outlived every one of her brothers and sisters.
It's been a week today, and as anyone who has lost a dog can understand, life goes on, but there is a gaping void in the home and the heart. When I look at the favorite spots where Mary would spend her time-- the cool tile by the back door, the crate where she liked to nap, the hillside where she would sit for hours and watch the world go by-- I find myself thinking of Dickens' "Christmas yet to come" and Tiny Tim's empty chair. Mary should still be there, it seems-- why isn't she?
Two nights ago, I walked through the house turning out lights before bed. Our young male, Tom, had commandeered one of Mary's sleeping spots, but in the dim light that's not who I saw. By reflex, I bid the fluffy black shape, "Sleep tight, little girl," then sadly realized my mistake.
I've had a lot of dogs in my life, and said goodbyes one by one. It's never easy, but this time has felt especially poignant. For one thing, it really was unexpected. We were lucky that Mary stayed healthy and youthful right up to the end. One never would have thought that she was eleven years old-- her coat had not a strand of gray, and her step was still light and sure. Just a few days before she died, my wife and I were outside with her when she caught an interesting scent on the breeze and ambled down to the fence at the bottom of our steeply sloping yard-- the far end of her small and comfortable world. When we finally called her back, Mary came trotting briskly uphill, just as she did when she was young. Maybe a step or two slower, but no more than that.
It was a blessing, of course, that she never went through a period of decline, but that same gift has also made it harder for us humans to accept that she's gone. There was never that period of "coming to grips with the inevitable" to cushion the blow when the end came. One thing is for certain, though; we're grateful beyond words that we never had to face that awful "Is it time yet?" decision at the close of Mary's life. After all the struggle to keep her alive in her difficult early years, I can't imagine turning around some day and asking our vet to end her existence. I like to think I would have found the strength, but I'm grateful that she spared us the necessity.
I know from experience that time heals, and there will come a day when our memories of Mary bring smiles instead of tears. We'll have many to choose from, without question. They will be very different from the memories of our other dogs, simply because Mary herself was so different. There won't be adventurous hikes or sticks that she fetched to remember; such pursuits were beyond her comprehension. Though she walked with us along the beach, and though my wife took her to obedience class every week for most of her life, to stimulate her mind and hone her social skills, Mary remained at heart a homebody. What I will remember best is a dog who lived contentedly in her own world, who enjoyed simple pleasures, and who expressed herself in a language that took effort to understand, but was eloquent enough to those who knew her.
Most of all, I will remember a dog who remained a puppy all her life. To Mary, the world was new every day, a tabula rasa of fresh sounds and sights and smells. Every morning she would burst out the door to explore the yard as if for the very first time, racing from the woodpile to the rosebush to the corner of the garage, taking a quick sniff, then moving on to the next marvel with no time to lose. Each morning was Christmas in Mary's newborn world, all the way to the end.
Just a few minutes old, with her mother, Abbie, Nov. 25, 2004
The story of Mary and her brothers and sisters: The Thanksgiving Puppies
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