Sometimes a dog can just break your heart. This morning Goddess broke mine.
I’ve been gone for the better part of the last two weeks and am leaving again today for the next two-and-a-half.
Goddess knows. She senses it.
Everyday we have the same routine. When I crawl out of bed she lays on her back wagging her tail wanting me to rub her stomach. I do and then I dress and make my way to the Breakfast Club. She jumps up on her bed and I give her treats as I walk out of the door.
When I return she is lying on the landing wanting another rub. She gets it and then I take her for a walk, down to the marsh. If the marsh rabbits are out, she slows into a hunter’s crawl and silently stalks the bunny until it darts into the thicket. Then we take a left and walk out on Shirley’s sad little holy dock before heading down the street to Art’s house where he visits and gives her more treats or, if he’s not home, Goddess will slow down and stare intently at his house as we make our way passed. Then it is another block and then we circle back to the marsh and home again.
This morning Goddess refused to come home. She drug me to Shirley’s sad little holy dock twice, passed Art’s twice, then to the far side of the island, far away from home. Every time that I tried to take a turn towards the house she wouldn’t have anything to do it. This is when I normally run but she was demanding that I give that time to her.
So at intersection after intersection we had this stand off and she glanced at me with knowing eyes. Perhaps the forth or fifth time that it happened she glared at me defiantly and then bowed her head and came to where I stood. She rubbed herself against my leg with her tail wagging.
She was telling me goodbye?
My heart just broke. So I sat down in the middle of the street and just rubbed her and hugged her and let her lick my cheek.
I love this dog and spend more time with her than I do any person. Hours on end she is lying nearby me, often putting her head on my foot as I type, lying beside me on the beloved back deck with my feet up on the railing, or guarding me from whatever might come for me in the night as she sleeps in the doorway to the bedroom.
I am a survivor of a tremendous amount of loss over the past year. Trusted friends, a lover, my father, leaving a career that had sustained me for thirty years…and Goddess was with me for each moment. Most of the time it was only her!
One horrible winter night, I just couldn’t take it anymore and just collapsed in the floor full of sorrowful emotion and self-pity. Goddess shared it with me by forcing herself into my lap and I swear the dog knows how to tell me that she loves me without using words, which is always the most powerful way to say it anyway.
She has grown accustomed to it just being us. When the kids come over or my dearest friends or the ones whom I love, she goes nuts. She loves them too. But for the vast majority of the time it is just me and her.
Mom told me the last time that I was returning from being away, Goddess was different that day. She sensed that I was returning and spent the morning waiting on me. She was on pins and needles. Then there I was. And the very first thing that I did was love this dog because I would never have made it through without her.
I’m leaving again today but she knows I will be back. I love her far too much not to.
