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The Long Goodbye: Coping with Grief After a Dog’s Passing

Holly came into our life 16 years ago. She was picked up running down a busy street during rush hour traffic with no tags, collar, or chip. Nobody ever claimed her, no one ever put lost dog signs up, and we didn’t have the heart to hand her over to a shelter. So we took her home.

The Long Goodbye. Puppy standing between wood coffee table and stripped couch.

Since then we have slept most nights together (and quite a few lazy afternoons). Holly is a happy dog. And she is playful and curious. She can be bossy at times too. She loves children and bread and loves being loved.

In the early days, we embarked on many walks – the slap-happy marathons of her youth; by the time she reached middle age, she found her true calling as our protector against rabbits, cats, and invisible backyard monsters. She would stand poised for battle and make us feel safe.

In recent years, she has become partially blind, arthritic, and deaf. She doesn’t stand guard at the back patio anymore and hasn’t carried a brick in her mouth in years, but with a little patience and a first-rate seeing-eye person (me), she moves like the pup we love – only an older, slower, gray version of who she used to be. 

Now her aging face and tired eyes mark the passing of many seasons. We’ve come full circle.

The Long Good-Bye: Coping with Grief After a Dog’s Passing - Picture of Holly resting on the couch.

Finding her was like the first day of a long-awaited spring.

Now we’re in the fall of her life, stalling out the long, cold winter ahead. Recently Holly collapsed and couldn’t get up. Her skin sags and her bones look frail and weak. I couldn’t figure out what the shutdown was all about – I never took Holly for being the political type. And then, as the hours passed and she lay still in the center of our living room on a makeshift bed, her chest barely rising with each breath, I thought about our life together.

I worry my memories of her will blend and fade, that one day she will be a dog I once owned instead of a companion that loved me unconditionally. I take a mental snapshot of her chocolate brown fur and her one pink toe; I look at the white question mark on her chest, the only “sign” she came with when we found her as if to say, “What is my story?”

And I replay her story in my mind – the one we wrote together.

I think about how Holly used to dart after red light beams until we thought she would pass out from all the excitement; the laps she ran in our house as she yelped on the heels of her chase. I think about finding her buried asleep in a pile of clean, unfolded laundry and how I always shared half my popcorn with her.

Holly sat beside me on the couch as I mind-numbingly and tearfully watched 9/11 play out on our TV screen all those years ago. She has stood on both coasts and let the waves wash over her paws and traveled across the lower U.S. And like a true Bergman, she cheered (she barked – we yelled) her way through three World Series titles with the San Francisco Giants, getting in on our excitement for all things baseball.

She loves us all the same no matter where we are in life – broke, alone, mourning, happy, comfortable, sad. It doesn’t matter. We are her people. And Ron has always said she thinks of herself as a people.

She is better than that. She is a dog.

Her life has filled a lot of chapters in our family’s book. It hits me that we’re writing the last chapter of this great story and I realize it might be time to let her go.

So I told her it was okay to go. I thanked her for all our great, happy, sad, tearful, boring moments together. I told her how loved she is, and always will be.

I thanked her for giving me such happiness and for her unwavering companionship. I thanked her for meeting me at the door. Every single day. And I asked her to meet me at a new door again someday when I’m in the fall of my life and ready to go home.

I thanked her for her life. And I promised to spend the rest of mine remembering her.

You see, the lost pup wasn’t really lost at all. We were the ones that were lost. Holly found us on a busy street during rush hour traffic with no hope, joy, or faith.

And she went home with us – 16 years, a baby, and 3,000 miles ago.

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