Grief

We put Hudson to sleep yesterday May 2, 2009. He was the love of my life. I have never known grief like this. I can hardly get out of bed every day. The oceans of tears I thought I would shed cover only the first hour after he died. It's hard to believe that life just goes on, that it was just another Saturday for most people when for me, it seemed like time stopped yesterday. It doesn't seem possible that I could come home and everything is still as I left it. His toys are still in his basket, his food still in his bin, the world is still turning. I keep expecting to find him snuggled up on the sofa after moving the pillow under his head as he did in protest when I had to leave him at home. I can't believe he's gone. Even though the sight of him dying plays over and over in my head, I cannot accept it. Any minute now, he will bound up the stairs to see me I will throw my arms around him as I used to. There were days in the prime of his life when I would suddenly fast forward in my mind to the time we would lose him and the mere thought would leave me paralyzed by grief and I was so grateful that that time was so far away and I was being foolish. I never really thought that day would come so soon. Time might make this easier but I will always have a hole in my life and my heart for Hudson. I have had a lot of animals and pets whom I loved dearly in my life. I have never had a dog like him. He was one in a million. I once said that he would have to live forever because if he died, I would surely die too.

When we first saw Hudson, he was in the pound and had just been returned by a third prospective owner. His tag said "Big, goofy lab" and his name was Homer back then. His tail was a bloody stump on the end. They said it was kennel tail, that that's what happens when dogs wag their tails so much in their cement cages that their tails bleed. That was Boo. We named him Hudson and then added Snickerdoodle and then Boo. He was exuberant, over the top, irrepressible. He was such a handful that people who adopted him kept bringing him back. He had not a malicious bone in his body and none of the normal dog problems. It's just that he was so happy, so excited by everything and everyone and so big, that he was tough to keep in check sometimes. We decided to take him because we were afraid as an adult that had been returned so many times, he might never get a chance and because his personality was so endearing that we could handle his energy, counter surfing, garbage raiding self.

Hudson WAS a handful. But he was a beautiful dog that loved everyone and everything. The tail healed but it never stopped thumping and it was the strongest tail I ever met. Hudson never had a bad day. He never moped, pouted, snarled or growled. He was the happiest dog I ever met. All my friends and co-workers knew and loved him and he them. He was my best friend and my truest companion. He went everywhere with me. On the few occasions I had to leave him at home, I couldn't wait to get home to him and was happy to cut an evening short to do so. I never got tired of being with him. Hudson could have been beaten within an inch of his life and he still would have loved everyone because that's just the kind of dog he was. I spoiled him rotten. He got toys, bones, treats, everything I could think of to try to tell him how much joy and pleasure he brought me just by being his happy self every day.

As he got older, I obsessively took him to the vet for everything just to make sure we caught anything early. I even had a diagram that described all his many lumps that we had biopsied to make sure nothing was cancerous. We spent thousands fixing and pulling some bad teeth and he did fine. True to form, he was always happy to go to the vet no matter how awful his surgeries. We spent a few thousand more fixing his torn ACL. He recovered from that too but he started to go downhill shortly after that. It started with mild limping and progressed. He began to have trouble supporting himself with his back end. We took him to the vet and he was diagnosed with myelopathy. There were several possible causes but none really mattered. All were serious and we weren't about to put him through the trauma and hell of either chemo or surgeries. He was around 9 years old this year and he was too old for that.

He went downhill a lot faster than even we suspected. To my never ending regret, I had to let Marcia take care of him for the most part of the last month. She did a great job and I was overwhelmed at the time with the rest of my life. If I'd had any idea how little time we had, I would have changed everything. It took less than 2 months before he was all but paralyzed. He was never in any pain but his discomfort was starting to show and for the first time in Boo's life, he seemed depressed. The hardest, most wrenching part of it all was that he was a 2 year old in his head, til the day he died. He couldn't understand why his body didn't work. When we took him in yesterday, his tail was still wagging and he was still thrilled to see the vet because she was one of his favorite people. He had no idea it was his last trip.

I know it was the most humane thing for Boo and I am grateful that for animals, there is always the option of a painless way to ease a terrible disease. It would have been even worse to watch this reach it's ultimate conclusion. I know Boo is at peace. I wish I could say I am but right now, all I see are gray colors outside and a huge rent in what was my life. I admired him so much for his attitude, his personality and happiness to just be in the world. I will have and love other animals but none will ever be quite like him. On the day I die, it will be with a smile on my face and a longing to see my boy waiting for me.