My best friend is wrapped up in a black plastic tarp,
tucked away in a frozen corner of the barn, locked in the kennel where she
spent so many afternoons. Hopefully, her lonely, lumpy body will be safe from
the dirty goddamn raccoons until I can figure out how to carve out a Tulip-sized
hole in the permafrost that is my backyard.
I plan to bury her under the maple tree that I'd love to
say she loved, but, truth is, since we moved to this house and finally gave her
a doggy dream-yard to snorfle around, she hasn't had much of an appetite for exploration.
Tulip was an old dog, and new ground wasn't something she was much interested
in breaking. And now here I am, trying to do nothing but break a hole in that very ground for her. Heh. She’s been gone for three days and I miss her
terribly. I honestly don't know how people deal with this shit.
I am 35 years old and I’ve never experienced loss.
Due to either an unprecedented run of stupid-good fortune or a strict policy of keeping my circle of loved ones tight, I've never lost someone I'm even remotely close to. I realize only now how extremely lucky I am in this regard, and I also realize that, brother, there's some angry weather coming. But until that storm of funeral dirges facing every middle-aged cat comes in, all I have is this seeping ditch in my chest where a little brown dog used to live. It stings more than it should.
I’m fine, and then I’m not. I’m happy she didn’t suffer, and
then I wonder if she suffered too much. I think she’s in a better place, and
then I realize that there was no better place than across the room from her
family, battened-down on her own private love seat. She damn well better have
people to ignore wherever she is right now.
Tulip wasn’t a cuddly or needy dog. She’d give you 15
seconds of (probably condescending) happy-to-see-you tail thumps, a chaste kiss
on the chin, and then she’d carry on not wanting anything to do with your pats,
your doggy-talk and certainly not your lap. Any furniture that you weren’t on
was perfectly fine with her, thanks. She was kind of like a cat, only more
aloof and without all the sarcasm. Her lack of interest in most people was
alarmingly like her old man’s. She called me The Boss.
I’ll miss using my ‘Tulip voice’ the most. I think I
might just have to retire from making my animals talk to me. It hurts too damn
much when there’s no longer a motoring tail to anthropomorphize. On the other hand, maybe I won’t have so many
complete conversations with a damn dog.
She wasn’t a huge fan of Gus and all his babyness, but
she tolerated eye-gouges, fur-pulls and surprise elbow drops like an
AKC-registered champion Ghandi. Gus won’t remember her, but I like to think she
helped shape him, if only a little bit. Don’t
give people too much, but give them some. Your Aunt Tulip taught you that,
little man.
I feel the worst for poor Tilly. In nine years, she’s
never been alone. Now that her best bud is gone, I’m sure it seems to her that
all she is is alone. Every time she
sniffs at Tulip’s spot on the couch, my heart will break all over again.
Tulip didn’t hunt, she didn’t cuddle and she stopped even
considering fetching anything a long time ago. She cultivated a pretty distinct
lack of interest in most dog-like activities, actually. And despite all that, because of all that, she was the best dog.
She was the next-better thing to a human,
and I’m missing her more than I can ever imagine missing most people. But
thanks to her, I at least now have a little experience in missing the ones I
love. Hopefully, it’s a skill I’ll never have to use.
I’m grateful that she hung on long enough to give us four
months to enjoy our new home by the stream with her. I know she loved it
here. There will always be someone to
plant tulips on her grave and her old pal Tilly will join her one day. I only
wish our little Tulip would have held on until spring. Some spring a long time
from now.
