By

Craig Ennew

—

Fourteen: Goodbyes

This week : a sad goodbye to a dear old friend

I pace the floor waiting for her to arrive. I should be comforting you; but, in the moment, I’m frightened you’ll sense that things are different this time. Meanwhile, George is on standby next door, waiting to help me bear your body away.

By the time the vet arrives, I’ve moved your bed to the kitchen. Always compliant, you slowly pad your way over with a full stomach. Gently, you lower your lumps and bumps down. As I stroke your old head, the vet kneels by your side and talks me through how your final moments will play out…

She administers the sedative in silence and my thoughts drift away to the first time we met you.

***

October. Twilight. Maybe the earliest streaks of grey around the muzzle, but still strong. You leapt up at us with an enthusiasm that your previous owners had neglected. In the small field next to the rescue centre, you tugged on the leash so strongly that The Boy had his work cut out to handle you. You just wanted to be away from this place. Away with the three of us.

Weeks later, and you were settling in. I drove you back to the centre for a check-up and it took two of us to get you out of the car. There was no way you were ever going back.

From then on, you were family. Those crisp mornings striding across the stiff frozen surface of Wyndham Park: you snuffled its corners, happy to read the stories of other dogs, less happy to interact with their yapping and furious tails should they cross your path. You had no truck with balls or sticks either – something in a previous life had robbed you of a sense of play. But you were always happy to be carried away for many minutes at a time with a fresh sniff of interest.

You led us to places we would never have enjoyed as much without you. The New Forest – all greens and purples – stretches of shrubland and gorse and vast lakes of rainfall, fresh smells of deer and wild horses and the ghostly traces of other walkers. The Boy loved it there because of you. Juliet’s Wood with its carpets of bluebells and those secret little places for you and The Boy to team-forage. The South Coast, you both dancing in and out of the tide, all mad eyes and galloping in circles. Letting yourself go, childhood and second childhood.

Later, of an evening, tired and happy, you’d heave your barrel-like torso onto the sofa, sprawling across us as we’d watch a film together, tea-lights flickering over your brine-kissed, silk ears. We’d feel the comfort of your weight, listen to your breathing fall into stride with ours. Wherever we would be, you’d be too.

***

And now you’re in the deepest of sleeps, just little grunts and murmurs betraying the happy place – perhaps the Forest or the woods or the sea – that you have chosen as your Elysian. As the vet takes you onto the final leg of your journey, I worry about The Boy homeward bound with my wife in the car, headlamps sweeping across Cranborne Chase as evening falls; him slowly processing the new empty spaces he’s coming home to.

My hands find your muzzle and your torso as all of you slows down. Just four year before, I was sitting beside my dying father. It doesn’t seem that long, but I’m glad that you were acquainted. As I did then, I find myself breathing with you until your breaths are so shallow I can barely hear them. Then nothing.

The vet leaves us alone for a short while until it is time for George and me to carry your weight to the car. Your soul is already somewhere rich with smells and endless streams for you to frolic through to your heart’s content.

Shortly afterwards, I’m sitting taking everything in when I’m aware of The Boy stood at the back door. “Has she been?” he asks. I nod grimy, and briefly hug his tears tightly before he runs upstairs in pieces, clutching your collar and his soft grenades of grief.

We all knew you never could have managed the next phase of our journey to West Lulworth. Getting you into our car, the steps down, confusing new spaces. Too much distress; too much change.

One day soon, the last few wispy balls of brown fur will drift out through the doors of our house in Salisbury. But we will all take the best bits of you with us – the bits we carry in our heads and hearts.

You will never be forgotten, you gentle old sack of love.

©Craig Ennew 2024

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