Beloved

Posse – forgive my absence and overall disconnection.  It’s been a weird couple of weeks.

They say that All Dogs Go to Heaven – and I believe it.  I have to believe it because otherwise I don’t think I could manage the ‘saying goodbye’ part of having a dog.  I’ve had a dog (or two.  or three) for all my life – from my first Rottweiler, Nero (whom my father dubbed a Doberman Shepherd because back then nobody here knew anything about Rottweilers) to the intensely gratifying (but lunatic) decision to foster the huge Corsos and Presas of my later adult years.

Monsieur Jacques was one of those lunatic decisions.  He’d been bounced from his very loving home because of his enormous size and his neurological issues – they (his people) found him siezing in a ditch when he was about 4 weeks old and they thought he was a black Lab (to be fair, pretty much every black 4 week old puppy looks like a black Lab) –  he came to me as a 6wk evaluation and the rescue group pulled the inevitable Long Con… and he ended up staying here.  Two years of being with each other, daily.  He tried SO hard to be a good dog – and he was – a Very Good Dog.  He was loving, decent, enormous, loving… did I say loving?  And… all challenges aside… I grew to love him.  Very much.

Alas, his neurologicals got the better of him.  His seizure episodes were getting worse and it wasn’t fair to let him devolve into an unhappy mess (the vet thinks he might’ve had a brain tumor that was growing) – so I had to make the extremely difficult decision to release him.

Releasing a beloved dog is always difficult – but it’s even more difficult when it’s a healthy, young dog.  I held his beautiful self through to the end, feeling his strong heart stop and his spirit leave his strong, young body.  To the consternation of the young techs who don’t understand a Marine ethos, I insisted on being his pallbearer, making sure he was placed on the cart with dignity; his vet, Uncle Doctor Lynn, told them to leave me alone.  Which is why I adore that man.  He understands.

My beloved Jane has him now – and she promised to keep an eye on him.  Because now?  Now he can see – and his brain is whole.  And I have NO doubt that he is seriously OFF THE CHAIN!

And I know he will stay so, for eternity.

I wore Beloved.  I just wanted …. I dunno.  I wanted to actually feel how I felt.  As you Posse know, I usually choose Mitsy or No5 as armor.  But I felt like leaving my heart available for whatever emotions came.  Beloved, with its cashmere wrap of melancholy, let me do just that. And it hurt like knives – but I got through it.