She was our springtime puppy, and from the day we first met, it was clear who called the shots. The only thing we had to teach her was not to jump up on people when greeting them. Everything else came naturally. Everything else, she seemed to learn on her own, one step ahead of us and the rest of humanity.
She joined our family in March of ’12, on our way home from the Big 12 men’s basketball tournament in KC. She was the runt of a litter serving as an FFA SAE for a pair of high school sisters in Marion County. Their father was deployed to Afghanistan at the time, so we named her Lady Liberty Belle.
The girls warned us – she sleeps upside down. Most upside down dogs flip over when you approach, but with Lady it was, “Keep moving. This is the way it’s supposed to be.”
It was as though she had this level of intellectual capacity that rose above her species. It blurred the line between human and canine and made it even easier to gain her affection. Aussies are smart to begin with, and with Lady I came to genuinely believe that dogs are people, too.
She was so independent; I had to make a purposeful plan to win her over. She loved going for rides, so we’d often jump in the car and motor a loop around town. Seth Child Road to Marlatt to Tuttle Creek Boulevard, to Fort Riley Boulevard, back to Seth Child. One of my favorite photos is a bright-eyed Lady in the front seat during one such jaunt, channeling Spicoli. “You drive, I’ll navigate.”
That was her essence, and it became the heart of our relationship. A partnership, shot through to the core with friendship, loyalty, mutual respect, and love.
As hard as it is for Jackie and me, Scout will also mourn. Scout was the yang to Lady’s yin. Scout clings. Lady was aloof. Scout’s a natural athlete. With a bored expression, Lady would watch tennis balls and frisbees whiz by, as if to say, “I do not deign to play your reindeer games, tyvm.”
Her decline was slow, steady, predictable. When we moved this summer, I worry it just exacerbated it. The first couple of weeks in the new place, she’d go to the front door of what she was convinced was simply a vacation rental, look at us and communicate, “OK, it’s time to go home now.”
As we intervened with pharmaceuticals, surgery, and $90 bags of dog food, I knew we were just buying time. Sometimes in the wee small hours, I would very quietly wish for it to happen fast.
Before my heart finds out.
But it didn’t. After a sleepless Sunday night, we made the decision and first thing Monday, scheduled an afternoon vet appointment. Didn’t make it. Jackie was with her. I was hosting a radio talk show. My wife punched up KMAN on her phone so my best friend could hear my voice at the end.
Lady died like she lived. Her way.
These last few days, I’ve been a wreck, helpless as she faded, but also knowing – deep down where I live – what was coming and that we would each cross over, Lady and me, to our own next realm. Hers, free of pain and suffering. Mine, into sadness and sorrow. It’s times like these that I find myself grateful to have experienced addiction, because the bedrock foundation of my recovery is to feel what once was drowned out.
Check.
The sun will rise in the east and set in the west. Every day. Dogs die, every day. Through tears and broken hearts, their best friends grieve. These are the moments the words sometimes just don't reach.
She and I were so much alike. She made me a better human being. She brought us so much joy.
It was Lady’s world. We just lived in it.
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