"Stand in the place where you live, now face north. Think about direction, wonder why you haven't before." -R.E.M.

Life Without Soda

09/13/2005 12:50 PM Filed in: Personal

I felt completely and utterly silly: a grown man kneeling in the center of a veterinarian’s office in front of his dog and 3 people he’s never met before, crying so hard it hurts. The object of my heartrending distress lay before me, struggling to breathe her last and unable to even look me in the eyes as I kissed her on the head for the final time.

We both gasped for air; her lungs and immune system were shutting down because of a difficult battle with Parvo and I was retching because I couldn’t stand to see my little dog, my buddy, my companion go like this. Only six hours earlier I had reassuringly pat her on the head and let her know that she would be okay. I had assumed that she had a stomach virus and would pull out just fine; she was young and vibrant. She was beautiful.

I don’t think I ever could have imagined just how strongly I would react to Soda’s passing. In the hours that followed I cried harder than I have in many, many years. I didn’t understand that; wasn’t she just a dog?

I felt childish and selfish; thousands of people have recently lost loved ones or homes in a terrible disaster along the southern coast of the United States and here I was grieving over an animal I had only known for a year. I should have been comforted by the fact that I still have my wife. I should have been comforted by the fact that I still have my parents and my brother. I should have been comforted by the fact that I still have relatives and friends and a church body that I dearly love.

But I wasn’t.

It’s never selfish to grieve over something you love. My wife and I loved Soda. She was a joyous animal who loved us back. She played with all of her might and she was always there. Have a good day at work? Great!, she seemed to say when you came home. Let’s play! Have a bad day at work? Let’s play! When people doubt your motives, your heart, your theology, or your dedication it’s great to have a Soda to come home to. She just wanted to be with us, to play with us; and for no other reason than she loved us. That is something I feel that I can take from her short life, and it’s as simple as it is profound: she just loved us.

Soda was the first dog that my wife and I had together. In reflection I realize that one of the reasons I loved her so much was because I love my wife so much. Soda shed a lot. She liked to get dirty outside and she would even try to drink out of the toilet if you weren’t looking. She wasn’t a perfect dog, but she was our dog. She was the dog I thought that our children would play with and the dog that I believed would move with us to any place in the country the Lord leads us.

Now she’s gone.

Late last night I went into the kitchen and saw her food bowls sitting on the floor next to the counter. In my mind I had an image of her standing over the bowls, munching away with her ears pinned back and her eyes making contact with mine as she crunched vigorously. As the memories came flooding back, so did the tears. It’s going to be a hard week, but I’m so thankful for those memories.

I find that as you grow closer to Christ, you begin to see the world the way He does. Because of that the joys are more joyous…but the pains are more painful. The difficulty that I have had with her passing can only be surpassed by the happiness that she brought us over the last year. If it’s silly for me to greave the death of our cherished little dog, then I’m okay with being silly. I simply cannot stop or mask how badly my heart hurts.

Soda, thanks for loving us; we loved you, too. Goodbye, girl. You are dearly missed.

Tags: dog, Death

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