The Price of Love

 I've always heard that the price of love is grief.  While that may be true sometimes, I'm not sure we can really put a price on love.  What I get out of love is loving and being loved.  

Last week, my dog of 14 years died.  In her last three weeks, we knew she was fading fast as her behavior began to change, and she did things that she'd never really done, like not eating.  She had always been healthy with only a handful of visits to the vet her entire life, but a few months ago, we began to suspect that she had cancer, too. 

So, one morning, I woke up to a message from a neighbor that she had gone to her house and seemed to be stuck and couldn't get back home.  She was a beagle, and even when she could barely walk anymore, she still had the urge to wander.  She loved her freedom.  So, my husband went over to get her, and she seemed to have lost the ability to use her hind legs.  That's when we knew. It was time.  

The children had all been spending time with her to tell her goodbye for a couple of weeks, and we informed them that this was the time to make sure they had done so.  The following morning, we took her to her final vet visit.  I think we both thought we'd be fine, but the tears came for both of us anyway.  She wasn't scared because I think she was ready. It was hard to let her go. 

My dad gave her to me when my oldest child was only one year old, so none of my kids ever knew life without her.  She was energetic as a puppy, and I had a hard time keeping her home.  I wanted to keep her in the house, but I had a toddler and was pregnant with my second child, on top of working a full-time job.  My husband was working a swing shift.  We simply didn't have the time or energy to house train her.  Plus, we were renting at the time, and he was concerned about what having a dog in the house might do.  We didn't want to deal with damages to the house that a dog could potentially cause, so we decided she would primarily stay outside.   It turns out, she didn't mind.  After all, she was a beagle, and she allowed her nose to get the best of her.  

For years, we put collars on her, but she would always figure out how to come out of them.  I finally gave up.  When we bought our own house and moved, she was already used to being outdoors, and although we let her in the house often, she never wanted to stay there for long (unless it was raining or snowing).  We kept her in a pen that gave her plenty of room to move around, but she would always dig out.  We even fenced in our backyard, but she figured out ways to escape.  It was a battle for years.  We tried to keep her in the yard, where she was safe, and she would find a way out.  Once she reached an age where we began to describe her as old, we just let her have her freedom in the backyard.  She would roam the neighborhood, and then she'd come back.  The neighbors were familiar with her, and she was so mild-mannered that no one seemed bothered.  

I like to take walks and often walk the street we live on.  Even if she didn't leave the yard when I was leaving for a walk, she would come find me while I was walking and stay right with me until I was finished or she got too tired to keep going.  She became my shadow in recent years.  If I was out working in the garden, she was out there walking all over my plants.  If I checked the mail, she joined me.  If I was on the patio reading, she thought it was a good opportunity to take a nap at my feet or in the chair beside me. But I wasn't always her person.  

For a long time, when our children were small, my husband was her primary caretaker, and she would have followed him anywhere.  Later, my father-in-law would spend time with her during the day while the kids and I were at school and my husband was asleep.  She grew very attached to him.  She also loved my oldest son, as he was always good at going outside and spending some time with her as well. But for the past few years, she was my girl.  Wherever I went, she was there.  I literally tripped over her almost daily.  

After she died, my husband, the kids, and I all put in the effort to bury her.  The kids picked some flowers for her grave, and we all dug a grave.  No one cried.  We had said our goodbyes, and we all knew we would miss her.  But I think including them in it, instead of guarding them from it, was important.  My children are no strangers to loss and grief.  Death is part of life.  And when you have pets, you have to be willing to deal with that.  They have handled her death well, and I hope that when they are older, they will look back on her burial as a good family memory, even if it is a sad one. 

So, while the price for loving her is grief for me right now, I know it is also good memories.  She was just a dog to most, but to me, she was my best friend.