We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own, live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached. Unable to accept
its awful gaps, we still would live no other way. We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necessary plan.
—Irving Townsend, ‘The Once Again Prince’ Separate Lifetimes
A light has gone out. The sweetest dog I ever knew left her earthly existence on Monday, April 19th. I had Sasha longer than any other dog, a quarter of my life, and she formed the connecting bridge to those gone on: Flash and Chance, Isabelle and Olive, and to Sparkle and Stash who remain with me now. And while she never knew Lauren, she was the most like her with her obsession for food.
Over our fifteen years together, she not only accepted every new dog I brought into our home, but welcomed each without any jealousy. Sasha was a gentle soul. She never fought and never hurt another being, and yet as the years passed and we spent the months and weeks and moments together, I knew, through no fault of her own, she would one day hurt me.
Little did I know the depth my love would take those many years ago. I was volunteering, walking out dogs at our local SPCA when I first saw Sasha. She was standing, looking scared and confused in an outdoor run. I had no intention of adopting her because she was smaller than the big hound mixes who languished there, and I figured she’d easily find a home. Because she was fearful and shied away from people, volunteers had to lure her out with food. Over the weeks, she grew bigger and bigger and I assumed it was because of all the treats. But I was wrong; Sasha was pregnant.
When she whelped her pups I was not there. Later I heard that one puppy got stuck coming out and Sasha cried and cried. Finally, after forty-five minutes, she was rushed to the vets for an emergency C-section. Months later, in what I always assumed was the kind of back room deal politicians make daily (“If you take Sasha, we’ll take the Pitbull that’s been at the shelter nine months,”) I agreed to adopt Sasha. Her estimated age then was four years old.
Sasha was deeply depressed, anxious, and frightened when she entered our lives. Later I’d joke that she brought the Great Depression, but when it happened it wasn’t so funny, and we all became depressed just being in her energy. It was so intense I wanted to give her away. That is until I sat beside her on the sofa and listened, through our animal communicator, to what Sasha had endured. What she relayed broke open my heart and I promised her from that moment on, I’d always love and protect her and I’d keep her forever.
Fortunately, the Great Depression lasted only a couple of weeks, and thereafter, Sasha brought only laughter and joy.
* * *
She stands before me in the light. Her old eyes search for mine. At 18 3/4 years, give or take, she looks remarkably good. I have always thought that, in her simple wisdom, Sasha was something of a blend of Forest Gumpp, Ferdinand the Bull (she loves to sit in the flowers and sniff the air) and Chauncey Gardner from the film Being There.
She follows me, my faithful shadow. I use hand signals as she lost her hearing years ago. Much of her eyesight was next to go, and finally, part of her mind so that she is not the dog I once knew so filled with enthusiasm for life. And yet something of her former, joyous self remains inside the failing body, and in a sort of ritual she bounces her crooked run beside me up the yard in the first morning light. She’s thinking about all the food she’s going to get to eat when we go inside. She still loves to eat, her mouth and stomach rallying right up to the end. She has developed CCD and paces the house looking for me, while half the time I am looking for her, and so we each spend our time seeking the other. The tenderness I feel when I come upon her standing in a room, lost and slightly worried, ears pricked, searching with what’s left of her old dog eyes, and I watch the moment she becomes aware of my presence, the flattening of her ears, a feeble wag of tail, the relief, the old joy. Her vulnerable, white face tilted up looking at me with devotion brings tears. I bend to kiss her head. The light hits my own face forcing me to shut my eyes, and together we are encompassed in a light so pure and bright it feels like a benediction. I have the thought that if I could solidify this light, I would encapsulate myself in it with Sasha and all those I love, like a piece of amber, held in that sweet blip of time forever and always.
* * *
Sasha was the funniest dog I ever knew. I have never been one for nicknaming dogs, but somehow Sasha ended up with dozens. Likewise, with her a voice just came. Perhaps I could easily channel her because she had no guile. As I would talk to her and talk back in her voice, the silliest, most beautiful, original, and wise sayings spewed forth.
In the Spring edition of LaJoie 2013 I wrote about my worry when Sasha went under anesthesia for an abscessed tooth. Because nothing bad had ever happened to her, at least not on my watch, and because she was extra fearful, I couldn’t help myself from worrying. She hadn’t the calm and wise acceptance of Chance or street smarts of Olive. She was just sweet, silly, and timid Sasha who had been abused when young and who I’d promised to always protect.
I quoted a line from Peter Pan to her, Tinker Bell speaking to Peter: “You know that place between sleep and awake, the place where you can still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll always love you. That’s where I’ll be waiting.” And then I said to Sasha, “You know that place of all of us together and how that feels. It’s a place of goodness, peace, and love. And it’s the place where you can always reach me. It’s the place of the heart and you, Sasha, have never been anything but heart.”
I know that it’s true and I know that even though her physical form has gone, she will never leave me, and I can never leave her. We’re connected through a force stronger than guns and war, fires and floods, because we’re connected through love.
So, while I feel sorrow now, the loss of a magnitude that overwhelms, I remind myself it is only because of the strength of my love. A love beyond measure.
* * *
I sit with her on the sofa in the same spot where so long ago she first said she was afraid the rug would be pulled out from under her. With tears in my eyes just like that first time, I repeat what I said to her then: “I will always take care of you. I will always love you.” Then I tell her how wise and beautiful she’s become. And I thank her for bringing so much joy into our home.
Now, every moment is poignant. Every moment is sacred. We are in the Sacred Bubble and although there is deep sorrow, there is also beauty—the way there is when we are thrown into living so intensely in the present. Why don’t we always live like this, the way the animals do daily? There is a purity that cuts through anything extraneous, a deep and beautiful sacredness. I reach to touch her, there beside me. I stroke her soft thigh, trying to commit to memory that which in so short a time I will never touch again. I sit by her and reminisce about our lives together, and I ask her where did all the years go. The months, the weeks, the minutes….
When we go outside, the day is soft the way only a pure April day can be. The air perfumed with the scent of viburnum, the grass new green, and the flowers a palette of color. I watch Sasha raise her nose and sniff the air like she loves to do. She stands in the light, and behind her the Bleeding Heart speaks so succinctly what my own heart will not.
* * *
Most beagles are food obsessed and Sasha took this to great extremes. My brother nicknamed her, Sasha The Washer, when he observed her washing all the bowls thoroughly after the other dogs had finished eating. My brother also observed that, “The Washer misses you most when you leave,” and it was true. While the others understood and accepted my working, Sasha would lie on top of the sofa, watching out the window, awaiting my return. She’d also be at the window in the office (the room closest to the drive and my departure) when I came home. There she would fling her head back and bark out her joy. She would scramble up on me then run to the bed and jump from side to side, spinning around, and I called her hopping back and forth and squealing in joy, “playing the game.”
Over the years, I always told people that Sasha was not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and yet only now do I realize perhaps she wasn’t so simple-minded after all. Simple, yes, but within her gentle soul she also contained a simple wisdom, the kind of wisdom that comes when one lives so wholly from the heart. Never have I known a dog so completely without agenda . . . unless it was to get an extra chunk of chicken.
In a country that grows more and more divisive, and in a world that often speaks only the language of combatants, we would all do well to adopt the gentle wisdom of the heart. Our animals and the natural world are always our best teachers. Just as so many years ago Strongheart helped J. Allen Boone recognize the best traits shared between humans, dogs, and all beings, so too did this sweetest of souls effortlessly embodied those qualities the world is in need of now: kindness, gentleness, acceptance, enthusiasm, and joy.
I don’t know how to honor this gentle dog—except to try to be more like her: guileless, exuberant, simple, innocent, and filled up with pure love and joy.
* * *
I sit with Sasha on my lap in her favorite chair, and I think back to when she would flop her plump body onto me and sit on her own meditation cushion. But this is not like that and she is relaxed and resting after the vet gave her a light sedative. It may be the first time in a long time she has been without discomfort, and for that I am grateful. But I am more than a little afraid. Afraid of what life will be like without her presence. Maybe I should put it off another week. But then the vet is gently slipping the needle into Sasha’s leg, and I know I must do right by Sasha. I know another week would not ease my pain, and could not possibly increase my love. Outside the flowers move in the breeze and the birds call back and forth. Forever would not be long enough.
Goodbye, Sasha.
I’m going to miss you so, Sasha.
Thank you, Sasha.
I love you, Sasha.
I come home after work, and there is Sparkle and Stash; they need my love and attention, and I open the cabinet where the harnesses are, grabbing two and look to the one I will never put on again.
Feeding time is just as strange when I put down only two bowls. In the corner, there sits Sasha’s stand empty and unused. Before my eyes I see her in that spot where day after day she knew her greatest joy, gulping down her food. After dinner, we go outside. The air is clean and pure, the evening beautiful. But all I want to do is play the game. Just one more time.
Now as I walk a solitary road of memories, I feel a gentle presence close by. My faithful Sasha shadow. How lucky I am to have had something that made saying goodbye so hard.
For more about Sasha, read Flash’s Song: How One Small Dog Turned Into One Big Miracle. Available in bookstores and on Amazon. All profits donated to animal and planet welfare.
“Now as I walk a solitary road of memories, I feel a gentle presence close by. My faithful Sasha shadow.” Photo: A young Sasha and me at the beach.
