13 March 1999
Laika died yesterday. I had just come home from work, and she greeted me at
the front door as she always did, nosing open the door to say hello. I bent
to give her a mini-hug and a pet as I also always did. This was all part of
the routine she and I had developed over the years living here. When I
walked into the bedroom, she ran to the foot of the bed and half-jumped on.
I leaned over to nuzzle her face and she gave me a kiss in the ear as she
always did, all the while making these small arrooos and little barks in
her throat. After her kiss, I stood up and she ran off into the apartment
to get her glowie while I sat at the end of the bed to take off my shoes. She
tumbled back in, glowie in mouth. I threw it once into the hallway and she
ran off to get it and bring it back to me, barking all the while her small
happy barks. Again I threw it into the hallway and she bounded back.
As I threw her glowie a third time, she turned to chase it but collapsed to
the floor right next to a milk crate under Elyse's keyboard [Elyse was my girlfriend at the time - Ricq] and didn't
move. From where I was sitting, it looked like one of her rear paws was
caught in the crate, so I jumped up to free her. She let out a yip of pain
(surprise? shock?) when I pulled her to a clear spot on the floor, but she
wasn't moving. At first I thought she was in shock from hurting a paw or leg,
but she was completely still on the floor. I yelled to Elyse to get ready
to rush us to the vet, but then I noticed that Laika had stopped breathing
and her entire body was trembling slightly. By now Elyse was on the phone
with a receptionist at the vet's office, and was trying to get instructions
on how to resuscitate a collapsed dog. I tried blowing into Laika's mouth,
but she was completely limp and her tongue had already turned blue and her
bladder had let go on the floor. I found nothing in her throat to indicate
that she was choking. I knew then that she was gone, that there was nothing
to be done for her but send her home gently. I held her on the floor, kissing
her neck, petting her head as she faded away. I hope the last thing she could
feel was my touch and the sound of my voice. Elyse and I held her for a long
time on the floor, crying and petting her. I buried my nose in her fur,
trying to force myself to remember her scent. I kept calling her "silly bear",
because this was not how I envisioned her leaving me. Her death was so
sudden -- she was doing what she loved best (playing fetch with one of her
squeak toys) and then five minutes later she was gone.
After awhile, we realized that we would need to bury her. I found a
spot in a corner of the back yard and cleared the ivy and twigs away. Elyse
stood by me the whole time. As I started to dig a hole in the twilight, the
church bells from the chapel at Greensboro College struck six o'clock. I dug
through all the roots, down into the sandy soil. When I was deep enough, we
found an old sheet and wrapped Laika's body in it. I carried her from the
bedroom and laid her down. Elyse found her glowie in the apartment hallway
where Laika never did reach it the third time, and I found her celery squeak
by her food bowl. I pulled the sheet back from her head, and placed both of
these favorite toys under her chin against her chest, just as she did when
she would fall asleep on the bedroom floor. I asked Elyse to get a bone from
the top of the refrigerator, and I placed that with her toys as well. Laika
looked just as if she was sleeping with all of her favorite things, tucked
inside the folds of the sheet. I petted her face for a while, and rubbed where
she liked on the bridge of her nose, and told her she was always a good dog
and that I loved her always. I then covered her face back up with the sheet,
and knelt there with my hands on her body, trying to say goodbye.
Some time later, I gently shoveled some earth over her, then finished
up her grave. Elyse and I tamped the earth down. We found an old slice of tree
trunk, and rolled that over Laika as a marker. We held each other crying over
Laika's body, as the evening ended and the bells struck seven times.
I don't remember much more of that evening except alternating between staring
at the walls and floor and sobbing with grief. I wandered from room to room,
picking up all of the tufts of Laika's fur I could find, and placed them in a
ball on my nightstand. I found a picture Elyse had of me from several years
ago with me standing in the kitchen and Laika just in the hallway sitting and
grinning up at me. All these years I knew Laika was a large part of my life,
and I remembered from that picture how much I meant to her. She was always a
happy dog, and her joy and boundless energy became part of me during our time
together. She always made me smile, and she always welcomed me home as if I
had been away for years instead of only hours. I downloaded some pictures of
her from her website and put them on the bedroom computer as background wallpaper.
Before I went to bed, I went outside to where she lay and placed my
hands on her marker. I whispered to her all the things I always tried to tell
her -- that I loved her, and that she was a good dog and a silly bear. I stood
in the cold on the back step for a while, watching the North Star, already feeling
the unending loss from her death.
This morning Elyse had the idea of writing something on her tree marker. Perhaps
her name, or a picture of her constellation. We will do this, as well as plant
some flowers for her in the corner. We always dreamed of moving north to Minnesota,
and relishing all the snow we don't have here in North Carolina. Now Laika will
remain in the state in which she was born. Today it was supposed to rain, but we
have sleet instead and the forecast calls for snow. We take comfort in the symbols
we can. Elyse has taken her death hard as well, perhaps only now realizing how much
she loved Laika, and how she will be missed in ways we cannot even yet count,
how one small animal could bring such joy to our lives.
We will miss her.
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