Xena: 1996-2008

It's been 17 and a half years since I said goodbye to her; and while I'm fine a lot of the time, there are moments, weeks, even months where the old grief finds me.

I don't know what triggered it this time. It's nowhere near the anniversary of when I had to say goodbye (June 17th of 2008), but she's been on my mind so much lately.

I see her while walking my current two dogs. I imagine her there, walking alongside us. I picture her lying on the couch, and find myself trying to remember what it felt like when she was pressed against my side one fateful day on the couch (the day I found the growth on her leg), and if she felt like either of them. Was she lighter? Was her fur softer? More coarse?

Why can't I remember the exact sound of her bark? I remember the shape of it, the rhythm... But not her actual voice. I wish I could.

Futile as it is, I find myself wondering what she would have made of my boy and girl; would she have been patience with them, mothering them the way she had that other poor pup who'd been brought into my family for too short a time? The one who died far too young? Or would she have scolded either of them in their most puppy-like phases?

I think my boy would have loved her. But I also know that, if she still lived, we wouldn't have him, or his "sister".

I know that her passing, even if ten years separated them, is the reason I'm able to have the dogs I have now.

And yet my heart still misses her. I miss feeling her press her back against my leg as we sat on the steps. I miss the way it felt to hold her close, to stroke her ears, to walk with her, to hear her greeting bark... I even miss the parts that weren't especially good. The frustrating parts. The complexities of our relationship earlier in our lives. The difficulties. The hurts.

But not that day. That day is a hurt I don't want to relive, not even in remembrance (though I sometimes do, and it's like I'm holding her for the last time all over again; feeling her weight as her legs go out under her, seeing the lights dimming in her eyes... I wanted to die that day, too).

It's a hurt I will know again, though. Not just the memory, but in the sense that I'll have to face it again--twice. And however many times after.

I signed up for this... By loving her, by loving them, I knew from the onset, even as a child, that I'd have to face that reality.

The difference is that, as a child, as much as it hurt to consider, it was still only a concept.

Adult-me knows better now. Adult-me has felt that loss, and fears how soul-crushing it will be the next time, and the next...

Because I love them all. Differently, sure--yet equally. Deeply.

And that I suppose will be the ruin of me. Because I can't help loving them. I can't help but show them a vulnerability that I still struggle with showing to other people.

And for all that? I would never not want to love them. Not even to spare myself from pain. Because the pain tells me something: that what I feel for her, for them, is real.

I love you, Xe, and I always will. Time will never change that. Time will never take my grief from me; but it has softened its edges, and for that, I am thankful.

Thank you for being my dog. I'm sorry you and I suffered so much together, but at the same time, I'm glad I had you. Without you, who knows where I'd be--who I would be--today.

Thank you, Xe. Love you forever and always, always and forever my beautiful girl. ❤️‍🩹