LP

My puppy died this morning at around 7 o'clock after a rough time of it, as Ruby transformed over the past years from my little puppy so beautiful as rainbow and sunset into being preyed upon by the poison Monsanto genetic engineered food industry which broke her down to stumbling, until we had to change her diet.

This was 3 years ago and she contracted pyrometria, which is a Latin word for an inflamed womb, which for 300 dollars was cut out.
Recovering, she contracted that pink eye disease from a cat which dogs can not and went blind on one eye.
Like most setters she upon reaching age 12 started being enveloped by a mammary tumor which could not be operated on as old dogs will die on the operating table.

Most people would have put away the problem and most dogs would have given up long before my little girl did. Ruby though was special, because she was created for me by a prayer to God.
I had prayed 13 years ago for two things I felt missing in my life. One was a dad, as my dad was a weak person who failed miserably at the job, and the other was for another setter like I had when I was a child filled with hopes and dreams.

God works things out most interesting in he delivered my beloved Uncle, my dad's brother to be a surrogate father to me for a splendid summer I cherish. It was made all the more special as my Uncle Reuben was dying of brain cancer, which none of us knew at the time as I enjoyed days fishing with him.
I learned from my Uncle something that September as death is not something you hide from as so many people can not face it, but death is something the dying use to heal the living to help them deal with their passing.
I have never been afraid of death and have faced it numerous times in my life. Death when one meets it, at least in my case always was one of calm, as I knew there was nothing to be done, but go on and face it. Calm always envelops me and it is a peace which this life can not provide outside of a relationship with Christ.

My Uncle was remarkable in all he gave me emotionally. I can still see him smiling at me in the nursing home as I helped him sit up in the chair and got him a simple drink of water. Doing that was like I had given him the universe when someone can not move.

It was fitting that I not being a pallbearer actually was able to help the mortician carry my Uncle in his casket into the Church as one last thank you to him for all he did for me as my fill in dad.

Ruby was named for him and she though was not that simple of task in showing up. I had phoned numerous people concerning setters and satan apparently was involved in that, as I met some of thee most loathsome and dream destroying people on the planet.
I came across one east coat kook who was ranting at me about dogs and after that I became disheartened to it all and just gave up.

A few months later I had no idea that God was at work in making me a puppy in my neighborhood by having dogs get out of pens and puppies occurring.

Ruby was from a litter of 16 pups who survived. She was the timid one in being a runt of the litter. There were 3 left and she was one of the three.
I can still see her looking up at me in my arms with those "take me home eyes" and take her home I did, because she was the one created by a prayer.

It was amusing in a week later I was just taking her and my Mom out for ice cream and Ruby just started howling in the car. Immediately God's Spirit told me the problem in she thought I was taking her back where we got her, and Mom and I assured her, that we were keeping her, and instantly she quit crying and all was right with her world again.

For twelve and one half years, she was with me constantly every day from sleeping under my desk as we fought for space, to getting me up when naps were too long, to helping me do chores and sometimes hunting.
I vowed I would always make time to pet her, because I knew when she was gone, I would be missing that most.........and true to form I would give a great deal to just touch her once again as my little puppy, who I could whisper in her ear as she squinted at me listening, filling my nostrils with that sweet scent that only setters have like no other breed in signature.

Ruby had been getting thin this past year as the tumor demanded to be fed, and she was showing her age and lack of balance.
About three weeks ago she really had problems moving which I believe was the start of a series of strokes which stopped her from being able to walk.
I knew she was going down hill and I kept thinking she was going to die, but she just kept on and it bothered me worse as she was the gamest living thing I have ever come across in she would bark happily at the world in mock attack as we would walk along.

I had to balance her and lift her up, and I knew as I told my Mom that night, that this was probably the last time we would have her on a walk, and it was.
As she was not in pain, I fed her, watered her, put her on a rug to pull her around and roll her over, and I expected the first week she would die.

Instead she trooped on, with more strokes in her head swayed, so I had to balance her, and we said our goodbyes, but Ruby was up to something in God's teaching not yet learned by me as I swore I never wanted another dog and she would be my last, as this is too difficult for me to deal with having creatures leave my sphere any longer.

I thought she would die on Thanksgiving, and she did not. She though did stop looking at me thinking she should join me outside. I carried her out one last time to see if she would potty, but that was not going to work as she had this thing about doing things on her own, so it was papers on the floor and me cleaning things up.

Sometimes I almost thought she was going to get better, but she would have a spell and my hopes would come crashing down around me again. I found myself though enjoying my new role in filling her every need as our relationship changed and I could give more to her in caring for her.

She stopped eating two days ago, and basically quit drinking too. I know the medical body parts shutting down and could read her emaciated signs, but she was not in pain, and every time I thought she was not aware of me, she would make sure I knew she was still in this world.

None of this was the fiction of Terri Schiavo pretty as those ghouls would have you believe. Dog urine is very strong, dog feces are very intense especially when one has to clean up a four square foot area as your puppy who never in her life went on the floor, tried to get away from something she could not help and death becomes a rotten stench from within.

I sat with her and petted her as my touch would calm her, and last night I suspected it was about to be the time for the end of her suffering as she was breathing heavily and her heart was working very hard.
So I propped her up on her huge tiger pillow, put a pillow under her head, and talked to her until 1 AM, about things we talk about when no one else is around.

Her breathing was shallow around 6 AM and by 7 she was not of this plain any longer.

Death sometimes is a hard process, and when satan torments, it is very hard on all. I had to be brought to terms with things in knowing that Ruby was going to educate me that she should not be my last dog...........and I had to come to the point of asking God to take her home as I did not want that responsibility, as this year I have witnessed in too many people and animals dying that no one should be God except God in the decisions humans should not have to carry once to often, in who lives and who dies.
I found that too many people in this world want to be God and when they get that power they run like cowards and dump the sick and dying onto some government system to kill them for them.

I would have shot Ruby as I have put down other animals, if she would have been in pain, but she was aware of me until the end, with eyes sunken in, not being able to smell and I wonder if she could even hear the past days too...........but I could not violate the terms in killing a miracle God created for me. I would not do as the majority do in killing people or things just to stop not the suffering for the dying, but to stop the suffering these coward feels in not being able to deal with life and death.

Things are hard when things die when they are in your home whether people or animals. The easy part is sitting with them and touching them the last times, putting a shroud on them and wrapping them up in a body bag. The hard part is the scrubbing of the floors or the bedding as dying creatures make fecal messes, they drool and sinus discharge, and as you clean the things up it always feels like you are washing them away and that is the hard part for me as it is the final letting go that washes over again and again.

I know these godhood humans do not want to face such things as it is not pretty. It takes caring to salve bedsores even on a dog, to making sure their legs are tucked just right.
I always think that I doubt anyone would do for me as I have done for others, but for me, at least I was there for someone or some animal when everyone else ran away.

I didn't see ugliness or revulsion in any of this. I saw opportunity, even if last night it was difficult not to gag with the smell of death puffing at me from my puppy, nor is it not intensely troubling to hear the death rattle days before the last breath. It is though about standing by living things when they are having to go through it all alone.
I can always get up and walk away. Ruby or my Uncle had to lay there and face it. That kind of reality leaves no room to be a coward nor complain that things are not all buttons and bows in life.

As my ground in frozen, I packed my puppy up under my arm and carried her to cold storage. I find this the most cruel of things as I had to do this once before in waiting all winter to only have to dig a grave in the spring when life is bringing it's promise.
Ruby though is going to be buried where I explained to her last night, under an apple tree and by a little fish pond I'm in the process of building. She will be close and it will be pretty for her.

There is no winning in this only the roller coaster of emotions that always comes as you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. You are grateful the suffering is over, and feel guilt at that, because that which you adored is gone and you miss them, but are relieved in the death.
I feel a fullness of joy in her yet in my life, and a complete void in the emptiness of her not here. I catch myself listening for her, seeing her in my mind and thinking it is time to feed her or go outside.

I wondered where 12 years could go, and I really do not remember that much about my puppy being daily with me as it was all so natural that it was almost uneventful in the greatest of events.
I recall the woodchuck hanging onto her head biting her, as she swung it around and killed it. The skunk she tangled with. Getting her from the vet after her operation in which she looked out the window and said to me, "Let's get the hell out of this place and back home!", and the haunting happy bark she always gave to the world daring it to invade upon her happiness.

I have always thought if I would be an animal that I would want to be a swallow as they always are so happy flying in being who they are in perfect contentment. Ruby was a swallow in being just perfectly pleased she was having a Ruby day and that is all that mattered.
She was not perfect and I knew her faults, but she was the best dog I ever had in she never deliberately did anything wrong and I could trust her to always be at peace in a world I left her in peace when I returned.

I thank God for all of this even if the emotions have not been sorted out and the lessons are too much for even someone like me to fully deal with.

I miss my puppy though, and that is the greatest tribute any living thing can have in making a positive memory in this too wicked world, so someone mourns their passing as a loss to them and years later like my beloved Uncle, they are still spoken of for the good impression.

In Grass, Walt Whitman writing of Lincoln that time heals all wounds like grass healing the open grave. That has never been my experience as even with things in heaven held safe to be joined again someday, there is always an exposed part of the grave in my heart where I miss even the most hurtful of things, because they brought out the best and grew the deepest emotional bond.

They say that lions will lay down with lambs in God's Kingdom. I believe God's Spirit told me Ruby is in heaven, even if I do not comprehend the form. As my Mom so wisely put it, God knows good animals and bad, so there must be a place for good animals too.
As the Spirit brought to my mind, if God wouldn't destroy Nineveh not just for the people, but mentioned all the animals too, we are all the creatures of his flock in His being our Shepherd.

God took a great deal out of the world in this His year...........

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, bless we the Name of the Lord our God. Amen

Till we meet again LP.




agtG