Maddie Grace Jackson

My dog died almost two weeks ago.

This is my third draft of a blog post about her. I keep putting it off because blogging about it makes it even more real - a recorded event - and at certain moments of the day it all still feels so unreal.

But she died. She's gone. And I've learned a lot the past two weeks, one of which being that despite my introverted tendencies, I am a talker when it comes to processing grief. I like to talk about my dog and the fact that she died. I need to talk about it. Blogging is like talking. I don't want to abandon this blog entirely, and I can't post about anything else until I post about her.

If you're not into dog eulogies, best to check out now.

Six months before Brant and I were married, I brought Maddie home. She was 8 weeks and I paid $25 for her to the farmer out in Kuna, Idaho, whose chocolate lab had hopped the fence and gotten knocked up. In the late evening darkness I peered into the litter of pups kept out in the barn and almost chose her brother, a serious looking cinnamon blonde. He was in my hands, when the farmer picked up Maddie, with her peanut butter eyebrows and bewildered expression.   I knew she was my dog.

Journal excerpt, 

Sunday evening, 3/18/2012

We buried our dog Maddie today.  Her body is nestled on a small hillside of the West Maui mountains under the overhang of eucalyptus, mango, and plumeria trees.  It is a spot we imagine she would have chosen herself to lay down for a snooze.

We buried her with the potato chips and yogurt she loved, a handful of plumeria blossoms, and my favorite grey and white flowered hoodie.

I can’t believe she is gone.

I found her in on the kitchen floor at 2:30 this morning. She was peaceful, not contorted. We woke a few minutes before to a unrecognizable,  mechanical sound – like a car engine sputtering out. It was rhythmic – fast, fast, fast, then slower, slower, and by the time our brains were fully present and we were asking each other ‘what is that?’ and I was slowly climbing out of bed – there was one last sputter (it sounded further away this time – out the door entirely) and then nothing.  Lucy (our other dog) was next to Brant’s side of the bed and Maddie was already gone.

And I don’t know what the rest of our life looks like, without her.

Brant and I don’t have kids, we have dogs. Three dogs, specifically. Out of the three, Maddie was the one we bonded the most with. There was a relationship, a loyalty between us.  Our other dogs were happy with attention from anyone, anytime. Maddie, while friendly to others, really only wanted us.  She was a dog, through and through – chasing cats and chickens, barking at the mailman, chewing bones- but she was also our furry dog kid, and very much a part of our family.

The day before she died, she hung out with me outside while I planted a patio herb garden. I remember glancing at her laying in the sun and being struck with how content she looked. Later that day, I was lying on the couch, icing a sore muscle in my back. Maddie came up to me and put her head on my stomach and just looked at me. Her brown eyes were so peaceful. Nothing was wrong, she didn't need to go potty, she didn't want to go outside. She stayed there a minute or so, then I told her to go lay down. She did, but got up 5 minutes later and did the same thing - her head resting on my stomach, just looking at me intently.  She did this 3 or 4 times.

At the time I wondered what was up with her, but brushed it off.

She was healthy, happy. She was going to live forever - because I loved her that much and I needed her to.

Sigh.

I think she was saying goodbye. 

 

She didn’t like it when I raised my voice.

She loved to go on walks – and she always looked for the cats that lived at the pink house on the corner.

She knew how to play a game we called 'Go get your mom/dad' which was basically just one of us telling her to go get the other one when we were in separate rooms. 'Where's your dad? Go get your dad." Her head would tilt at the word 'dad' and she would wander out of the room and go find her dad who would invariably pet her head and tell her to 'go get her mom.'

She was ferociously protective of us, almost to a fault.

She loved human food. Completely my fault (I also blame my mom, step-dad, and sister!) for feeding her human snacks when she was a puppy. Potato chips, bananas, hamburgers, fries, tomatoes off the vine.

She learned to sneak food. And we learned to never leave food on the counters if we didn't want her to eat it.

Once, she ate a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts all in one sitting.

Also, a full pan of cornbread.

                A stick of butter.

                Countless cups of coffee (if I forgot mine in the jeep, while we were out she would pop the lid off and slurp up the liquid).

                A chocolate muffin. A chocolate bar.

                Bags of rice cakes. Cereal.

                Most recently, a small bag of banana chips from the Whole Foods bulk bin.

Brant called her 'old iron-sides.'

She used to open the pantry door, remove the garbage can lid, dig through the trash and retrieve the yogurt containers. She would take them to the couch and lick them clean. We were constantly finding yogurt lids under the couch cushions.

That dog was always up for an adventure. She loved riding in the car. She went to Yellowstone and barked at buffalo. She flew 2500 miles across the sea and spent the last year of her life in palm trees and sand.

A couple weeks before she died, my mom and step-dad were visiting and we all went to the beach with Maddie and Lucy. Notorious for hating water, Maddie usually just got her feet wet in the waves and spent the rest of the time running in the sand. But that day, as I was trying to get Lucy to fetch the stick out in deeper water (and Lucy was having none of it), Maddie came to my side and followed me out into the ocean. I'll never forget how she was glued to my side and just kept looking out into the water, then up at me, and out into the water again - as if to say - "Are we really doing this? Okay, I'm game." In that moment I felt her trusting me. She made it further than she ever had - the water halfway covering her body - just to where she could no longer touch. Then she hightailed it back to shore.

Earlier today, I went out to water the herb garden I started the day before she died. Unloaded the recycling stacked on the garden table, watered arugula seedlings, pinched off dry, brown geranium leaves.

Gardening was something Maddie and I shared, and the process feels bittersweet now. She loved to lay in the garden while I pruned and planted. She would close her eyes and take naps in the sun, waking to follow me when I moved to a new section. When the cherry tomatoes came in she loved to eat them. She knew the garden was food and so many times I caught her sniffing out and eating the most perfect, ripe tomatoes and strawberries.  She spit the green ones out.

I gardened today because I don't want the last garden we planted together to die.

She was the best dog I've ever had. And with the obvious exception of Brant, she was my best friend.

I am so thankful I got to share her life, to experience the love that she brought. I am so thankful that the Lord took her quickly, and peacefully. I believe He let my back hurt the day before her passing, in order to slow me down enough so she could say goodbye. One of my greatest comforts the last two weeks has been the memory of the look on her face when she laid her head on my stomach. It was like she was all...'Hey....it's been real. I love you and I gotta go. But don't worry, because I'll see you again someday."

Simple. Genuine. So Maddie.

And Maddie girl? You bet I'm gonna see you again someday. Thanks for being the best brown dog ever.  Thanks for loving me through all of my dog-mom mistakes. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for always letting me sniff your frito toes.

I love you.