No Dogs in the Kitchen

Disclaimer: I started writing this a week ago. Every time I sat down to finish it, I cried. This is for Jed.

Hey there, awesome readers.

I’ve been trying to write this piece for over a week. Every time I come back to it, I get a lump in my throat the size of a seedless green grape and then the tears gather at the bottom of my eyes, and I have to step away from my laptop. Every time I come back to it, I think, “If I can just finish writing this… Maybe then…”

Jed was part of my life for almost 14 years. Part Akita, part lab, he was an easy-going dog. Aloof yet curious. A predator yet gentle. He was a true momma’s boy. And as big as he was in canine stature, he peed like a girl.

He didn’t know how to play the way most dogs do. If you threw a ball at him, he’d let it bounce off his snout and then look at you as if to say, “What the hell did you do that for?”

If someone was telling me an animated story and their voice got loud with their hands thrashing in the air, Jed would discreetly lie at my feet and put his head on my foot. The message was clear. “I’ve gotchya.”

There’s a rule in my house: No dogs in the kitchen when we’re cooking or eating. Mostly because Jed took up a lot of space and food was his hobby.

“Jed! Out of the kitchen,” I’d say for the second time. And sure enough, when he thought I wasn’t paying attention he’d sneak back in, drooling with anticipation until I told him to get out of the kitchen again. We argued about that rule for over a decade.

Dave was Jed’s other favourite human. Every time he walked in through the garage, Jed would greet him with a chastising howl. “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?”

They say dogs can’t tell time, but clearly that’s not true. How else could he know that Dave had been gone for a few days?

When both Dave and I were home, him working in another room, me writing in my office, Jed would spend his time pacing back and forth between us. Restless, as though he didn’t know who to nap next to. And then when we’d gather in what we call “the bourbon area” at the end of the day, Jed’s unmistakeable smile said it all. “Finally.”

Dogs aren’t supposed to get old, except…

We knew the end was coming. It seems overnight that suddenly he had trouble going down the stairs. Sometimes he’d look at me and all I saw was confusion. It was hard to watch. But then he’d have good days and we’d see our Jed again.

You think you can go on like that forever. Good days. Bad days. Better days.

Until you can’t.

Dave and I walked in through the garage and the odour was overwhelming. Jed had defecated all over the living room… all over his bed. At first, it was “just a mess we have to clean up.”

Until it wasn’t.

As we moved the furniture to wash the floors, Jed stood outside at the back door looking in. The plan was to let the floors dry, let him back in, and go on with our day. I pulled up a chair and sat in front of the screen. “It’s okay, big guy. We’ll let you in soon.”

And that’s when I noticed it. Jed… my Jed… was a shell of the dog I knew. I could tell he didn’t recognize me. I’m not even sure if he could hear me. Something had happened while we were out. The words it’s time crawled timidly into my awareness.

The final hour…

“He may have had a stroke, or it could be a brain tumor,” the vet said. “It’s hard to tell and you have options.”

Luckily, Dave and I had touched on the conversation a few times in the past few months. The vet was kind. He didn’t try to sway us this way or that, but when he saw that we already knew what the right thing to do was, he agreed with compassion.

“Where do you think he’s going?” I asked as the liquid was administered into Jed’s paw.

“I’m a science guy,” the vet answered. “But animals are energy. Energy goes somewhere.”

Energy goes somewhere.

The echo of these words is everywhere. I hear it when I’m sitting in my backyard. I hear it when I look at the floor where Jed’s bed used to be.

It’s been a hard week…

Everyone grieves in their own way. Some need to fill the void. Me? I need to sit in the silence of my now empty house. His white fur is still on the floor, but I don’t have the heart to vacuum. I still find myself saving a few bites of my food for Jed. Sometimes I even still hear him walking into the kitchen.

I knew losing Jed would be hard. I just didn’t know it would be this hard. Seriously, the first few days after we lost him, my eyes were so puffy and squinty from crying that I looked like an old Asian woman. (No offence to old Asian women.)

But I suppose that’s the price we pay for loving a dog for almost 14 years.

I’ve been trying to write this piece for over a week because part of me thought that if I could just finish it, the grief would loosen its grip.

But it hasn’t.

And maybe that’s okay.

Maybe some losses aren’t meant to be gotten over.

Maybe they’re meant to be carried.

And if that’s true, then I’ll carry the kitchen arguments, the bourbon-area evenings, the white fluffs of fur on the floor, and the dog who somehow managed to make himself the centre of our home.

I never imagined saying goodbye would be this hard.

Then again, I never imagined I’d be lucky enough to love a dog worth missing this hard.