Hudson was my sister Jean’s dog. She had him for years, and she counted it out last weekend – he had actually lived with her in nine different places. He was a beautiful black lab, and a member of our family. He came on our vacations with us. He swam in the lake or the ocean, feverishly chasing down sticks. A sweet friendly boy with big soft brown eyes, who would lie in the floor in the living room, wanting to be a part of everything, even as he gassed us out of the room.
He got sick very quickly over the last two weeks. He stopped eating and drinking. You could see the pain dulling his eyes. Even his face looked different, slimmer, more pinched.
Monday, Jean and Pat made the difficult decision to have him put down.
Hudson was sweet, warm, and funny as well. He had a squeaky fish toy that he loved so much that it was almost embarrassing to watch him play with it. He would escape and run through the woods, rolling gloriously in nasty substances. Once he was sprayed by a skunk. Once, he ate an entire blueberry pie that was left on the counter when Jean left the kitchen for 10 minutes. He had a very good life and he was very much loved.
In late September, he served as the ring-bearer in Jean and Pat’s wedding. He wore a little pillow on his back like an elephant with the rings tied on with a ribbon. Mimi walked him down the aisle, and we could see his poor tail waving slowly … first this way … then a pause … then that way … pause again … so different from his normally frantic wagging … it showed that he knew it was a happy moment, but it also showed that he didn’t know what the hell was going on. At the top of the aisle sat my parents, waiting to walk Jean down the aisle and as Hudson passed he walked right up to them, sniffing them, perhaps looking for a comforting scent in the weird world he now found himself in. But he did a great job. He sat on the grass beside Mimi during the ceremony and Siobhan and I both looked over at him during the service and he was lying there with his mouth WIDE open, panting for breath, but it made him look like he was totally blissed out, in a state of ecstasy. It was hysterical.
We love you so much, Hudson. You were a good good boy.
You saw to it that you stuck around long enough to see Jean happily married to Pat … and then I guess you knew it was time for you to go.
We miss you already.
There is something so special about pet love – I’m glad for your 10 years of it and send lots of love the O’Malley+ way.
It is really tough when we have to let one go. Great story – he looks like a wonderful pooch. Sorry for your loss.
Oh, I’m so sorry, Sheila.
There are no words…
Very sorry, Sheila.
Oh, my condolences to everyone. Special dogs like Hudson make me think there must be animals in Heaven.
I’m so, so sorry. For all of you. It’s such a heartwrenching decision to have to make. But what a great life he had with all of you. And you with him.
Thinking of you, dear. xxx
Dang…I’m sorry, Sheila.
What a beautiful tribute for, clearly, a beautiful dog.
Tears …
Thank you so much for this, Sheil…
I’m sorry to hear about Hudson. It sounds like he was a wonderful companion despite the occasional, er, mischief(a trait in labs that I’m familiar with). As tough and painful as it is now to say goodbye, I hope all the good memories far outweigh that.
I am so, so sorry.
Reqiescat in pace Hudson.
Given to me a few years back when my dog, Othello, died, by Pablo Neruda:
My dog has died.
My dog has died.
I buried him in the garden
next to a rusted old machine.
Some day I’ll join him right there,
but now he’s gone with his shaggy coat,
his bad manners and his cold nose,
and I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,
I believe in a heaven I’ll never enter.
Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom
where my dog waits for my arrival
waving his fan-like tail in friendship.
Ai, I’ll not speak of sadness here on earth,
of having lost a companion
who was never servile.
His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine
withholding its authority,
was the friendship of a star, aloof,
with no more intimacy than was called for,
with no exaggerations:
he never climbed all over my clothes
filling me full of his hair or his mange,
he never rubbed up against my knee
like other dogs obsessed with sex.
No, my dog used to gaze at me,
paying me the attention I need,
the attention required
to make a vain person like me understand
that, being a dog, he was wasting time,
but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,
he’d keep on gazing at me
with a look that reserved for me alone
all his sweet and shaggy life,
always near me, never troubling me,
and asking nothing.
Ai, how many times have I envied his tail
as we walked together on the shores of the sea
in the lonely winter of Isla Negra
where the wintering birds filled the sky
and my hairy dog was jumping about
full of the voltage of the sea’s movement:
my wandering dog, sniffing away
with his golden tail held high,
face to face with the ocean’s spray.
Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit.
There are no good-byes for my dog who has died,
and we don’t now and never did lie to each other.
So now he’s gone and I buried him,
and that’s all there is to it.
My condolences.