Emerson

            

             A week ago today my beloved companion of almost fourteen years met a gruesome death.  It was a death he did not deserve.  Emerson has been by my side for almost half my life. My freshman year of college he was curled up on my bed while I read Victorian novels late in to the night.  He was there when my husband proposed.  He moved in to my first house with me.  He was there when I got my first teaching job and he kept me company laying on my student’s essays while I graded them.  He greeted each of my daughters with a wagging tail and wet kisses when I brought them home from the hospital. He has laid at my feet countless nights as I have fed and rocked sick children.

 Together we have climbed mountains, swam in lakes and rivers, run thousands of miles and walked thousands more.  We have spent many a rainy day together curled up on the couch.  We have rolled in grass and snow, felt the wind in our faces, gone on road trips, shared ice-cream cones, and gazed in to the warm glow of a campfire. We have lived life together, always together.

 As he has grown older I have worried about this day, the day when I would come home and he would not be here.  I thought I had more time.  I thought he would be there to help usher in at least one more phase of my life.  I thought he would be there to comfort me the dreaded day I dropped both my daughters off at school for the first time. I imagined us spending our days alone together, as we did before I was a mother, and I looked forward to it.  I imagined him dying a peaceful death in my arms, my tears staining his glossy coat.  I never could have imagined what really happened.  The screaming, the panic, the terror, the praying.  Searching for him for hours on horseback. Combing the desert, calling his name.  When I finally found him, I couldn’t even hug him goodbye. He was too mangled, too broken. I had to settle for a stroke of his cheek.  I collapsed. I wailed and clutched at my chest, trying to keep together the pieces of my shattered heart.   I covered my best friend’s limp ragged form with the shirt off my back. Shaking with grief and furry, I stood over his body screaming at the top of my lungs and threw rocks at the coyotes who had killed him. My horse stood sweating and tired beside me as I waited for my father and daughters to come help me bring Emerson home.  I couldn’t leave him there, not like that. He deserved so much more.

My sweet girls hugged me, squeezed my hand and patted my cheek.  I rode home, my head hung in despair.  Together we dug his grave with shovel and spade, then watched as my father lowered Emerson in to his final resting place, still wrapped in my shirt. His body covered, the dirt smoothed, I felt my heart crumble a little more as I watched Freya, two years old, scratch at the dirt and cry, “No! My doggie! He all alone!”  Holding my girls tightly, I offered up a prayer of gratitude for the service Emerson rendered our family.

For the first time Emerson is not here to greet me when I open the door. He is not here to lick away my tears. I cannot rest my weary head on his back, feel him breathe, and know that I am not alone. Because, for the first time since he opened his eyes and chose me to be his person, I am really alone.  Life is too quiet and too empty without him.  The loneliness haunts me at night. The grief, a dull ache in my chest, makes me restless. My mind reels with thoughts of what might have been, what I could have done, what I should have done, and what I will never be able to do again. 

I do not want to forget anything. I forever want to remember Emerson’s love for strawberry tops, carrots, and pretty much everything else that made it on to the kitchen floor.  The way he liked to lay on everything but his bed and how he was always licking the lotion off my legs and snuffling my hair.  He hated it when I would stay up too late and would sit on the stairs and stare at me, willing me to come to bed.  He loved to bask on the porch in the morning sun.  He didn’t like having his feet touched but he put up with pretty much everything else.  He followed me everywhere like a shadow.  I have grown accustomed to the sound of his nails clicking along beside me, up and down the stairs and all around the house.  Playing hide and seek was always a challenge because he gave away my location every time.  Despite his relatively small size he always seemed to take up the entire couch and bed.  Josh was always moving him out of the way so he had room to squeeze in beside me. So many little quirks, habits, and memories that now reside in my heart.

As I read this and think of Emerson, I realize he did so much more for me than I ever did for him.  This may sound silly but in many ways I strive to be more like him, selfless, bold, patient, and loyal. He would have followed me to the ends of the earth.  He was the only one who I knew without a doubt would never leave me.  I believe I will feel his loss forever.

My mother says Emerson fulfilled the measure of his creation and so he is blessed and happy. That could not be truer. He perfected being a dog and a friend.  When I think of him I am reminded of this quote from his namesake, Ralph Waldo Emerson: “To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”  Emerson succeeded.  I pray he is the one who greets me at the pearly gates of Heaven.

Following are some of my favorite photographs of Emerson.  There are several I decided to include simply because they show what an important part of our family he was.