Plumbelina died.
On Friday, when we were coming back over the mountains from the cattle drive, we stopped at a creek for a while. This lead to that and Plum was nicked by the back tire of our moving truck. Her injuries consisted of a tiny cut on her face and a two inch gash on her foreleg (which wasn’t actually bleeding). We hopped in the truck with her laid across my lap and made the rest of the drive down the mountain to get her to the vet. She looked great the entire drive with her head up in the air, looking around, she even seemed to be smiling at me as I stroked her face and held her body close to mine. When we pulled into the parking lot at the vet clinic, her breathing suddenly became labored and her eyes glazed over and rolled back. I struggled to get out of the truck with her in my arms. Robert took her from me and by the time we had her in the clinic on an operating table she had died.
It was so shocking.
We have been so terribly sad.
This has been another lesson in love and loss for me.
For of course, it was better to have known her, loved her and lost her than to never have known her at all.
We took her body up the mountain and blistered our hands digging a deep grave in an aspen stand for her final resting place. Before we covered her in Rocky Mountain soil, I laid a bouquet of wildflowers on her chest. She looked so perfect down there. Snow white and the darkest chocolate brown — like she was sleeping. I touched her velvet head one last time. It was all so strange. I remember thinking to myself that she was more mine than she was Robert’s since he had been away at work for half her life. I remember feeling thick and stupid with loss.
I wonder how long I’ll be this sad. The past few days, I’ve been wandering around the house crying on and off, out in the studio I broke a hammer in half out of anger with myself and annoyance at the circumstances of her death. I guess grief moves in waves. One moment it has me completely submerged and the next I’m breathing sweet air and sunshine and the world around me is sparkling like diamonds.
If I feel this sad about a dog,
will I simply disappear if I lose Robert
or a best friend,
or a parent,
or a sister?
Why does the body feel so heavy
once the spirit has departed?
Is it because we lift the dead
with heavy hearts and lead arms?
Is the soul responsible
for our lightness of spirit,
our lightness of being?
Where does the spirit go?
What does that place actually look like?
We, here in the land of the living, have such a tenuous grip on existence. We hoard it.
We tear it away from each other.
We live fully until we cease to live.
We forget to love what we have sometimes.
What we love can leave, in the blink of an eye.
What we love can leave, in the blink of an eye.
When something we love dies,
we always realize we loved it more than we knew we did.
The dead sleep, but the living live on.
We live on with the sharp memories of the dead lodged in our throats. Over time, those memories dull and eventually we lay the bluntness of our guilt and sadness to rest and all that is left is a wide field, laced with morning dew and blooming yarrow
and a glad dog with wings on her back running like she knows how to fly.
She cannot be so dead.
She cannot be so dead
when she flickers with such glorious motion
here on the broad plains
of my heart.
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Two days before Plum died, I told Robert that I wanted to take a greater responsibility for her hunting
training which he had almost exclusively been working on. I wanted to master her in the field — which involves so much more than simply telling a dog where to go. It requires understanding the lay of the land, wind directions, the habits of the bird you’re hunting and the ability to read your dog and communicate with it. It’s an awesome partnership between human and animal. I had this sudden realization over the summer months that consistently hunting the dogs with my fellow could be a really precious family time for Robert and I.
Two days before she died, she ate one of my Birkenstocks.
What a crying shame.
Writing this made me laugh out loud!
Writing this made me laugh out loud!
These dogs are so high maintenance, so demanding of your time and effort, an extra portion of their energy and spirit gets in your
soul. When they go, they wreck you a little more than usual,
the quiet and calm left in their wake is disconcerting.
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On Saturday night, I was thinking about ways I could honor her.
On Sunday morning, I woke up early with Robert we took our remaining German Shorthaired Pointer sharptail grouse hunting in the Arbon Valley. Before we cast that dog off into a field to do his work, I took his face in my hands and I told him:
Today we hunt for Plum.
We hunt for everything she was.
We hunt for the incredible bird dog she was going to be.
We hunt to give her wings, where she is.
We hunt in her memory.
We hunt for the dog who remains.
For the steadiness of Farley’s beating heart, flesh and bone.
We hunt to put a bird in your mouth, Farley.
We hunt to watch you do that thing you were born and bred to do.
We hunt for the flicker of white in tall grass, for your bright face and fleet feet in the sage.
We hunt for the joy of being on the land and being in nature.
We hunt for the holiness of putting dinner on our table.
I cried a bit for the joy on his face as we cast him off into the tall grass and sunshine. We balanced our shotguns on our shoulders and walked out.
Our hearts felt lighter than they had in days.
Plumbelina,
You were the very best little girl. You were so happy,
so exuberant, all the time. When you were good, you were an angel. When you were bad, you were terribly rotten. I never touched velvet quite so soft as you. You were crazy and I loved you. Sleep now, best friend. I hold you in my heart always.
Love,
Your Girl