Golden Retrievers – readerwriterrunner.com

Ashes

It’s been almost a year since a vet came to our home and put Maggie down. She lay on the floor in our living room. The painkillers, which had given us a few more months with her, no longer worked.

The morning she died, she walked into our bedroom. A room she wasn’t allowed to be in. Later, she nudged her way into my bathroom. Also off limits. She did it to be closer to me.

Two unmistakable signs that the time had come.

I said my goodbyes on the living room floor. My daughter, Molly, hugged Maggie. Told her how much she’d miss her. Molly was four, Maggie thirteen. Molly had never known a world in which Maggie did not exist.

This was pre-vaccine. Only one of us was allowed to be with Maggie at the end. I took Molly upstairs. My wife, Sonja, stayed with Maggie. They loved each other very much. I’d had Maggie for years before I met Sonja. But Maggie became her dog – Sonja spoiled her, spent her days with her, spoke gently to her, and not surprisingly became the primary recipient of that sweet and strangely morose golden retriever’s affection and loyalty. I’m thankful Sonja was with Maggie at the end.

I carried Maggie’s body to the vet’s van parked in our driveway. A neighbour, walking her own golden retriever, saw me carrying the white shroud and knew exactly what had just happened.

A week later, Maggie came back to us. Ashes in a cannister.

I didn’t know how to tell Molly about cremation. I didn’t want to tell Molly about cremation. So, I fudged the truth. I told my daughter that the vet had used chemicals to transform Maggie’s fur into little white particles.

Sonja loved Maggie, but not Maggie’s ashes. So, Molly and I took that cannister, walked the trails near our home, and scattered some of Maggie’s ashes in a stream where my girls had spent countless hours playing.

It was a big cannister. And there was another special place where Maggie needed to be, and where I needed to take her. Victoria, and the ocean, along Dallas Road. One of the most beautiful places in the world. Maggie and I had lived in that area for years. In different homes, at different stages of my life, she was my constant. My faithful companion. We’d walked hundreds of times along that stretch of beach. I’d thrown thousands of stones for her. She chased every one of them with abandon. In my darkest hours she was my confidant. When I felt alone, she was by my side, figuratively, and literally – on the beach and in the ocean, swimming near me as I threw one rock after another, she never gave up hope that just once, she’d catch the rock that splashed in the ocean, right in front of her. Without Maggie, I wouldn’t have met Sonja. My online dating profile picture was a photo of me and Maggie. Maggie was indisputably and infinitely better looking than me. I rode her coattails into Sonja’s life.

That’s why I wanted to spread the remainder of her ashes along Dallas Road. But life intervened. As it usually does. So, for the better part of the last year, the remainder of Maggie’s “fur” remained in that cannister, in our garden shed. Sadly, and honestly, a little forgotten. I walked in there many times, grabbed a shovel, or the lawnmower, and never once thought about Maggie.

Last Sunday, on a sunny, summer’s day, we took Maggie back to Victoria. Maggie’s remains accompanied us as Molly fed the ducks, ate French fries, and played in two different parks. And then we headed to the ocean.

It was very windy. I pictured Maggie’s ashes blowing back into my face, and hair, and covering my clothing.

Leave it to a five-year old to come up with the perfect solution. While Sonja watched, Molly and I dug holes in the sand. I poured Maggie’s fur into those holes. We covered Maggie with sand, and then, covered the sand with stones.

And then we walked away. Before the tide came in.

I didn’t want to see it happen, but I knew that the ocean would wash over those stones, and take the rocks, and Maggie, back out into the water.

That had been our special place. It always will be. And I know that every time I return, I will look at the beach, and the water, and the mountains in the distance, and I will know that Maggie is a part of that splendor.

Maggie is 13 going on 14. Old for a golden retriever, with the failing hind legs to prove it. She is the only Golden Retriever ever that doesn’t smile. She’s melancholy by nature, with a frown that rarely turns upside down.

But when she feels joy she feels it intensely. She leaps into the ocean to chase thrown stones. She devours dog shit like a gourmand treasures a fine meal. And she loves her family. A loyal, sad dog who wants nothing more than to be by our sides. That saddens me, because I have so little time for her, the demands of family, work and life, usually dropping Maggie to last place on my priority list. I know that when she is gone I will mourn her. But on most days, if I’m honest, she brings me more frustration than happiness. Writing that makes me sad. She’s a good old girl who has been by my side through some tough times, a faithful companion at a time in my life when I didn’t want to be around people and just needed my dog.

I’m pretty sure Maggie was born that way. Sad. I got her when she was two. Attracted by a picture on the breeder’s website of the most miserable looking dog that I had ever seen. A dog that clearly needed a home. A Golden Retriever that needed to smile.

Maybe it’s appropriate Maggie came to me. We’re a lot alike. I’m melancholy by nature. Not depressed, but not happy either. Always conscious of the fragility of life, and the cruelties of this world.

Unlike Maggie I don’t chase stones in frigid water. I chase experiences instead. A good book, an invigorating run, bring me happiness. Although happiness might not be the right word. Because I might not smile when I read or run. But inside I feel fulfilled.

And like Maggie, I want to be around my family. That doesn’t mean I want to talk (to my lovely wife Sonja’s exasperation!). But being with them, in the house together, in the living room together, on the couch together, is the most satisfying thing I know. The closest I come to inner peace.

Fortunately, my greatest pleasure in life isn’t eating dog shit. But there is something special about seeing Maggie eat crap. Because for her it is pure joy. And pure joy, sheer happiness, is not something any of us see, or feel, often in this world.

Since September, I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing pure joy every week. My daughter Molly started dance lessons. She loves every second of it. This three-year old girl has thrown herself into the world of First Position, Pirouettes, and Le Grand Jete. It’s her passion. Not one that we have thrust upon her, but one that she clearly and instinctively feels she must do. And on Saturday mornings, Sonja and I stand on the other side of a large pane of glass and watch her and her classmates dance. Two, three and four year-old children, jumping and spinning for no other reason than the sheer joy of it. Watching Molly, watching these kids, has become the highlight of my week. One of the highlights of my life.

Molly might not exist if it wasn’t for Maggie. I met Sonja on an online dating sight. I’d posted a picture of me and Maggie. Sonja messaged me saying that my dog was cute. I responded “That’s Maggie. She eats poo.”

Maggie is asleep right now. In the corner, on her dog bed. Molly and Sonja are in the kitchen making pancakes. I’m on the couch. Smiling. Feeling very fortunate to have a sad dog. My Maggie. She and I have a lot in common.