I. PAST

she was from small pet store in a florida strip mall, next to the winn-dixie that sometimes had a chicken dressed as a mascot selling itself fried and on sale. i knew about puppy mills and frowned on chain pet stores, whatever i thought that meant. This Place, 21-year old me thought, was totally fine: BREEDERS DIRECT: Buy A Much Better Puppy For A Lot Less. i love a good deal.

chihuahua, female. all white except a little patch of fawn on her bum and on the backs of her huge ears. she was born on new year's day. according to someone who worked there, she had been purchased and brought back, so she was a couple of months older than other puppies. there was that, her crooked (broken) tail at the end, and the fact she was a runt. so, she was on super sale, i guess you could say. i remember having to come back for her, because i wanted to sleep on it. turns out, i couldn't stop picturing those massive ears--satellites above her tiny deer head--and how her nose was a shade of brown that was almost plum.

luna--or stellaluna--was named after the white bat in a children's book by the same name. she was too small for dog collars so instead she wore a tiny cat collar with a bell, for the first year or two. then she stopped wearing collars altogether. she collected my socks. she herded. she was completely silent.

in 2003, she had a liter of puppies, all boys, that i helped deliver. she didn't really understand what to do, so i helped tear their tiny amniotic sacks, used dental floss to cut and tie their umbilical cords, like i had learned about online. one of the babies was born weak and requiring surgery, so we chose to put him down that same day. the other three pups went to loving homes, and i'm still lucky enough to know one of them.

luna went through a plump phase, which was my favorite because people often laughed a little when they saw her for first time. she already looked like a magical creature, a non-dog, a gremlin, a bunny. she got smaller as she got older.

she was diagnosed with heart failure over a year ago, and given 3-6 months to live. she had a heart that had grown too large for her tiny chest--a too-big heart!--and was impacting her breathing, eating, sleeping. the heart disease gave her a persistent cough. she also had dementia, and gradually became blind, deaf, and incontinent.

in her old age, she grew more tolerant of strangers, and (on account of deafness, mostly), was relaxed most anywhere, especially if she was in my lap. she became my empress. but, she also drank her pee, which was really gross. she became completely nocturnal. she stood up for herself when mina bullied her--which was more and more often over the past few years--and was unafraid to fight back. she was beloved at the vet and popular at parties...all of which makes it sounds like she was living her best life, and i really believe that she was. but she was also living just for me, an energy i felt heavily as i watched her deteriorate. i'd wince to watch her bump into things as she rushed to greet me. you see, her sense of smell never failed her: she could wake up from a deep sleep if she smelled me enter a room. she found me, and her food, by smells and shadows.

in the end--and despite a decade and a half of near-silence--she became very, very noisy. though her bark was sometimes for joy or to let us know she was hungry! and it was 7:03pm! and where had we been! mostly, her noises were for no reason at all. chirps overnight, all night, until she forgot or fell back asleep. barking to demand a reposition of food bowls or a blanklet fluff! barking because she just woke up and so did you and she had a lot on her mind!!!!1 i've heard her chirps in my dreams and in other cities when traveling, it became that much of a constant.

II. PRESENT

yesterday, luna weighed 3.5 pounds.
i've been without her presence for less than 24-hours.
she was sixteen, and other than those first 4 months, she had spent every month thereafter with me.

the decision to put her down came with deliberation, high anxiety, monitoring of her well-being, and a rollercoaster of emotions. her heart medication had halted its growth but it was still a fatal diagnosis. the constant weighing of facts and feelings, searching her eyes for signs of pain, finding new ways to cope with her deterioration. in the last three months, i worried more about her falling down the stairs of the deck or basement than i did of her dying of old age. i found ways to strap her to my body like a baby, to soothe her between potty breaks (which sometimes were as frequent as every 15 minutes) when her dementia meant walking laps around the house. i got creative with ways to give her her meds. nursing end-of-life care is exhausting, and it is as full of love and rewards as it is pain.

finally letting her go took a breaking point, and a realization.

the breaking point: mina's admittance to the emergency vet a week and a half ago after collapsing in the kitchen. no previous conditions, zero symptoms. a completely surprise. and the diagnosis: heart failure, just like luna, only past the point of maintenance and into a full-blown incident. mina spent 3 nights on oxygen and hooked up to IVs to get her strong enough to come home. waiting for her to get discharged, the house felt empty in such a different way--because a dog full of spunk and life was suddenly hospitalized and the one that remained was sleeping all day, yipping all night in discomfort. i tried to watch a movie with luna on my lap and she was so out of it she almost peed on me. i set her down and watched her get caught under the coffee table, wince at a shadow that passed, then try to get comfortable for an hour. she was restless, and she wasn't comfortable.

the realization: things are never the same when we leave them as they were when we began. it took me being able to see the "present" luna as a separate entity to have the guts to let her go; to not hold onto the legacy of who she has been to/for me; to register the decline of the past year for what it has been and be compassionate enough to act quickly.

it is impossible to express the relief i feel. and such monumental sadness, too. but it took me this whole time to get here. it could have been sooner, but it could not have been any later.

III. FUTURE

there is going to be a point where this doesn't feel so fresh: i know this, because i can access nostalgia-without-grief when i think of khai, whom we put down five years ago. but. i will also be going through this, again, in the coming months-to-years with mina, as her diagnosis of a deteriorative, terminal illness as well.

i am down to 1 dog. and there is going to be a point pretty soon when mina is gone, and my life with the 2, 3, 5, (hell the 8 of them counting puppies), was a lifetime ago. i imagine i will always have dogs, and there were be more memories and memoriams because of it. it's the risk we take in loving these weird little creatures, and it is always worth it.

From “The Knife of Never Letting Go,” by Patrick Ness:

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rhienna