He ate his last breakfast with relish. Drank both times when I brought him fresh water. But he didn't even try to get up anymore. He knew.
I had always hoped that he would die peacefully in his sleep. Or that we would have time to call the vet who had known him for all of his life. The vet had retired six months earlier, sold the surgery. And it was Sunday, the duty vet someone we had never met.
For the very first time in his life he was not reluctant to enter a surgery. Lifted from the car, he went in there, laid down all by himself. I bedded his face in my right hand, stroked his shoulder with the other.
He knew. He wasn't afraid, just expecting for everything to become right again, one more time. When it took three attempts for the needle to enter the artery, he raised his head from my hand, looked at me, asking, questioning. I do not know what I replied. But he trusted me, relaxed, rested his head on my palm, received a last kiss on his cheek. A moment later he was no more. He left a huge gaping void, one that can never be filled.
I remember very little of what followed over the next hours and days. The first Friday evening I heard a car door slam in front of the house. My heart leaped, I thought "At last they're bringing him back", when at the same instant realisation set in that there was no "back", and there weren't any "they".
The hurt of losing him will always be there. As will be the very fond memories of things we did, experienced, enjoyed together. Yet for a long time I had and still have to constantly remind me that however short twelve years appear to be, I was really lucky to have had him for so long, possibly more than his fair share of life expectancy.
I associate the open sea with liberty, freedom, nature's domain; always have. That's where we scattered his ashes five weeks later. Doing so did not bring the closure I expected, had hoped for. Not for me. I don't believe there ever will be.
Subconsciously there was a long phase of waiting for things to get back to normal, for life to repair itself somehow, for a very bad dream to end. It won't happen the way one wants. One day you may realise that a chapter in your life has ended, and a new one begun.
Even though the thought of finality, the thought that you never ever will see, cuddle, hold again, is painful, it is a fact of life. Life which ends in death after a prescribed duration, an average life expectancy that differs from species to species.
There isn't a day I don't think about him. Some days missing him badly, others full of fond memories, bringing a smile, lighting eyes, when I think about the many ways he managed to make us laugh, not at, but with him, again and again; the ways he filled me with pride, made life more complete.
At first, when there is nothing but pain, a sense of loss, grief, it is difficult, near impossible, to remember the many nice times one had.
Yet it does happen. Gradually, unexpectedly. And as unexpectedly, as one sometimes relives all the pain again because one remembers something, triggered by an action, a phrase, a smell, a sound, some seemingly unrelated event.
His "it wasn't me"-sigh, his "putting a foot down"-tapping could be annoying when I was reading in the evening. I have read very little since. Nearly every book I started in some way seemed to touch on what was hurting. Even music can be painful. When I listened to Deliverance again - for the first time in many years - I was back in the duty surgery: "Into your hands I deliver my body, into your hands I deliver my soul..." And Justin Hayward's Forever Autumn surely tears a soul to shreds.
It's not just that there is a soul missing from your home. It's also the extra time. Time that often seems to stand still. Although almost a year has passed since, there isn't really much to show for.
To keep busy and to preserve memories we transferred what little - far too little - we had filmed over the years onto computer; then organised and scanned photos. First just dog related, later everything: old and faded black and white photos, brittle film reels and personal videos. Some of the videos are still painful to watch. Others make me smile, fond, full of relived heart warming and glowing pride.
Coping not just with loss but also the suddenly unused time, knowing what to do, to distract oneself, is difficult, near impossible, at first.
Yet it does get easier with time. Ever so slightly. Not gradually, not controlled. Rather in leaps and bounds and full of surprises and hurt and smiles and pain and loving memory and laughs and the totally unexpected. Like the lady collecting for the RSPCA at the supermarket, with a very grey faced, elderly, and frail Irish next to her. One look brought everything back again.