Friday, January 10, 2014

Eulogy for Walter

For nearly twelve years Walter has been my constant and most faithful companion.  My best friend.  I have had a lot of dogs; in fact I currently have seven but none of them have ever been as close to my heart.

On the night Walter was born, March 10, 2002 he struggled to survive.  He had his first of many trips to pet emergency within 24 hours of birth.  For the next three days I kept him in my shirt for warmth, nestled between my breasts and suspended and held in place by my bra and a wash cloth.  I fed him from a bottle and stimulated him to pee and poo with a wet washcloth rubbed on his belly.  Within a few days he was ready to return to his mother, but our bond had been set in stone.  His birth mother was his source of nutrition, but I was Mama.

As soon as he could walk he would follow me around the house.  Out of seven puppies he was the only one to figure out how to climb out of the pen we had set up in the dining room.  He learned how to do it because he was trying to follow me out the front door.  He got to the top of the 3 foot panel and then fell over onto his face on the other side.  He immediately got up and followed me outside.

Walter has been with me during the worst part of my life.  The only way I made it out of the hell of losing Morgan and the insanity that followed was to walk and walk and walk.  He was with me every step of the way; hundreds, perhaps thousands of miles.  We covered nearly every square inch of Eastern Washington, North Idaho and Western Montana.  He only complained once when we were up on the Kettle Crest and it was too damn hot with no shade.  As he started aging we started taking more and more canoe trips so he did not have to walk as far.  He was always a hit at Priest Lake, sitting tall in the canoe as I paddled through the Narrows.  There are a lot of people with pictures of him on their camera.  I was wanting to hit Ross Lake with him this coming summer but he will have to go in spirit.

Though I have always known it was inevitable, I was not ready for him to go.  He was starting to have some spinal issues that affected his back legs, and his mind was starting to go but he seemed fine until the last couple of weeks.  Walters GI system was never right and when he did not feel good he craved anything he could find.  One time he had a towel removed from his stomach, another time he actually passed 12 feet of rope.  This past Wednesday January 8, my birthday, he was found to have a bowel obstruction.  I could not put him through the surgery again with the shape that he was in physically and mentally.  You see, I do not believe that death is the worst thing.  Walter is fine now.  Energy is neither created nor destroyed and that is what I believe the soul is.  It is energy.  His energy may be held all together or it may have dispersed and mingled with the energy of the universe, but he is out there somewhere.

When it was time for him to go, I laid down on the floor of the exam room with him and held him like the way we always snuggled.  He was sedated because he had been in tremendous pain.  I spooned him and kept my arms around him until long after he was gone.  I made him a promise though.  I told him that when I get his ashes back I am going to keep a small vial of them around my neck.  Every time I go someplace special, magical, or beautiful I am going to leave some of him there.  I hope he approves.

I have let life get in the way for the past couple of years.  I have not been blogging because I have not been tending to my soul.  Losing Walter has reminded me of this.  I am going to continue with this blog and resurrect it.  I may walk the hills with a different companion but I will always be traveling with Walter.














































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