Within 1 week of each other, my dog Phelan and my cat Chewie(the tuxedo above) passed on.
I'm so hurt and so upset I don't kno show to be normal still despite the fact that Phelan died on July 31st and Chewie on July 25th. There is this incredibly hollow patch in my chest where I look for these two beloved friends and I cannot find them. Sometimes my dreams take me back to their youth and I mourn them all the more, because the illusion they are with me fade when I wake.
My life has taught me that whatever occurs these friends, what people call pets, devote themselves to us and love us so unconditionally it aches when we lose them. What hurts worst of all is the fact that these two animals were my best friends in the world.
Chewie came first. He walked up to the house and sat in the yard, frail and tiny...frightened. I came out, saw him, smiled and felt compelled to go get him. Karen had been trying all day, waiting for me to return home to tell me after work. I walked out, scooped him in my arms easily and brought him in. I'd just started playing Pokemon and decided that I would name him after my Pikachu in the game due to his "Lightning Bolt" in white on his back.
A year later we were returning from eating a meal at our favorite restaurant at the time, Millie's, and as I unlicked the front door a flash of white bolted out of the bushes and passed me running up the street. I noticed he was hobbling on 3 legs. Rather than chase him down I let him go. That night I stayed up, worried about the dog and his wound. The next morning I felt a frisson go down my back and I knew the dog was in the yard. Running out the door I saw him bolt out of the bushes the same as the night before but gave chase. He was fleet but I was not going to be stopped and hate myself that I had let this animal suffer when I could do something about it.
He ran himself into a corner 3 blocks later, panting and frightened. Looking him in the eye I could see he was partly blind, and in most pictures you can see going all the way back to his first days with us he was going blind from liver issues in one eye.
He offered no fangs and not raised hackles. Offering him my hand as I knelt there, I gave his face some loving strokes and looked at his leg. We would later learn that people had seen his owner drag him behind a motorcycle by a snapped leash and collar., resulting in a rear right leg that was split open to the muscle from toes to what amounts to a dogs ankle.
I carried him, bleeding and scared, in my arms like a baby to my home and then into my car. Dr Kumar would save his leg and later fix his many cysts.
Then Chewie decided to live up to his name and snapped a tooth in half on Karen's Wedding band for no reason we can understand. Another visit to the Vet.
Phelan started acting dopey, feverish, sick and no appetite...another visit to the Vet. Six thousand dollars in combined bills we had Chewie corrected and Phelan on medication for Rheumatoid Arthritis.
Despite all this they were loved and loved us back. Phelan would even go on to be the Ring-Bearer at my wedding, learning tricks easily and knowing them his whole life through. His favorite was "Kiss the Baby", that simple command would result in Trevor being chased and kissed...then later, albeit much slower, for Erick as well.
Chewie would meet the love of his life, my little black and white cat I named Gi-Gi after the adorable cat voiced by Phil Hartman. Gi-Gi came to us, already dying though we never knew it. Chewie would contract a disease from her that Dr Kumar could not identify. After 6 years, Gi-Gi slipped away and I buried her in the garden in Torrance. The instant she was gone, the heart went out of Chewie. His playful times were gone. We have innumerable pictures of the two lying together, eating together, cleaning each other...wedded in all ways. In a few short years Chewie's weight had gone down to next to nothing. We fed him 4 times daily and he seemed to improve.
Then, last year, Chewie and Phelan seemed to hit the same wall at the same time. Both slowed way way down, even in eating and drinking. We knew their time was coming but did as all cat owners do:Hold them tight and profess our love in the hopes that love is enough to cheat death for another day.
But as all things begin, so too must they end.
Chewie stopped eating, rarely drank, searched for comfortable places to lie out of sight. When he started looking to hide in closets I knew it was over. When a cat seeks a hidden place it wants a safe place to die unmolested. I held him and loved him, then put him in the cat bed and checked on him now and then. At last, his moment was nigh. Picking him up in the bed I went outside and sat with him as he breathed in the summery twilight air. Finally putting his head down as if to say he was too tired to look at the orange and purple sky, he breathed his last as I spoke words of com for to him.
Cradling his head in the crook of my left arm and his body in my right, I walked him to his grave and buried him alone, weeping unashamedly.
Sensing that it was time, Phelan stopped eating a couple days later. His good friend, Chewie, was gone. No canned food could tempt him, no treat or special offer of food got any notice. In days he was unable to move and began to defecate and urinate on himself. I would have to carry him out in my arms as I did when I brought him to the doctor, then carry him back in after he was done. Adrienne would wipe him clean with the baby wipes and we'd lay him on his dog bed.
At last he was struggling to breathe and we took him to Smith Veterinary. Phelan liked to go everywhere with me in the car when he was younger. So I put him in the back of the Explorer and told him we were going "Bye Byes" one last time so he would feel better.
The doctor hooked him up to the IV so she could give the injection, I held his head and he looked me in the eyes, no fear because I was with him. She pushed the plunger down and I felt his soul wash over me like warmth...he was free at last. My tears were childlike and agonized as I collapsed to the floor telling them he was gone. His head was slack now, resting on the edge of the table as I could no longer hold him...my glasses smeared with tears. The vet told me he couldn't be gone yet, then took her stethoscope out and listened...he was indeed gone when I said.
We were ushered out as they wrapped him for us in a blanket and put him on his dog bed for us to carry out.
I buried him three feet down in the garden where the grass would not grow.
Now, the grass is growing and mushrooms ring his grave as if the Faeries mourn his passing.
Something sleeps inside humanity until they love an animal that has come into their home. It sleeps and the heart never reaches out to the edges of its reach as God intended. In loving an animal like these two we touch the divine love that our Creator shares with us and intended for us to allow to rain out on those in our lives with unfettered radiance.
Any of you who stumble upon this page and read this, do one thing for me. A favor if you would.
Hold your animals closer, don't neglect a moment. Pet them when you see them, kiss them and hug them. Give them all NOW. Tomorrow is not guaranteed, forever is not ours to share. Give now or you will hate every missed moment, every lost cuddle, each neglected chance.
They are around for a short while, but their affect on our lives lasts until the very end of our days.
Rest well, Chewie. You are the best dog, Phelan.
Au Revoir.
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