June so far

Yesterday, my mom reprimanded me for neglecting the blog.  Believe me, I'm trying.  The thing is, I think I sleep more than Osa did.  (Does that mean our new baby will be a good sleeper?  Wink, wink.)

Juniper soaking up the morning sun, talking on her "phone."  

::We've had a good June so far.  We miss our old girl, especially the spit-shine job she did on our kitchen floor, but everything around us has been so blooming with life....  As they say, Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.

My sincerest thank you to everyone who sent us your thoughts over our loss of Osa.    

This week has been off-and-on oozing and drizzly.  Bright green leaves dripping, birds the hot colors of fire flitting around our house--orange, black, red, neon yellow.  Some days I feel like we live in a tropical rain forest.  But other days we have hot sun and give ourselves chores outside so we can stay out well past naptime.

Scrounging up "mulch" for our last-minute potato patch.  

Sunning diapers.  

Helping in the garden. 


:: The other weekend, we had an awesome time in the hot sun with old friends.  Celebrated a 4th birthday at a good friend's house that is like a built-in carnival complete with 3 kids, 2 cousins, jungle gym, sand box and trampoline, topped off with some pig-chasing and horse rides.  

Juniper was all smiles her first time atop an ungulate.

The birthday girl (and her little brother).

:: We spend drizzly days trying to decide on paint colors.  Check out the future home of our new kitchen and dining area:

The contractor's almost done--then it's our turn, yikes!  


:: In the bag of maternity hand-me-downs was a package of disposable premie diapers.  We pulled out a couple just for fun and, turns out, put-the-diaper-on-the-Kenya-doll is Juniper's favorite indoor activity.  She can do the sticky tabs herself, but if left entirely to her own devices, the diaper often ends up on the wrong body part.  She loves diapering her dolls and animals and begs for us to help pleading, Open? Open? More? More?  She also loves cleaning them and blowing their noses.  And--just lately--her bear and dog have been going poo-poo and pee-pee on the potty.  (This could be our big break-through as Juniper has been on a potty boycott.)  

:: We've colored before, but she wasn't really into it.  Now, she asks, Crans?

That said, we're still working on the ONLY ON THE PAPER bit.    
  
:: Juniper now chooses at least one piece of her own clothing for the day and nearly always checks herself out in the mirror.  She is always pleased with her own reflection.  Can't say we disagree.

:: It's nice having a garden for an outdoor chore even if our harvest is a moot point because we'll (hopefully) be moved.  

Besides, sometimes you run into cool things like your first salamader:

This is Juniper trying to say "salamander."


Verbally, Juniper is basically a parrot.  She has several hundred words and will try almost anything on for size, occasionally stringing two together.  Our personal favorites are her own name, Ju-per and, WOW!!  Today, she was climbing into a canoe (on the ground, not in the water) and told herself, Careful.  

:: Yesterday it rained nearly all day, and then this:

Our hillsides are bursting with balsamroot, but down here on the cottonwood floor it's mostly grass--with one exception.  There is one large, lone clump of balsamroot squarely at the base of a cottonwood.  I've noticed it from the highway.  It's so perfect, it almost looks as though it were planted.  So bugs and I headed out to find it.

Juniper: Flowers!  Wow!  Pretty.  

  
'Night everyone.

Also, I haven't forgotten the long-lost turkey camp post : )  

sea without salt

Every morning Juniper wakes up and says, Daddy!  And then, Osa?  

I miss her terribly.  I miss her the way the sea would miss salt, the way mountains would miss snow, the way spring would miss rain.

Her absence is visceral, like I have a hole in my belly.

It breaks my heart to know that in a month or two we'll be moving into a house that has never known Osa.  No scratch marks on the door, no pee-stains on the carpet, no black hairs tucked under the furniture, no elk legs and rawhides strewn about the yard.  How will we remember?

I bury my face in her bed.  I open the lid to her dog food container just to take a whiff.  I keep her water bowl full.  During our night-night routine with Juniper we still end with, Goodnight Osa.    

Loosing a dog is like loosing your left arm.  The always-thereness, the always-needing--food, water, pills, walks, outside, inside, pets, kisses---and then not.  I've spent more time with Osa than I have with my own husband.  

Juniper is being so helpful.  When I start dry-heaving in the mornings, she hands me my puke bowl and starts imitating my sounds.  When I get weepy over Osa, she holds a handkerchief to my nose and tries to wipe away the tears.  

There are things I regret, there is guilt.  I wish I could have her last full-day back.  I wish I had known it was the last.  We knew she probably wouldn't make it through the summer but every time she was knocked down, she got back up.  We couldn't predict when she wouldn't rise again.

Last night we watched Marley & Me.  There is a scene towards the end where Owen Wilson's character and Marley are taking a slow walk through an autumn field.  They stop, sit down, and he says, "You're going to let me know, right?  You know, when it's time?  I don't want to make that decision on my own.  You let me know when you're ready, okay?"  

That's what Osa did for us.  That was her last gift to us.  We never thought she would; we thought we'd have to do the math, counting tail-wags and calculating good days versus bad.

That morning my husband awoke early, came to me and said, Osa can't get up.  He'd found her collapsed in a puddle of pee by the front door.  He got her outside, where she hobbled and fell down.  He carried her back inside, laid her on her bed.  From early morning until her heart stopped beating that afternoon, Osa stayed in the same position--not even twitching a leg--as though she were paralyzed from the neck down.  She was exhausted.  She wouldn't eat or drink until noon when Juniper was able to feed Osa her last meal, kibble by kibble.  Then, she ate happily, her ears flopping like a puppy, her gray muzzle searching out the next piece.

We made an appointment with the vet.  I brushed her, rubbed the inside of her ears, told her she'd get to see Nick and Rosie, play tug-of-war with Lepricon, that Jim would pour bacon drippings on an endless bowl of dog food.  I thanked her for everything she gave me, everything she taught me, for all of our years together.  I told her I was sorry for every time I got mad or frustrated with her.  I remembered her body before it was bony and bloated; the way I would fawn over her slick black coat, the tuft of gray on her butt, her perfect paws....the same way we fawn over Juniper now.  I kissed her and smoothed the bridge of her muzzle.  I told her she was the best, best dog.

My husband carried her, bed and all, into the vet's office.  A young woman read books to Juniper in the lobby.  We sat on the floor in a quiet back room.  I held Osa's head in my hands.  We told her it was okay, that she gets to go on one more trip.  The vet said she would just slip away.  I don't know when exactly her heart stopped, but I felt her head relax and become heavy in my hands.  She died in her bed, with four balsamroot flowers on her ribs, one for each of her family members.

We wanted her cremated.  That was the hardest part: leaving her alone on the floor of the vet's office, getting back in the car without her.      

One reader of my blog commented that it's hard loosing *that* dog.  The dog that has seen you through a coming-of-age, through dating and wedding your spouse, through several moves, through the birth of your first child.  Loosing her is like having to close the book on the first chapter of my adult life.      

But.  I am grateful.

Osa, you get to go

You've probably been expecting a post about our turkey hunting trip for weeks now.  I apologize, it's coming.  I have *still* been tired and--though less nauseas--vomiting more frequently.  This is not what I was intending to post tonight.  But sometimes, life chooses for us and we go with it.  

:: I rescued Osa from the pound in 2000.  We had one night home and by the second night we were tent partners.  She rode shotgun and slept in my sleeping bag.  Osa became badly epileptic at 2 and has since been a high-maintenance pain-in-the-ass.  And yet always, thoroughly, undeniably, loved.  She has been the best dog.

Osa started her life with me as a backpacker and when I look back through the photos of our life together, I realize that she has been more places and seen more things than your average American, let alone your average dog.  The words she's always perked her ears for: "Osa, you get to go!"   

Except a handful of trips overseas, Osa and I have gone everywhere together.  

Yet despite all our rugged outdoor adventures, Osa has always been soft, goofy, clumsy and a touch lazy.  It's the part of her that's kept us laughing.  

  

And she's hung in there through our greatest adventure of all: 

:: Today, Osa took her last trip.  We laid a bouquet of balsamroot flowers on her chest and whispered in her ear,  It's okay.  You get to go.  You get to go.

I think we gave her a good life.  And I know we loved the hell out of her.

See you on the other side, old girl.