Sad Goodbye

October 1996
I was 15 years old. We had just moved to Michigan.
One weekend my mom, sister, and I went back to Indiana to visit friends plus there was a big youth event at the college I would go to in a few years. (My dad had also been the pastor at the college church there for the last few years before we had moved to MI.)

My mom and I were walking across campus up to the Student Center when we noticed this guy. In his arms was this tiny little fuzzy puppy. We had to stop because that puppy was one of the cutest things that we had ever seen. My mom (who talks to everyone!) started asking about the puppy. The guy said that he had been walking from class and saw him lying on the side of the road. He went and picked him up and noticed that he had just been sleeping and looked to be fine but there was no one around so he guessed someone had just abandoned the puppy. He went on to say that there was no way he could keep him cause he lived in the dorm. Soon my mom was taking the dog from the guys arms and said that we would take him to a vet and maybe a shelter.

The dog never made it to a shelter.

He travelled back with us to Michigan and became a new member of our family.

When we first took him to the vet they said he was maybe 3 to 4 weeks old. They said he would probably be a small dog.... (He really was the smallest puppy!)

Soon that puppy started to grow and we knew he was not going to be small. We took him back to the vet and they said he was actually a Golden Retriever, but because of the spots on his tongue and "downyness" of his fur they thought he had some Chow in him too.

He would continue to grow (up to 75lbs) and we all fell in love with him.

He was there for all my high school years. He was there when Josh and I first started to date. He was there to wag his tail and greet all of our friends who were over at our house all the time. (Our house was the "hang out house".) I have pictures of me in all 3 of my prom dresses and my graduation gown with him by my side.

He was there when I went off to college and then was my sister's best friend when the rest of my family went off to live in Kansas. I remember being so happy to see him when I would get to go home.

On the day that Josh and I got married, he sat by my side as I had my make up done and I also have pictures of me in my wedding dress with my arms around his furry neck.

Not long after we moved to NC and bought our own house my mom and dad asked if he could come live with Josh and I. They were starting to travel a lot and there was no one at home anymore to take care of him. So about 6 years ago, Zeke moved in with us.

He slept beside my bed all the nights that Josh was working all night long and I was home alone. He was there the day we brought home our first newborn baby, Alyse Nicole.

There are a lot of good memories with Zeke as part of the story...

I could tell you about the one Thanksgiving where my mom left a fresh out of the oven turkey on the kitchen table. Zeke knew it smelled good, but he really didn't know what to do with it so he just decided to take it upstairs to the bed and hide it behind the pillows like he usually did with all his bones.

I could tell you about how he would never run away.... except for when we lived a block away from an elementary school. If he ever got the chance he would just trot down the road and sit in the middle of the playground during recess and then when it was over he would come back home.

I could tell you about how he went to church with us many times.... (When your the pastor's family's dog it is ok to follow everyone from the parsonage to the church building and hang out in the sanctuary or church office.)

I could tell you about one Christmas Break we were going to go to Canada to visit my mom's family. My mom decided that it was a pretty long trip so she got some pills from the vet that would help him sleep during the trip. We gave him 1/2 a pill on Christmas Eve to see how it would effect him for a trial run. He was so sleepy and could not walk for 2 days because he was so drugged up!

I could tell you about how he loved snow! There was one year when it snowed so much that when our circular drive was plowed there was this huge snow mound that went all the way to my parent's bedroom window on the 2nd floor. So in order to let the dog out, we opened the window and he would just hop out and hang out on top of that snow mound for awhile.

I could tell you about how he was totally intimidated by our cat Bubba. The cat would sit by our bedroom door "guarding it" so Zeke would just sit in the hallway and whine until finally I would have to move the cat out of the way so Zeke could walk into the room.

I could tell you about how Alyse would ride on him, dress him up, feed him food she made for him in her kitchen, would read books to him, and kiss him goodnight every naptime and bedtime, and say goodbye to him every time we left the house.

But instead I will just tell you that we had to say goodbye to him this weekend forever.

I knew it was coming. We all did.

His face had gotten very gray. His eyes were so blurry from cataracts that he could hardly see. He had a chronic ear infection that had basically made him deaf. His back hips and legs were so bad that he couldn't really do stairs anymore and his legs would just give out and he would fall down a lot.

There were many times I would come home and Zeke would not be at the door to greet us. He was so sleepy (and deaf) that he would not wake up. I told Josh that I feared coming home and finding him dead.

For the past 2 weeks he has had a lot of issues. (I won't go into details...) I knew he was sick. I knew he was in pain. I knew something was wrong.

I took him with me to my parent's house and they called a lady in their church who is a vet. She said she would check him out for us. After 2 hours at her office this past week where he had blood work, urine test, x-rays, ultrasounds, and major examination we were told that he was really sick.

Besides all the stuff that we knew was wrong with him he also had something wrong with his spleen, and masses in his bladder, liver, and prostate that were cancerous and it looked like the cancer was spreading fast.

We all knew that we had to put him to sleep.

I told my parents they had to do it. I really, really did not want to take him home and do it.

So when it was time for Alyse and I to leave we said our final goodbye to Zeke.

It was very hard for me. He has been in my life for almost 14 years!
I cried...but I know it was the best thing to do.

I will really miss him!

I'm not really sure when they are taking him... My sister is going this weekend to say goodbye, so it will probably be on Monday.

He really was the best dog! He loved kids!!! He never really barked (he was almost a year old before we heard him bark) and NEVER jumped on people. He never ran away (you could leave the door open and he would sit there waiting for you to come back in and not even try to run.) He loved people, but if you weren't a "dog person" he was ok to sit and just stare at you from across the room. He wasn't a huge "licker" and if he did lick you it was this little baby lick with just the tip of his tongue. I don't think I ever heard him growl at anyone or anything. He was just happy to be family dog who was every one's best friend.

In reality I do have to say that he did drool... He also made my carpet pretty dirty... Plus the last year or so had a skin condition that would be similar to Lupus in a person so his skin would "flare up" and he would lick and chew at it which I always had to yell at him for. He also would get so hot with all of his fur that he would lay there breathing super heavy/pant. That drove me crazy!!! But really if you love a dog, you look past all those things.

It isn't only sad to lose a dog.... (I've done that twice before - once in high school with our family dog Gideon, and then a little over a year ago with Bo.) It is now that we have a dog free house. I've had a dog since I was 2! A lot of those years I have had 2 dogs. Now there is not one dog in this house.

That makes me sad..... and lonely!