I Would Give Anything to Take It Back. My New Home All Over Again, Only Emptier

TRIGGER WARNING: This is about the unexpected loss of a beloved dog.

Mulder, Maria, Hoss, and Pascal

Last Saturday, Denny and I were invited out to see our friend Eric play in a band. We came home at 12:30 p.m. to find Hoss, our 11 year-old dachshund, missing. We found him after an exhaustive search, but there was no joy in the reunion. Only tremendous sadness.

Our spirited, tenacious companion had been struck and killed by a vehicle on the highway that runs in front of our new home. We have no idea how he got out of the fence, but he did. I called and called and called for him. I willed my ears to hear his collar. They didn’t. His apologetic, playful yelp didn’t answer me no matter how loudly I shouted his name.

Then I saw my husband turn off the highway into my parent’s driveway and jump out of the van. It was dark, so he was only a shadow cast by the sodium arc lamp on our neighbors garage. I saw his shadow slow down, and I started to run. Then I saw the shadow of his hand raise to his forehead and his body go into a crouch, and I stopped dead in my tracks. I willed my ears to not hear the confirmation, but they did. Denny cried out in sorrow as he found his best friend.

But our Hoss was gone even after he was found.

Our tremendously kind new neighbor, Sean, carried him off the road for us and took Hoss' body to his garage. I stood and wept with Denny, then decided that I couldn’t just leave Hoss in a strange garage lying on the floor. Sean had kindly wrapped Hoss in a sheet. I picked him up for the last time and started home. Denny met me half way.

I loved Hoss, but the true love affair was the one between Hoss and Denny. Denny held out his arms, gathered Hoss to his chest, and finished Hoss’ last trip home. I stood weeping with Zoe while I watched the shadowed outline of the love of my life carry Hoss across the yard that separates my parent’s house from our new home. It was one of the saddest things I have ever witnessed.

A second, tremendously-kind new neighbor, Nancy, took Hoss to the animal hospital where she works on the following morning, a Sunday, and made all of the arrangements for his cremation. Denny accompanied her to our house to pick him up. Giving Denny the last goodbye was the least that I could do to honor their otherworldly connection.

I am glad it was Denny that found him. It was Denny that loved him more completely than anyone else, so it was a fitting tribute to their life together that Denny was his first witness in death. That may sound strange, but it is truly how I feel. It seems to me that it gave Hoss back some of the honor of which he was so suddenly stripped at the moment when  our lives were so heartbreakingly impacted.

It wasn’t until this evening, two days later, as I was getting ready to go to town with my mom that a brief fog cleared in my brain.

“I’m going to put the dogs inside,” Denny said.

I was rushing him and my sister-in-law, Becky, out the door. It was Saturday night, and we were meeting friends to hear Eric play. I wanted to get there.

“Denny, don’t be silly,” was my reply, or something of that nature. “All three dogs just ate and need to be outside,” I continued. “They will be fine.”

That is a direct quote.

I was wrong. I was so very wrong. But Denny and Hoss trusted me.

It was such a mistake.

I was wrong. I have never been more so, and they were wrong to trust me. Although I had never given either of them any reason not to trust me before that night, that night they shouldn’t have.

They did.

I am reeling.

I would give anything to take my assurance back – to stop and let Denny dote once more on his beloved pet, allowing Hoss free reign of the house on a full belly and bladder. I would give anything to take back my assurance.

I cannot.

So here I sit in this house that was once more new to me on June 6, 2011, and, once more, is new all over again.

Hoss let us know when someone was coming in the driveway. He pestered us to join him on one of his endless games of fetch, regardless of the stage of conference call or cooking in which we were involved. His collar jingled around the house merrily as he randomly checked on his people, always ending up either at Denny’s feet or in his arms once his rounds were compete. He slept at our feet and, if I got up to go to the bathroom, always moved into my spot – understanding in the depth of his soul that it was really him that Denny wanted to be cuddled up with anyway.

That home ceased to exist last Saturday. Now I am getting used to a new home once again. It is the same, only emptier.

I now live in a house filled with a void caused by those I love misplacing their trust in me.

And I am reeling.

I am sorry. I am so very sorry. I am so, so sorry.I will never not be sorry.

My sorrow doesn’t change the fact that I am sitting in my once-again new home willing my ears to hear Hoss’ happy jingles coming up from the basement. But they don’t. Instead I hear the void, the clarity of what isn’t there.

And I am so sorry.