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Hanna: Wisdom Dog
Photos
All Indian summers must come to an end and so did Hanna’s on May 7th. In our grief, it’s been hard to communicate much. All we can tell ourselves is that she couldn’t live forever even though it sure seemed that way.
It had been a good week for Hanna. She really loved the new high-protein diet that required that us (near) vegetarians grill her hamburgers and chicken. She’d hear Scooter start up the frying pan and become the world’s most devoted kitchen dog. She had some good visitors. The UPS guy stopped his frenetic pace to visit with her; over the years they'd become through-the-glass-door pals. Best buds Arlie and Chad came by. The play pack she ruled – puppies Mabel and Dottie, two small male neighbor dogs, and 4-year-old Elizabeth – met as usual in the driveway.
My friend Tzivia and I had gone to a weekend women’s retreat. When we returned that Sunday morning, Hanna looked her same fine self, hardly a hint of cancer. Even so, I got this clear mental message from her: “I was holding it together until you got back.” Yet she greeted Tzivia enthusiastically and then snorfled the neighborhood (a combination of sniffing and wandering). The message didn’t make sense so I discounted it.
By late afternoon she was gone. We looked out the window and saw that she was lying in an odd spot in the backyard, panting heavily. I tried to get her to move to a cooler place, but she couldn’t walk, so I rolled her on a moving platform to her favorite spot by the glass front door. Her symptoms seemed like a bad gastric problem. She had been eating rather rich! It wasn’t until a half hour or so before she died that we realized the truth. Then all we could do was stay with her in honor as witness.
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It's strange how Scooter and I have become pros at this: the singing, soothing and stroking during the death process, the stepping back just slightly at the end and letting them die on their own, the vigil by the body and dressing it with sacred herbs, the 18-mile trip to the crematorium. And then the afterward, the writing of the death date on the calendar, the putting away of the food bowl, medicines and vet files. The mundane actions to do so you don't crater all at once, the odd comfort of weeping while washing dishes.
Hanna was a crone among canines, a true wisdom dog. In this sad after time with no Hanna in the house, there’s been many moments when we wish the puppies had absorbed more of that. They’re not even interested in retrieving balls! I suppose they’ll grow into it. We still feel her presence strongly here. As a banshee of grieving, I vacuumed the entire house, finding all of Hanna’s old toys in the process and putting them sadly away. The next day, I walked into my office and there in the middle of the floor where Hanna used to lay was her beloved blue ball.
For me, Hanna’s death isn’t just the loss of a wonderful friend. It’s the end of over 35 years of Labrador companions: Jasmine, Bo, Sandra, Georgia, Maggie, and Hanna. She was the grande dame, the end of the line. Hanna was an intrepid trailfinder at Osage Moon. She helped us forge a path through some dense cedar woods that we dubbed Hanna’s Trail. In March, while hiking to grieve the loss of my friend Dee, Hanna helped me find a secret grove of large hardwood trees that had somehow escaped cedar encroachment. We then connected it to her trail. What a magical afternoon that was. Sometime this summer we’ll take her ashes back there, saving some for the mound in the North Meadow where she and Maggie spent many happy sunset hours, snorfling.
Hanna: April 1, 1993 – May 7, 2006
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