My beautiful Daisy girl is gone

And I will be crying floods, it seems, for the duration

Me and Daisy, when she was just a pup, 17 years ago

A vase of purple iris and white narcissus peeks over the top of my laptop. The flowers are from my daughter, who was totally unreachable for the last seven months and has been largely unreachable for more than three years.

We reunited this week over the plight of Daisy, my dear old golden retriever, whom we put down yesterday evening.

I’m a mess. My eyes hurt from crying.

She was by my side, totally devoted to me, for 17 years. Yesterday, as usual, she lay behind my office chair as I worked. For 17 years, she attended me. For 17 years, she rested her head on my foot. She followed me from room to room, attached by a four-foot long, invisible tether.

She was the best dog ever. And I had a great dog before—another golden retriever, of course, who was also, of course, the best dog ever.

When my daughter, at age four, began begging for a dog, I withstood it as long as I could. I didn’t want another dog because I didn’t see how I could go through the pain of the loss again.

I eventually wore down, and we got Daisy, our golden girl.

She was the most beautiful dog. On the way into the vet’s yesterday, a passing couple exclaimed, “What a beautiful puppy!” On her way to be euthanized, in her last moments, she was still a beauty, with the aura of a pup, even with a tumor in her mouth the size of a softball. Her capacious mouth that had held (and peeled) hundreds of tennis balls still covered the tumor.

She really was unusually beautiful. Her coat was a rich tone between butter and sugar just beginning to caramelize. Her face beautifully proportioned. She was on the small side. She sashayed like no one else for most of her life, until her hips got too stiff. She was a real lady.

My daughter came to my side in these hard moments. She got the ball rolling in fact when she left a letter on the dining table last week, after coming by for a visit while I was in the City (San Francisco). At that time, she was still avoiding me, but wanted to come see Daisy.

In her letter, she said she was shocked by Daisy’s condition.

Everyone was telling me it was time.

But, yesterday morning, Daisy walked me all the way to her favorite destination: the biscuit jar in front of the hair salon by the Mountain View cemetery. Lo and behold, there were biscuits there. Oh, joy! Happy day. The last two times, they were cleaned out.

She ate the chicken stew wet food my daughter brought last week with gusto. She gobbles treats like a champ. On our walk home yesterday, a passerby offered her a bit of freeze-dried liver. Boy did she love that.

But, yesterday, stationed behind my desk chair, she began trembling, especially her head. There was a tremor and a tremble, sometimes pretty violent shaking, that came and went. I gave her a pain killer. Even though the shocked vets last week told me to dose her on the regular with the strong painkillers I had from an old incident, I wasn’t doing that because they made her collapse in the hindquarters. But, yesterday when I noticed the trembling, I gave her one encased in butter.

After her initial visit, where she left the letter, my daughter came again to see Daisy. This time, she braved a visit with me as well. This was a few days ago. Everything felt very delicate and fragile. But, she indicated she’d like to stay for dinner, and she made rice. I heated up some beans I’d made and retrieved the chicken salad my son’s girlfriend made over the weekend. We sat down to eat together, and things began to settle. I began to feel a little safer, and I imagine she did too.

Yesterday, my daughter came by with a friend of ours she’d met for lunch. J., our friend, is also a dog person and has known Daisy since her puppyhood. She got out of the car, took one look at Daisy, and said, Oh, Christy, it’s time. She gave Daisy a treat and saw the tumor and cried, Oh, Christy.

I said, feebly, It’s mostly cosmetic. The vet last month said it wasn’t causing her pain.

Just then, Daisy collapsed. Her knees gave out from the pain pill.

J. and my daughter M. both said, It’s time.

I made an appointment for 4:30 p.m. yesterday afternoon.

I thought I would be ready. I thought I’d been preparing for this for quite a while. I thought I had mourned, and accepted.

None of that was true.

Killing your dog. Man, it feels like an utter betrayal. I have a visceral hatred for the goddamn syringe.

I hated that the vet entered the room with the syringe.

I despised that she held the effing thing cupped in her hand while she told us what to expect.

In fact, I freaked out when she approached my baby. I cried, I’m not ready!

She left. Said something about giving us some more time.

When she closed the door behind her, M. and I cried and cooed and stroked Daisy.

I said, How am I going to be able to do this? Once we allow her to give the first shot, there’s no going back.

M. said, I know, Mom. But if we leave, we just have to come back in two weeks or a month, and it will be just as hard, if not harder.

I wanted to flee that place, with my Daisy girl in tow.

It didn’t help that Daisy was up and about, eager to get out of there as well.

We called her back to the stupid blanket/bed the staff had placed there.

The vet re-entered.

We allowed her to inject my beautiful girl.

The vet said, It will take about five minutes. She’ll go to sleep. Then, I’ll return and inject her with the barbiturate that will stop her heart. It’s basically an overdose of anesthesia.

Such horror.

Even more horrible, Daisy didn’t go to sleep. She seemed utterly unfazed for five minutes. Eventually, she grew calm and put her head down on her paw, but she kept her eyes open and remained very present with us.

The vet looked in the window of the door and left. A few minutes later, she returned with a young assistant. They knelt on the floor. I couldn’t look at the vet. The young assistant asked us about our favorite things about Daisy. She distracted us this way. I gushed about Daisy being the utterly best fetcher in the whole world, which she was.

Her obsession with the ball was unsurpassable. In fact, every walk I took with her for years, until recently, she’d literally find a tennis ball. She’d sniff them out. Our house was full of old tennis balls, half of them peeled, one of her favorite hobbies.

The vet began shaving a bit of fur from Daisy’s back leg. I said, Why do you have to shave her?

She said, So I can see the vein.

That’s when I hid behind my daughter’s shoulder.

M. held my hand. Tight. I held her hand. Tight.

I cooed and stroked Daisy’s head and told her over and over again that she was my own true baby girl. At one point, I stopped my litany, and M. said, Keep going, Mama, keep telling Daisy she’s your best girl.

With my peripheral vision, I saw the vet bring a stethoscope toward Daisy’s chest. M. said, No!

The vet said, She’s gone.

I couldn’t tell at first. Her beautiful eyes were half open, my dark-eyed beauty. We laughed for years at her heavy eyeliner and long blonde eyelashes. What a combo!

Her eyes were liquid like a deer’s. Like a seal’s. Large, expressive, and full of love.

The vet said, I’ll give you a few minutes.

We used more than half the box of kleenex.

We stroked Daisy’s body and continued to talk to her.

After a while, M. said, Now she’s really gone.

After sobbing together for a while longer, we got up and staggered out of there holding each other.

The vet was on the phone.

It felt wrong to leave Daisy alone. We waited for the vet to finish her call. She said, Do you want a hug? Even though I didn’t like her, I accepted her hug, and I appreciated it, but it began another sobbing jag.

It was sunny when we went in, dark when we left. I had only my prescription sunglasses.

M. drove us back to my place.

She got Daisy’s bed out of my bedroom and put it in the car. She gathered her leashes.

Later, she told me she put Daisy’s collar in the antique secretary in the living room.

It’s where I display the ceramic figurines M. made when she was a little girl, behind the glass doors.

It’s a good place for Daisy’s collar. I haven’t gone to look. I can’t.

I thought I’d be okay by now. I’m not.

I wanted this essay to go beyond just this sad story. To be a bigger story or theme, to help others, to broaden into something unexpected or beautiful.

I don’t have it in me.

Thank you for listening to Daisy’s story.

It’s also the story of my daughter, M., who came through for me hugely yesterday.

I lost my golden girl, the one of the liquid dark eyes. I regained, perhaps, my beautiful daughter who held me like no other yesterday. My daughter who brought immense strength, wisdom, and compassion to our dear girl, to me, and to our situation yesterday.

She, also, is a dark-eyed beauty.

She let me hide behind her shoulder, and I was grateful.

She gripped my hand, I needed that so much.

She steadied me.

We brought Daisy’s leftover fancy wet food back to the pet story and got a card with credit for it. M. left Daisy’s bed and a bag of dog food and some treats against the pet store wall in the parking lot.

We crossed the street to Cato’s, the pub on Piedmont Avenue. M. got a cider. We shared nachos.

We sat side by side. Shoulder to shoulder.

I told her I love her, that I want the best for her.

She said if I cross boundaries and begin thrusting my anxieties at her, telling her what to do, or flooding her with job listings, apartment listings, and “advice,” she’ll “beat my ass.”

:)

Since I don’t want my ass beaten by my daughter, I will be good.

I said, Maybe we need a safe word. She said, What do you mean? I said, Some word that I know I’m starting to do the thing. She said, The word is “Stop,” Mom. Okay?

Okay.

M. and Daisy a few years ago