I’ve lost 3 of my best friends over the last few years. My old hound mutt Penny, the best dog I’ll ever know. My old horse, Sunshine, who I rescued many years ago but turned out she was the one who saved me. she is my one in a million horse of a life time. My old cat Ozzie, found him under a bush as a bitty kitten and he was my baby boy for 18 years. When each started to fail and the light was dimming in old eyes, I thought I can’t do this again but each one prepared me to love the next one to come along and keep a place for each
new pet in my heart.
The greatness of my dear old departed friends is in although the pain in loss is unbearable at times, knowing them was worth it. I know there is a place where they are waiting for me. When Penny died, my daughter was at work in another state, she didn’t know her childhood friend had died yet. She had closed the store, all the doors were locked and her co-worker said “look there’s an old woman in the showroom” They both saw an old lady in a brown coat standing looking at them for an instance and then she was gone. I think it was Penny. She also visited my friend, who was away showing her dog at the time of Penny’s death. She had a dream that night that her father, who had died was sitting at the Dairy Queen of her childhood home and Penny walked up to him and he said “come on Penny,
I’ll get you an ice cream”
The odd thing was the day I put Penny down, the only regret I had was I was so overwhelmed with emotion I didn’t get her one last ice cream. On the way home from the vet I thought, why didn’t I do that for her, and it made me sad. When I told my friend Penny had died, I didn’t mention my guilt over the ice cream but she told me about
the dream she had that night.
Oh, I think her dad met Penny and got her the ice cream. My old horse had hung on for a while in her declining years, she had good days and bad days. I work nights and my routine is to say good night to her on my way to work, we would stand in the moonlight and she’d lift a hind leg for me to scratch her boom-booms and then we’d stand quietly and enjoy the quiet, 2 old friends. At some point during the night she went down, but struggled up to her feet.
I saw the ruts in the dirt around her. She was afraid to go down again when I saw her, legs braced and head low, fighting so hard. I called out the vet, her heart was too big to let herself go but she was at the end. I held her around her neck and she put as much weight on me as I could stand but no more. Me her and my other horse,
her best friend waited for the vet.
The 2 horses said good by as clearly as if they had spoken. The friend nuzzled the old mare from her nose to her hind foot and the 2 stood with me between them breathing on each other, softly nickering and comforting each other. When the vet got there, we put my old friend down. My last words were I’ll see you again. After she was buried, me and my other horse laid down on the spot where she died, my other horse rolled in the dirt and wailed, I rolled down there with her and
we grieved her loss.
Then, my horse got up and never looked for her friend again. I understood what they both had told me, life goes on. It was the greatest gift my old horse gave me after many gifts, how death is inevitable and right and acceptance and dignity. I saw my old dog Penny that night, out in the paddock, she was glowing and looked bright copper colored and alive, my old horse was standing next her and looked younger, she had on a bright blue blanket, both were looking
at the house in the moonlight.
I can sometimes still feel them, like they are just out of my vision. Old Ozzie died on his own, he was old and skinny and had some battles but he went the way he came, under a bush. I felt guilty that I hadn’t taken him to a vet, I thought he was just getting old but
he was getting ready to die.
The funny thing is another cat showed up, he would have been born around the time Ozzie died. He came into my house like he always lived there and proceeded to unwrap the rolls of toilet paper,
an annoying habit Ozzie had.
I think he is back with me. I have since gotten another dog, another horse and another cat. They do not replace my old friends but they add to my life. I realized the place they fill in my heart is not a hole left by my old friends but a place they made for my new friends.