maybe steps

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As if I had never done this before, I stared blankly into the trailhead, not recognizing the familiarity of the billowing, yellowed grass, the squawking of the crows or the greeting of the welcoming tree.  This voyage was to be made in tears and heartache, if I could make it at all. 

Unaware of what I was doing until I called out "53" as Poochi stopped for his usual, furious sniffing.  I think that in an insurance-minded shelter of self-perseverance, I opted to count my steps instead of thinking about where I was going or rather, who I was going without.  It took us 53 long but quick strides to get to the spot where they always stopped to sniff.  53 steps come quickly when you're lost in thought. 

That particular spot has always touched me.  There's the piece of fallen tree which once having been blackened by fire, now laid ashy gray in a bed of soft, dried weeds.  There's the creek bed strewn with rocks whose travel had been motivated by the rushing storm waters or the quiet stream's gentle persuasion.  Now it was dry.  Within a lifted gaze's distance laid a tree's corpse.  I remember well, the day I drove across the short distance of the Gunn Stage extension, in a cyclone of awe and terror, and sat paralyzed watching these trees burn.  The flames engulfed them with a fury that was beautiful in spite of its horror. 

Last year when I adopted the Stone Loop as my favorite place to be I was smitten with this tree.  The fire-blackened monument had cracked and fallen just a mere, maybe, 6 feet from its base.  There was no apparent reason for the sparse branches that grew green and bright, when surveying its dead, hollow, and detached trunk.  The tree had not yet realized that it was dead.  There was no logic for the flickering of life that it held on to.

Yesterday I had to say goodbye to my little trail-blazing friend.  She's been my faithful companion for 14 years.  The one who always saw me cry when the coast was clear, and it was safe to.  The faithful soul whose warm, brown eyes saw me through times of sickness, loneliness, fear and sorrow; and whose enthusiastic playfulness ran beside me when it was time to come back to life.  Her sweet little head on my bed, waiting for me to wake up and take her romping on some trails, is how I want to remember her. 

Her last couple of days were not pleasant.  It was clear that she was in a lot of pain, and she barely lifted her head when I laid on the floor next to her, to pet her.  Remembering just last weekend how she looked longingly up the bank of rocks which she could no longer climb, I knew that her life was a good one, but the end was near.  So as I stroked her sweet, soft fur, I made the heart wrenching decision to put her out of her pain.

The doctor and her assistant took her out of the room to insert an iv.  When she came back, she was prancing, happily like the puppy we remembered.  She wouldn't lay down- she just wanted to keep hugging us, so they sedated her as she stood there, proud to be loved by us.  She fought it off for what seemed like an eternity before she succumbed to the sleepiness and what I hope sounded like a lulla-bye- the sobs that came from my children and me.  I held on to her collar so tightly until someone reminded me to let go.  She fell softly down, looking into my eyes and she slipped away.

I hung her collar from a point in the bank of rocks that we loved together.  In spite of the pain and the torrents of tears that can't seem to stop right now I wonder if maybe even in the midst of life's cruelty, we can stop, listen and know things like how lucky we are to have had what we did.  Even if it was just for a while.

When I came back down the hill and stared one more time at the dead tree I realized that there was no sign of life there anymore.  No more green- no lively rallies.  It was a good tree and it lived a good life.

Coco 5/31/1996 - 7/2/2010

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