An Angel Earns Her Wings

Here’s this week’s reflection. I hope it resonates with you and ask that, if you enjoyed, please comment and share on your social media. Heartfelt thanks for all your support!

Keeping the light on for you,

Carol

With a warm hand through soft fur, I feel a regular heartbeat turn irregular. As her labored breathing subsides, a palpable fibrillation slows to stillness, acquiesces to eternity. “She’s gone,” I quietly tell our family. Our beautiful yellow Lab, Angel, an elder at nearly 15, has crossed the Rainbow Bridge.

We present Angel’s body for cremation at the veterinarian’s office. Angel is family, after all, and we seek to remember and honor her sweet disposition any way possible. The office staff have known her a long time too, and their hugs and tears are genuine. Having consoled many a pet owner’s loss over the years, their wise and knowing response provides much needed comfort.

Upon our return home, we, her human pack, gather around the blank space on the family room rug where she habitually held court, and watch the waning fireplace embers signal the end of an excruciating day. We sigh and wonder if we did enough to ease our fur baby’s final moments. Tears flow, and likely will for a long time. 

In warmer weather we may, as a family, spread her ashes on her favorite trails and near her favorite lake, a final gesture of love and respect for the precious girl she was. It’s what we think Angel would like, as evidenced by her longing gazes at favorite places on her last walk only four days prior to her passing. My husband noticed her rapt attention as she slowly ambled along. Her nose, normally sniffing the ground attentively, was uncharacteristically aloft as she took in the higher sights and seemed to savor the trails one last time. Angel must have known that her days were numbered. And surely her slowing down was also meant to slow us too, that we might savor these moments.

For those who cherish their pets, the endgame is never pretty. Retrospectively, the connected dots of pack animal behavior enlightened us as to Angel’s diminishing timeline. She had stopped running to the back door with a toy when we would return home. Her once insatiable interest in chew toys all but vanished. And as she physically slowed, so too those social desires. She grew more aloof and withdrew from group activities, as pack animals do in preparation for death, preferring solitude over hanging out with her people. We only hope she appreciated all the love and attention we showered upon her those final hours. 

Many ask if there is another dog in our future. For now, no. Angel was our special girl and we want to simply cherish her memory. Like all family, she is irreplaceable. Upcoming life changes will demand flexibility and freedom. And while we miss her sweetly demure legacy (unless of course you were another dog – she outwardly despised other dogs), we don’t miss dog hair, vet bills, or the need to procure ever declining kennel space when we can’t take her with us. Our lives are changing, and her passing artfully and succinctly closes a sweet era, and ushers in a bittersweet new chapter. With our daughters now grown and flown, my husband and I are free to wander wherever life takes us. Angel earned eternal rest, and we have earned freedom. 

We will always miss our Angel; of that I am absolutely sure. We have plenty of great stories and photos to make us smile, and preserve her memory. Yet as difficult as it was to witness her passing and earn heavenly wings, she’s given us flight – to move forward knowing hers was a long life well lived. Her gentle ways taught us to slow down and sniff all the goodness of life around us.  And that is exactly what we’ll do. 

So dear Angel, may you run again with joy, strength, and reckless abandon on all your heavenly trails!