In the autumn of 1995, when I was just 11, Tilly came to me. While I don’t believe in fate, I think she must have been chosen to be with me, specially picked out and perfect. She couldn’t be sold – she was blind in one eye – and I couldn’t pay. She was bred by my grandmother who owns a kennel of champions, but Tilly couldn’t be shown, and I didn’t want to show her. Tilly and I wanted the same thing: someone to love.
I spent the first month of our time together sleeping on the floor with one hand in her dog crate. Why, you ask? Because crate training was supposed to be a positive and simple thing for a puppy – especially one that wasn’t yet housebroken. But more-so because every single time I got into bed and turned out the light, Tilly would cry. Not a low whining cry, but one that reverberated against the bedroom walls and threatened to – or actually did – wake my parents and brother. The only way I could hush the darn thing (yes, I actually did think of her like that at 2 am when I couldn’t get any sleep) was to sleep on the carpet with one hand through the crack in the crate’s door.
Our relationship could only be described as a perfect mutual symbiosis. She needed me like I needed her, just in different ways. I don’t quite know who raised whom, but I like to think we both did a pretty darn good job. She followed me everywhere I went, became anxious when I left her sight, and patiently listened to me express my teenage angst. I fed her, carried her home when she was an exhausted and rotund pup, and cared for her around the clock when she got old. But to transcribe each moment that rendered our time so special would take longer than her lifetime and mine, combined. I will tell you this: she knew me like no other. When I became ill in high school, she was my guardian, nurse, and friend. Our early connection is what made her the attentive and wonderful service dog that she would become.
This morning, I woke after just 3 hours of sleep with the knowledge that my beloved was about to have a seizure. I’ll remind you that this is the dog that has instinctively alerted me to my own oncoming seizures, fire and allergens, and fainting spells. Now, I had the instinctive knowledge as to when her seizures were about to begin. Keith teased me about this instinct (and the lack of sleep that it brought), but I think he was just jealous he couldn’t help his little girl. This morning brought a minor seizure which was her way of saying, “I’m awake! What’s for breakfast?”
We knew the end was near when, two days prior, she stopped walking and restricted herself to people food (a demand that we eagerly obliged since we’d rather her eat than starve). This morning’s breakfast was a bagel with cream cheese, a chicken strip, and a handful of salt and vinegar potato chips. I then settled myself on the couch while Keith readied himself for a day in Waltham. After Keith left, however, Tilly began crying to the point that I could not return to my slumber. So I did what my 11-year-old self did: I curled up on the floor with my pillows and a blanket and rested my hand on my baby girl. I told her everything was okay and that I loved her. Minutes later, she began seizing. For the five minutes that I held her head in my lap, I repeated my previous words. My presence enabled her to rest for the final time the same way that I aided her sleep in our youth.
Our life together has come full circle. Which is an amazing thing, you see, because a circle does not start and does not stop. A circle, like our friendship, does not end.
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Still Miles to Go 