Twinkle

My girl is gone

I can't write about anything else right now.

I can't remember when we got her. There wasn't time before her only after her. She was just always with us - my girl, our girl.

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They said don't let her go on the couch because you'll never get it back. But we did. And we let her sleep in our beds too. She would lope through the house, sleeping for a little while in each bed. Goldilocks the pup. She loved to cuddle. She would look up at you with big glassy moon eyes and huff as if to say -

‘How could you not love a baby like me?’

We loved her. We loved her.

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She would walk and then find a shady spot to collapse and she’d close her eyes and fall asleep straight away. You would be left standing, holding her lead. At the dog park, at the beach, on the footpath - whenever she was done walking, she’d just drop. Other dog walkers would laugh with you. ‘What a queen!’ ‘What a diva!”. When she woke she would hop up and continue. But not before. And shaking her lead wouldn't work. Neither would “I have a meeting! We have to go!”. A self care icon.

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I would wake to her nose pressing against mine. Maybe a huff of dog breath. I'd sit up and still half asleep follow her into her teina’s room. Then his glucose alarm would go off. She would sit and wait and once I had treated him she would fold herself into a little ball and sleep. Her face always turned toward him even in dreams.

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The littliest boy would cry and she would put her paws over his hands and he would cry into her neck. He would crawl under her and she would let her weight blanket him. Her neck like a swan curved to shield his face from the world that was too loud and overwhelming for him. When we told him he screamed and screamed and screamed. We huddled together, holding each other and sobbing - four now instead of five - and he screamed IwantherbackbringherbackbringherbackIwantherback. We cried. We want her back too. We want her back.

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She was on the floor of the clinic. A baby blue rug underneath her and a soft stretcher underneath that. She’d been carried in. Me and the veterinarians - it took three of us.

We had decided it was too distressing for her to be put onto the bed. I immediately lay down beside her on the floor.

I curled my body around hers as gently as I could and whispered in her ear - iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou.

Her heart was racing and so was mine and the decision was made quickly to spare her anymore pain and fear.

There wasn’t time for anyone else to come. I didn’t want my little boys to see her like this.

All of those logistics of coming together to do this - It would have been for us not her. But I told her they were here and I hope she believed me - a little white lie to soften her path on her final journey. I think she surely knew how loved she was.

And when she was sedated her breathing slowed and I was able to tell her in so many ways that she was so good. She was so very very good.

I hope she was on her couch then. I hope she’d escaped her sore body and was on the couch hearing my words. I told her she was in her favourite spot. Her boys lying half on top of her. I told her we were all around her. That we were loving her as we always had. That all that love was with her now. I thanked her for being our heart. Our darling darling heart. My tears wet her nose and I kissed her ears and I said she was our baby our beautiful baby our beautiful baby girl my girl my girl my baby girl.

And then I hope it was like she was called - “Twinkle! Come girl!” maybe by a child somewhere who needs a best friend. And I hope her ears perked up like they always used to do. I hope she smiled and sniffed at the sky. I hope she stepped off the couch and followed the voice of a child who needed her.

I hope she didn’t turn back because she knew we would always be here, always be loving her, forever and ever.

Always be sitting on her couch. The space she left is just there. And it’s so big.

I hope this unbearable emptiness eases for us. I hope this awful awful pain subsides.

I hope she is snuggled with a child somewhere - I hope her ears are being rubbed because she loves that. I hope they know her name. And I hope they say it over and over again with all of the love we wove into it.

Twinkle Princess. Sweet Twinkle Girl.

I hope she knows she was so loved.