Sunnis Goodbye

We have wind chimes in the backyard. They have a pleasant, deep, natural sound that we enjoy if the wind is not too high. There are times when the wind chimes are playing soft and easy that I always think about Sunni’s goodbye and then the scene and feeling shifts from whatever is going on to that special moment which comes unbidden to mind.

Sunni was a Golden Retriever and a close and personal friend. She taught me how to enjoy taking walks around the neighborhood for my mental and physical health as well as hers. She never had much to say and she was a good listener. We had a particular vacant lot that we would go to that had the remains of an old homestead in the form of some old elms and pecan trees on the corner of a small portion of an old cotton field. I refer to it as "Sunni’s Meadow."

There came a time when Sunni was older that she quickly began to decline. It was some type of kidney thing. She became very weak and we would barely be able to go to Sunni’s Meadow and I would have to frequently let her lay down and rest. And then it got to the point that she could no longer take walks and she became so weak she could not get around at all…there was no way to stop the decline and we saw that we had to have her put to sleep. The vet was called and arrangements were made.

While my wife was getting things ready for us to go, I carried Sunni out into the backyard and laid her down near our patio and I sat down cross legged in front of her on the grass. She was too weak to even hold her head up. The day was pleasantly warm and sunny and there was a light breeze. The wind chimes played a soft song as I looked at my friend with sadness in my heart and the guilt that ones feels in the inability to communicate your feelings and the nature of what must be done and why. I hated that I was going to have to do what I had to do.

Suddenly, Sunni raised her head and started struggling to her feet. She gathered every ounce of energy at her command and raised herself to a full sitting position on her haunches, facing directly at me, her face even with mine, sitting tall and erect. And she looked my straight in the eyes with an intense and personal, soul-to-soul look like I have never experienced before or since. And then the wordless communication…"It is ok, don’t feel bad, this needs to be done, and I am ready…Goodbye." Then she plopped back down and became just an old, sick dog again, exhausted from her effort. She laid her head down in the grass and was never able to raise it again.

We carried her to the car and laid her in the back. We drove to the vet. He took her worn out old body and plopped her without consideration on a hard, metal table…angry at himself for not being able to save her, he inserted the syringe that quickly released her soul as I held her foot. We buried her cremated body in the yard with our other deceased pets.

I am writing this many years after the event, and it is the first time I have said anything about it to anyone.