Our Last Goodbye
Our Last Goodbye
rt tulley
12/17/17
Question: How do you coalesce 15 ½ years into a 5-minute goodbye? Short answer: It’s tough. You tell your beloved dog that you love her. That she’s your Cuppy Puppy Cake, your Baby Girl. That she’s the best dog ever. You rub behind her ears, pet her. Kiss the top of her snout. You hug her. And you sing Cuppy’s Song. The one that never failed to bring about tail wagging when you got to the bridge. And then you remove her harness, the one that enabled the last two and a half years to be meaningful and livable for her. And you watch as they carry her off, wrapped in a towel like swaddling clothes, as she lifts her head up and looks at you with a questioning look, a look that breaks your heart. Even now as you recall it - the last visible memory of her that will no doubt haunt you the rest of your days. It was only two weeks till Christmas 2017.
She was my daughter’s dog, Beth’s eleventh year birthday present. My son and his girlfriend had picked the puppy out from the shelter while I went to the teller machine to get the cash needed to buy her way into our hearts. And she did that. My daughter wanted a Husky; I thought a Yellow Lab would be great. What we got was a Golden Retriever mix, kind of funny looking to me at first, with fluffy, curly red hair. But after getting to know her, I know why my son picked this dog for his sister - she was the most friendly, gentle, and loveable dog I’ve ever known. She won our hearts over and loved us as we loved her. She loved just about every person and every dog she ever met. My daughter named her Cupcake. We coined several nicknames for her: Cuppy, Cuppy Cake, Cuppy Puppy Cake. After getting to know her, to me, she was beautiful inside and out. And she was an integral member of our family for fifteen and a half years.
It didn’t take long, much to my daughter’s dismay, for Cuppy to adopt me as her favorite person. I told Cuppy every morning “I have to go to work, but I’ll be back!” She would be waiting for me when I returned. When I had to go out of town and pulled out the luggage, she would get that depressed look on her face, so I said, “I have to go on a trip, but I’ll be back!” But returns were always fantastically met with wagging, cuddling, and excitement. Sometimes she ignored me to show she was mad, but she couldn’t keep that pretense up for long. She slept next to me on the floor by my bed for the longest time, but then chose her favorite spot at the foot of the bed as her place.
Two and a half years ago, out of the blue, my wife called me at work to tell me that something was wrong with Cupcake. She had stroke-like symptoms. I rushed home and carried her to the car and to the vet. The vet thought she had had a stroke or brain tumor. Her symptoms were that she held her head either cocked or with her snout up in the air and with her eyes moving around rapidly. The vet thought she should be put down. This thought brought about the anxiety I was to face on that Monday two weeks before Christmas.
But it was not the right time. I wanted to wait to see how she did and do some research on her condition. While she was in the animal hospital, I visited her every day at lunch and after work. Cuppy would crawl out of the kennel to be next to me when I visited. It turned out to be Vestibular Disease. With steroids, she improved and could go home after three days. I bought a ‘Help Em Up’ harness, so that I could stabilize her unsteady walking and lift her into the car. She would still get wobbling and had dizzy moments but was fairly good with the harness most of the time.
I think those two and a half years were well worth it. Cuppy and I grew even closer. I was now her protector. She loved being around me. In the latter weeks, when she was too weak to walk out of the bedroom, she would bark for me as I watched TV in the living room. I would go to the bedroom, comfort her, and put the TV on where I’d watch the show there. When she became reliant on my help, I would help her up but encourage her to walk, which she always did for me until the last couple of weeks.
As she went downhill for the last month or so, losing thirty pounds in the last year and being unable to walk much at all, I prayed many times that God would heal her or failing that, to let me know when it was time. Only that second prayer was answered. My daughter said that Cuppy was only holding on because of me and that our Cupcake was so tired. After a cough developed on Thanksgiving Day, and with Cuppy sleeping all the time, finally not eating, obviously not feeling well, I convinced myself I would go to the Vet to get her some treatment. But when we got there, Cuppy immediately went to sleep on the floor, not even afraid like she usually was at the Vet. Lying there on the floor of the exam room and sleeping, I knew it was time. I did not want her to suffer. It’s not to say there weren’t and haven’t been self-doubts. But still we said our goodbyes.
Now, every little thing brings out that gush of emotion and teary eyes/ bawling: putting up her bowl, washing and putting away her ‘Help Em Up’ harness, looking at her pictures, seeing the wagon in which we went on “walks” when she didn’t have the stamina to walk far on her own, finding tufts of her hair in the back yard, writing this, seeing the runner rugs and throw rugs my wife put down to help Cuppy from falling on the wood floor, and especially when I think of Cuppy’s Song. It just about kills me every time I sing it now. I miss her so much. How do you say goodbye? I guess you never really do.
CUPPY’S SONG
(I’m sure you are familiar with the melody: I borrowed the chorus from a Lee Morse song from my parents’ generation, written in 1925, and added a bridge):
Chorus:
Yes sir, that’s my baby
No sir, don’t mean maybe
Yes sir, that’s my baby now.
Yes sir, that’s my Cuppy
No sir, don’t mean maybe
Yes sir, that’s my Cuppy now.
Bridge:
Dabba dabba do
Dabba dabba do
Oh Cuppy Cake
I love you
Dabba dabba dy
Dabba dabba dy
I don’t know why
I just do.
Repeat Chorus
