Saying Goodby Is So Hard

This is an excerpt of an announcement I posted on the UJ forum:

There's an azalea bush near the edge of the yard.

When she was an outside dog, roaming the yard, and either myself or my girlfriend came out the front door, Maggie would run straight to that azalea bush, and check to make sure no birds were infesting it. Only after scaring away any would-be interloping tweety-birds, would she make her security lap around the house.

Even these past two weeks, as a near-invalid, her demeanor soared every time I took her outside. First the bush, then the lap...eagerly, excitedly, and full of life, seemingly forgetting how badly she was hurting.

But not so much on Christmas Day, and not at all yesterday.

Several of you reminded me to spend as much time enjoying each other's company as we could, and that we did. But she didn't wag her nub yesterday, not even once that I saw. And that's when I knew she'd stopped enjoying.

And this morning, I dug a hole next to that azalea bush, and I laid the best friend a feller could ever hope for, in the ground next to that bush. And I laid her blaze-orange upland vest on the dirt under her, and some spent shotgun shells nearby, and a toy that once looked like a moose, and a pair of Freckles' socks that hadn't been chewed on yet, and an orange QU hat that meant "we're going hunting" whenever she saw me pick it up (and which never failed to elicit much nub-wagging and prancing around...even though she know her dippy-ass owner had no clue where the birds were).

[...]

I so very much wish you all could have met her. She may not have made me a better person, but she certainly made me seem more tolerable.

Happy hunting, Magpie.

Rest In Peace, dear girl.